As part of my daily art project 2026, “This Sweet Simple Existence”, I am painting one painting a day for an entire year and at the end of every month I will be reflecting on my experience of that month’s daily painting experience.
I started off the year quite ambitiously, painting on canvas primarily with water mixable oils. However, by the end of January, I found myself burnt out. Painting on canvas always comes with a lit bit of pressure and perfectionism requires a measure of preparation such as prepping the canvas with gesso and some forethought in terms of composition. Therefore, I found myself working off of mostly royalty free reference images with full compositions. Furthermore, water mixable oils is a medium I’m not completely comfortable with (despite painting with it in the past) since my medium of choice is acrylic. So it was an added challenge to re-familiarize with it. Hence my mini burnout at the end of January.
For February, I decided to take a more relaxed approach and paint exclusively in my sketchbook, with mediums I’m much more familiar with than oils, such as pen and ink, watercolors, and wax pastels. Ramadan started in February, and February being a relatively short month, I though sketchbook painting would be the best option. My sketchbook is 8.5×5.5” so the small dimensions meant that I could paint individual objects rather than full composition layouts. To that end, I was painting things from my every day lived experience, for example, pen and ink illustrations of Bridgerton character portraits while I was watching season 4, a wax pastel painting of one of my house plants, a pen sketch of my daughter when she was three months old, watercolor paintings my swimming cap and swimming goggles.
Painting in my sketchbook on non detachable paper removed some of the pressure for me since I couldn’t really offer up originals for sale. Unlike canvas paintings which always make me feel pressured to produce more complete sale worthy pieces, I treat my sketchbook as a safe space, a place where I can try new things and make mistakes. Therefore, my painting experience in February was more relaxed, I felt more comfortable experimenting with different mediums, such as masking fluid and ink, and it was a bit more accommodating especially during Ramadan when I was a bit inconsistent with daily posting even though I was painting every day.
As these paintings were created on my sketchbook, they will continue to live there, and so they will not be available for purchase.
