Daily Drawing Project TAKE TWO in 2020

Beginning on April 1, 2020

Studio view with Daily Drawings / Color Meditations Nov 2019 - March 2020.

Since this past November, I have been thinking about bringing back my Daily Drawing Project from April 1, 2011 – March 31, 2012. I self-published a Daily Drawing book on blurb—if you are not familiar, that was 9 years ago and not 10. Recently, I chatted with artist Philip J Mellen on AHTCAST where I talk about this project in a two part audio interview. Get excited!

I have been pondering how I would do this project the next time, what would be different, and what would be the same. Mostly I wondered if I really wanted to do this project ever again. I think that I do but have been carefully thinking about how to approach it. There are positives and negatives to the project—more positive than negative, but it tends to take over the amount of larger pieces that I have energy to create in a year. My studio focus has been larger paintings over smaller drawings. But that can change if I want. I listened to this fantastic podcast called I LIKE YOUR WORK with artist Erika B Hess where she interviews San Francisco based artist Lisa Solomon. Check out the interview here. Solomon wrote a book about watercolor meditations. Anyway this podcast was special to me, as I really liked how Lisa would practice color meditations for 30 minutes to begin her studio practice each day. I even bought her book a few months ago, although in true confessions I have not read it yet. I DO plan to read it shortly. I’ve only paged through it so far but very much looking forward to reading it.

Additionally, I have always wanted to get more into blog posting but I’m lazy and would rather make paintings instead of write. I do have a blog with 4 years of blog posts but my last blog entry was in 2014.  It’s mostly photos of art but there are some blog posts and essays on my work. I published the daily drawing project on the blog so you could see the work without being connected to me on social media. I would like to figure out how to move this to my website or if I can do that without having to move each blog entry individually. That is another project for another day. For now, I’m just going to use the blog template on my squarespace website as it’s much easier to update, and for older entries I will link to the old blog.

The photo above is a pile of daily drawings/color meditations that I’ve worked on since November 2019. I don’t really want to show people these, as they are not what I would consider finished works. These pages are a place to let my mind rest from noise of the world. These are also preparatory works or warm up exercises that allow a place to meditate and experiment. The daily drawings are a way to begin painting right away when I don’t really want to paint or would rather do absolutely anything else but paint. They lighten the mood and give me permission to begin right away instead of puttering around the studio and staring at everything for hours. Puttering around time can be useful but sometimes it’s debilitating.  It’s all part of the artist journey. The time to be quiet and look inward is now. Lots of time for introspection and self-awareness in a studio practice. Sometimes it is good to just begin even if there are strong feelings of failure or blocks that discourage working at all. Sometimes it’s good to patiently look and let the artwork tell you what to do next. Both are appropriate solutions and ways to move forward.

April 1, 2020: Daily Drawing No. 1

EXCITING NEWS!

I’ve decided to start my Daily Drawing project again on April Fools’ Day in 2020. I’m not sure how long I will do it but I started today. Since I’ve been having a lot of trouble concentrating in my studio, I needed to put additional structures into my practice and life. I have to allow for moments of joy without pressure. Since I’m the only one here there is only myself to count on.

Project Parameters:

1.     Format of 8 inches x 10 inches (Whelp this is big and that freaks me out!)

2.     Watercolor media (Can use other media later but base starts with watercolor)

3.     Start a new one each day and consider approximate time limit of 1 hour.

4. I can work on one from the prior day as long as it’s within the same week of drawings.  Once a new week begins I cannot go back and work on the last weeks drawings. At the end of the week I will sign each of the finished drawings with a date on the back. The works are finished at this point and I cannot go back into them. I can however choose to destroy them later.

I can add new parameters for each week to allow for change but generally follow the 4 rules above. I start on April Fools’ Day to give myself permission to stop at anytime as a joke. Keep it light, airy, and fun. That is after all the entire point of maintaining a studio practice as an artist. Sometimes being an artist is not fun especially as you get older and the business parts and intense rejection pummels you down on a daily basis. It’s important to work hard to forget about all of that junk and try to make it fun again. Maintaining joy in my studio is #1 right now, which is very hard to do. I might not post these everyday on social media and still have to figure that portion out. Perhaps I’ll post weekly on my blog website or even monthly. I look forward to sharing more as I figure out this new project.

Shelf stories: the most special shelf in my house.

The first pieces of art I remember buying.

I have often thought about what I would miss the most if my house caught fire and what is most valuable to me. My thoughts always return to this shelf that I have shared here. It contains the artwork of my friend and Taiwanese-based Artist Meng-Shu You. We attended graduate school together in a class of 6 MFA Candidates (much smaller than many art schools’ graduate programs). For Meng-Shu’s thesis exhibition she made 1000 of these hand painted porcelain bottles. Perhaps more but I forgot the exact number. She created several molds of mass produced coke bottles, put clay inside, fired them, and then hand painted each of them. I think the molds only last for so many casts and then you have to make a new mold. Since I’m a painter and not ceramic artist I don’t explain the ceramic process perfectly, but I’m slightly familiar. The artwork comments on American consumer culture and at the same time nods to the ancient traditions of Chinese decorative painting on ceramics. I believe in 2004 (could be wrong about the year) I bought ~20 of these hand painted bottles from her for Christmas gifts for my family. I kept three for myself. Since I was a graduate student in art you know I did not have a lot of money. But I did have some money so I bought what I thought was important- ART. I could have gone to Wal-Mart and bought something mass-produced but instead I bought direct from the artist Meng-Shu You. There is myth people hold that they cannot afford art or things from artists because that is for rich people. I’m here to debunk that myth. You can have art if you look hard enough but you do have to try and keep your mind open. I’m here to tell you why art is vital to our humanity.  Meng-Shu didn’t have a lot of money either so I know that the sale helped her some while she was trying to graduate college. Everyone in my family was happy with their gift (or so I think). Five years later I came home acting like an ape and accidentally knocked one of my bottles off the shelf and it broke. I cried hard. So my group of three bottles became a group of two.  I knew how expensive it would be for her to ship art from Taiwan even if she did have another one to send me. A few years later the Matriarch of my husband’s family (she calls herself the Ancient one) moved from a larger place to a smaller place. She no longer had room for the bottle that I gave her. I was given a chance to have the bottle again. SWEET! My set of three that became two now had a chance to become three again. YAY! My set is full. When you give a gift it sometimes can come back to you in a way you might not expect. I think they call it KARMA or sending out good energy into the universe. It is also called trust.

Please take a look and view Meng-Shu’s hand painted coke bottles project on her website here.

When I was in middle school I bought the canisters in the back of this shelf at the dollar store or some similar store. They decorated a shelf in my room at my parents’ house until I left for college. They have been in a box for many years. I only recently found them again in box not opened for at least a decade or perhaps two. I thought they would go perfectly with my Meng-Shu You hand painted coke bottles. They connect for several reasons that are personal to me but also speak to our collective cultures and differences.  She probably forgot that I even had these artworks and I never told her how important they have been to me all this time. Because the canisters are sentimental from my youth, represent American consumer culture, and show Asian language it’s perfect for my favorite shelf. I have no idea if the writing is Japanese or Chinese, as I’ve never bothered to look it up. Perhaps some of my friends here can tell me what language it is? I’ve always loved the letters and characters of all the Asian alphabets because they are different from my own native language. It’s beautiful even if I don’t know what it says. I have always wanted to know what these canisters say. Perhaps today is the day I can find out what these canisters say. I guess there is an app for that but I have not downloaded it.

My heart wrenches for all the art students that were suppose to graduate this semester that will only be able to have virtual exhibitions. That really blows. I have my own art shows and projects that are postponed/evaporated and that is a bummer too. But I can’t wait until the arts open back up.  I’m going to be dreaming about it over here you know it. I choose to inspire hope in others. That is what art is for. That is my job.

I juxtaposed my favorite shelf photo with a photo of my cat calendar as they go together for today or was that yesterday? I don’t remember. If I gave you one of these bottles many years ago and you still have it please take a photo of it and show me where it lives today. Send it to me via email or however you like to send messages. I honestly forgot whom I gave them to. Or even better if you have a special shelf in your house that you want to share with me I would love to see it. I LOVE special shelves, especially your favorite shelf.

Thank you for attending my March 26, 2020 RENEE ROBBINS TED talk/Second blog post on my website reneerobbins.com