“This Sweet Simple Existence”…Daily Art Project 2026- April
As part of my daily art project 2026, “This Sweet Simple Existence”, I am painting one painting a day and at the end of every month I will be reflecting on my experience of that month’s daily painting experience.
As mentioned in my previous blog post, March was relatively easy as I was painting mostly on sketchbook paper using watercolors, gouache and wax pastels. So for April, I dove back into the world of acrylic and oils, painting mostly on canvas panels and stretched canvases. But I decided to keep the sizes small, from 6×6” to 8×8”, painting primarily single food items, mostly fruit and vegetables, or items from my pantry. It started off easy enough. And then a week into April, I got the genius idea to finally set up my print shop, which I thought would only take a couple of days. It took almost 2 weeks, as I was not only setting up prints for my daily art project paintings but also for my older artwork as well. I also decided to do a little revamp of my website and re-upload better images of my older paintings. I also got sick half way though April with a bad cold. Understandably, I fell way behind in terms of my daily painting. Once my print shop was set up, I spent a few days catching up with my paintings, sometimes creating 3 or 4 paintings a day. I finally got caught up but inevitably I would miss a day of painting, or 2, as life got in the way.
Needless to say, April has not been the most enjoyable month in this daily art project, and there were a few times when I just wanted to give up altogether. It wasn’t so much the daily painting practice, as the expectation that I had to document it daily on my social media and website. This can get very time consuming. However, despite the challenges, I’ve improved my technique and understanding of values and really leaned into the brushy, impressionist look for most of my paintings, often using a palette knife for added texture and details. I’ve also discovered that I like the technique of certain contemporary artists, like Sari Shryack of Not Sorry Art School, where she starts off a painting using a bigger brush to block in the bigger shapes and then she gradually sizes down as she gets into more and more detail. She also starts with the darker values first and avoids any fine details or bright highlights until the very last stages of the painting. I found this was the easiest process to follow.
Given that April was particularly challenging, and summer is approaching and I don’t want to be stuck indoors all day, I’ve decided to paint on paper for the next few months, mostly in my sketchbook, doing value studies, sketching, and smaller or master studies of larger works. I will paint mostly with gouache, but I might incorporate watercolors (or even some oils and acrylics) here and there. I’m still not sure if I will be offering them up for sale, but I could offer up prints for some of them. I will also schedule and batch post my content and uploading to the website on a weekly basis, so that I don’t get overwhelmed.
All in all, despite the challenges in April, I’m actually quite proud of the work I’ve produced. I’ve become more confident in my brush strokes and less intimidated by the blank canvas. I’ve also learnt a variety of colors for my shadows using limited color palettes.
