Carol Marine - Daily Painting Paint Small and Often To Become a More Creative, Productive, and Successful Artist

Paint Small and Often to Become
a More Creative, Productive,
and Successful Artist

CAROL MARINE

Text and photographs copyright 2014 by Carol Marine

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Watson-Guptill Publications, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.watsonguptill.com

WATSON-GUPTILL and the WG and Horse designs are registered trademarks of Random House LLC

All photographs are by the author except as noted in the Acknowledgments

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Marine, Carol.
Daily painting : paint small and often to become a more creative, productive, and successful artist / Carol Marine.First Edition.
pages cm
1. PaintingTechnique. I. Title.
ND1505.M36 2014
751.4dc23

2014009131

Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-7704-3533-2
eBook ISBN: 978-0-7704-3534-9

Design by Michelle Thompson | Fold & Gather Design

v3.1

For Bren

I couldnt have written this book without help from others. My family encouraged me to follow my dreams, and put up with me through the tough bits where I may have yelled a little bit (sorry). My students served as guinea pigs for all the lessons and exercises youll find herein (dont listen when they say I threatened them with push-ups if they didnt cooperate!). My fans kept my spirits high with comments and emails. My friends helped me with kind words, warm shoulders, and plenty of wine. My generous collectors kept me housed and fed, and all the kind folks at Ten Speed took my ramblings and made them into a real book! In the end it was a group project, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Special thanks to all my contributing artists: Roger kesson ().

Rose Glow , 6 6 in., oil on board, 2012.

Early in my painting career, a professional artist I admired advised me to paint every day. He said it was the only way to get any better. I promptly ignored his advice and continued to coast as a starving artist for years.

But in 2006 all that changed. That was when I discovered daily paintinga movement that encourages artists to create one small painting nearly every day, and sell that work online. Before daily painting, I was in a frustrated rut. But after that epiphany in 2006, I not only improved my skills rapidly, I launched a successful art career and a website, dailypaintworks.com, that is quite popular. And now I am proud to say I am no longer starving!

While the idea of painting every day may sound overwhelming, let me assure you, there are no specific rules or requirements. Really when I say you should paint daily, I mean you should paint oftenbut Artists Who Paint Often wasnt catchy enough to jump-start a whole movement! Sure, the ideal might be that you paint every day, but not many of us can commit that much time to art, so we must settle for as often as we can. The daily-painting movement encompasses artists who paint daily, weekly, monthly, or intermittently. What ties these artists together, and qualifies them as daily painters? The simple fact that they strive to paint frequently, without getting bogged down by perfectionism, procrastination, or any of the myriad things that keep us out of the studio.

The benefits of painting often are huge , as are the advantages of making small art (though not necessarily only small). We learn just as much about composition, color, paint application, value, and so on in one hour with a small painting as we do toiling for weeks on a larger one. And because it only takes an hour or so, we can fit it into our busy schedules and we arent heartbroken (and/or broke) if it doesnt work out. We can then apply the knowledgeand, if our painting is a success, the confidenceweve gained to larger work.

Small art means different things to different artists. A lot of daily painters (including me) are in the habit of doing a lot of 6 by 6-inch paintings, but this is absolutely not a requirement. Some artists feel more comfortable turning out tiny paintings, some like larger surfaces, and still others do a wide variety of sizes, depending on the subject, day, and so on.

There are also no requirements in terms of media or subject matter. Daily painters use anything from oil to pastel to collage to charcoal and more. They paint a huge variety of subjects from still lifes to portraits to cityscapes to cats to completely abstract and beyond. The great thing about doing lots of little paintings is that you can try everything! You can do three little oil paintings of apples today, a portrait of your dog tomorrow in pastel, two versions of the tree in your front yard in watercolor the next day, and on and on. The fun never stops!

Most daily painters use a blog to document their progress and showcase their work. A blog is easy to set up, free, and a cinch to update. Even if you blog just for yourself, with no intention to sell, the connections you can make with other artists are amazing! Too often, we artists work all day alone in the studio, with only our spouse, kids, or animals to give us feedback. And while they mean well, they dont always have the most encouraging things to say. My (least) favorite from my husband is, Is it done? But I get comments on my blog every day from people (mostly artists) who give me positive feedback that keeps my spirits high.