30 DAYS

On April first I set out to do a thirty day painting challenge. The idea was to paint something, big or small, every day for thirty days. The reason I wanted to challenge myself was because I was craving a space to create for myself. I realized how long it had been since I painted outside of my commissions and needed to make time for my personal creativity that was long overdue. So I began. I wasn’t very pleased with my first painting but I didn’t care, I was happy knowing I would create again tomorrow and the next day!

It felt great to paint some of these inspirations I had stored up for so long, but at the end of the first week I was surprised to find I was out of ideas. This feeling was strange yet refreshing. It was like I could take a breath and welcome new ideas with open arms and revisit some of my favorite concepts. I revisited an image of a woman holding a parrot.

This image was so compelling that I wanted to paint her again but in acrylics, which I hadn’t even unpacked yet from our move to Florida back in November. Being reunited with these paints after such a long time felt amazing. After that first canvas piece I could feel the momentum and desire to create a new series I’ll be calling Happy Tropics and plan to release on June 1st.

At the second to last day of my challenge I hit a roadblock, I pulled my back and felt a complete loss of motivation. But here I am two weeks later completing my challenge with a relaxing watercolor doodle and looking forward to future projects.

Processing this experience has been really fun for me and as a whole I feel grateful, refreshed and encouraged. I wanted to say thank you to those of you who followed along on Instagram, encouraged me, asked what I was going to paint next shared ideas and cheered me on! As an artist this sense of community is so dear to me, thank you!