Day Three: #OneWeek100People, 2021 – Hitting Stride

[@lee_r98, Instagram]

Hey everyone! Crossing the half way mark for some of us?

Liz Steel and I like to do #OneWeek100People in five days, rather than the full seven. It’s a thing – she doesn’t work on Sundays. Which, I think is a very good policy for life.

So – this is exciting. I really haven’t done any watercolor [looks back at the blog] since the beginning of September. So that’s six months away from the medium. I have of course been painting in oils, and done some digital work here and there. But still – I always find it takes a few days to get back in tune with water-media.

[Emily Mack, Sktchy]

[Jasper Means, Skchy]

But it hasn’t been hard to jump back in.  I have a strict policy to love everything I make.

I mean – I’m very critical of my own work. LIke – I can see why this one isn’t a great painting. But I think it’s crucial that we are 100% impressed with our own efforts. It is exactly as good as I am capable of being at this moment in time. The act of making something from nothing, this is an automatic victory every time.

If we don’t insist on this mode of thinking, how are we supposed to find our own voice? Decide what works for us. What is going to be intentionally imperfect, intentionally unreal – choosing to step away from reality, in favor of creating a new image we might want to live with.

[Photo credit, @uriah_forest. Model, unknown]

[Van Lozito, Sktchy]

This is something that I think can only happen during an art-marathon such as #OneWeek100People.

The process of working every day, for a week straight, (or a month – in the case of #30x30DirectWatercolor) – this does two things. It fine tunes your reflexes. The hand-skills of painting. Much like a musician doing scales. Painting is a physical skill that needs to be kept in tune.

But at the same time, the grind breaks you down. You stop caring quite so much about an individual piece.

If you sit down to make one single masterpiece – I think you can’t avoid freezing up. I get anxious about how it’s going to come out. I can’t be free to create by instinct.

If you’re going to make 100 works, you can’t (or I can’t) force myself to worry about each and every one. In this way, the unconscious is unlocked, and the work rises above the limits of perfectionism, to reach a new level.

I hope this feeling is clicking for some of you? Maybe it will by the end of the week. Let’s keep at it, and keep posting our work to the group. I’m interested to hear from you as you close in on your 100’th person.

How did you feel as you sketched your last figure? Think about it and let me know!

Thanks, ~Marc