Month: February 2017

Reflections on the Challenge

I miss the Challenge.

There’s great satisfaction in starting a daily project and finishing it in a short period of time, with a clearly defined beginning, middle and end. After 10 days, I’m still working away on this Blueberry Cheesecake painting, a unfamiliar time frame in the post-Challenge world.

Admittedly, I’m not painting 8 hours a day. I had set a goal to finish this today, and missed it. Unlike the Challenge, there are no immediate consequences.

So I’ve been thinking about why I like doing the Challenge, even if the pace is grueling for 30 days – and some people think I’m nuts. Here’s what I came up with:

  1. Structure. The Challenge imposed a clear external discipline on my daily routine. You know what you have to do, make a plan, execute the plan.
  2. Single Focus. I’m the kind of person who likes working one one thing at a time. With focus, I really internalize and see what I’m painting. Multi-tasking is overrated when it comes to my painting.
  3. Escape. For 30 days, I put the mundane chores of everyday life on hold (thanks to Jay and Bonnie). January was my stay-cation. I lived in a proverbial bubble – and didn’t want to come out.
  4. Momentum. The more I paint, the more I want to paint, and the better I get at it – and more confident.
  5. Experimentation. This is a low risk (defined as low time commitment) way to explore a variety of subjects, within the world of food and beyond. I pursued variations on some of my favorite themes (Stack of Oreos, Egg on Stove).
  6. Dialog. I enjoyed the exchange with other artists and explored new concepts (Super Foods aka Healthy Choices by so many people) while getting feedback from fresh eyes.
  7. Wet-on-wet. While I often talked (sometimes complained!) about paintings getting too wet, I love painting wet-on-wet (aka alla prima in Italian). I miss the flexibility and ability to wipe the slate clean with a paper towel. I’m getting frustrated with the fact the blue paint on my blueberries dries so quickly, decreasing my ability to make big structural changes.
  8. Memories. The Challenge gave me the excuse I needed to spend time going through my large photo collection (rationalizing all my picture taking…) and relive so many forgotten moments. I chose images that resonated with me, and in doing so took many trips down memory lane.

This Challenge felt easier than others. Why you may ask? Here’s what I learned:

  1. Planning was everything. In December, I printed out hundreds of photos that inspired so many ideas, and ordered all the materials I needed.
  2. Practice makes perfect. I knew what to expect from previous challenges and how to pace myself better (i.e. limited social media).
  3. I kept an open mind and found inspiration where I least expected it (in a Lobster tank!)
  4. You can’t always anticipate when a painting will be successful (Koi)
  5. Keeping my cool paid off and got me to the end with all 30 paintings (ok, ok, 2 drawings out of 30).

Bottom Line:

While I was off the grid for a month, and passed up an evening with Charles Osgood (someone I admire tremendously), I would do the Challenge again next January.

What a wonderful way to spend the heart of a cold NY winter!

Now that the official Challenge is over, my unofficial challenge begins: applying this newfound insight to the process of creating art on an ongoing basis.

Collage from 30/30 Challenge, 2017

At the end of the 30 Day Challenge, it’s traditional to make a collage of all your images. It’s an opportunity to look back and feel a sense of accomplishment for a job well done. It also brings a sense of closure.

This time around, I was determined to include all 30 paintings. Here’s what I came up with.

Assembling this collage took a lot more time than expected given I had done this before. There’s a learning curve to www.PicMonkey.com, as there is with any new software.

When I went back to previous collages (Collage of 30/30 Challenge Paintings, Collage from the 30/30 Challenge, My January Personal Challenge Collage), I realized that none of them had 30 works in them. Either I didn’t make it to 30, or I left out a few in the interest of the overall design, as I did below with this 17 painting experiment.

 

To include all 30 paintings, I used a simple 5 x 6 grid of 30 squares, a basic format that was provided free online.

Every painting has equal weight and a square format, irregardless of the original painting format.

As I got used to the software, I came up with a collage that somewhat preserved the horizontal and square formats. Some of the images are larger at the expense of others. I thought this might be more artsy (artsy PicMonkey formats required payment so I had to build my own). Maybe it’s more cluttered. But it’s time for bed.

So I ask you: What’s your favorite version of the collage? That will give me a starting point for the future.

Thank you all for coming by, and for all your encouraging support and feedback during the Challenge. It’s much appreciated and kept me going strong throughout January. Every once in a while I got discouraged, and your reassurance helped me regain momentum – which I’ll now use to explore new avenues in 2017.

Day 30. Super Foods

What’s your first thought when you look at this? What would you name this painting?

“Super Foods” by Beverly Shipko, Oil on cradled wood panel, 5 x 7 inches

Seriously, I would love to hear from you. So please jot down your initial thoughts about this image before you read the rest of this blog and you’re biased by my perspective.

Of course, I’m sensitized to vending images since I’ve painted quite a few, such as Icons of the Chip World and Icons of the Candy World. Then there’s my single candy bar vending series of five 20 x 10 inch paintings – so far.

And to think these paintings were inspired by my first vending machine painting during the September 2015 Challenge. If you read the original blog post about the process, you’ll see how difficult the first one was and how conflicted I felt about using so much black. I wrote about my lessons learned from that long, frustrating day. I’ve come a long way.

Did I ever mention that my husband Jay’s first marketing job was in the Food Service Division of Kraft General Foods, where he worked on… vending? Then he went to Pepsi and where he was in charge of several vending initiatives.

Back to the painting itself. Super Foods is a working title. At first I was just going to call this Broccoli, setting up different expectations. Then I tried include the word vending. Webmaster Laura came up with More Green Makes Cents. Very clever but not me.

I wanted to capture the conflicting emotions a person might feel when confronted by these vending choices in real life. How would you feel? Maybe:

  • Disgust at the thought of eating broccoli at all.
  • Guilt at choosing candy over healthy food.
  • Giddiness at the absurdity of it all.
  • Happiness at saving 25¢ by passing up sugary candy in favor of a healthy super food, which no kid would do in their right mind (unless they’re a vegetarian or never had candy in their life!).

Last year I came across a poorly stocked vending machine and took photos of the empty rows. I used one as my base. Then I bought a stalk of broccoli, took more photos, and made a little collage – which goes to show how low tech I am. Luckily I prepared everything in December since this was time consuming.

I began with a detailed drawing, eliminated the white labels, and decided on a broccoli price. (Is price an indicator of quality here?) Then I painted the background black.

The masonite board on my easel looked a little different this time. It included larger broccoli shots and my first vending painting as reference materials.

Good thing I saved this painting until the last day. I suspected it was a 2 day painting. Here’s where I stood at the end of yesterday (with an eye doctor’s appointment! No dilation after all).

Today I got a late start since I had a haircut in the morning (my lady is taking a 3 week vacation). Real life is now officially interfering with my painting life. The M&Ms wrapper took a long time with all the detail and variety of colors (translation: lots of brush cleaning to keep the colors clean). I earned my dinner break.

There were little kinks along the way, like the Twix metallic paint dried unexpectedly fast while I was eating, so I had to repaint areas. Getting the rings right was hard since they were so thin. A moment of unsteadiness would turn into 20 minutes of repairing a misstep.

While some of you may have been expecting me to end the Challenge with a gooey cake, this choice feels right to me. In a way, I came full circle. Yet I feel like Super Foods opened up potential new conceptual avenues to explore, which is one of my objectives for this Challenge.

Certainly Super Foods moves you away from the nostalgia of an Oreo Cookie. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Thoughts?

Tomorrow I’ll be putting together a collage of all 30 Challenge paintings. Hope you stop by to see it. It’s almost a piece of artwork in its own right.