the reinvention project week eleven
making progress through practice
In week eleven, I was incredibly busy and active. It was fun, and a little frantic. I am for the most part enjoying the explosion of possibilities I’m exploring but I also feel a lot of anxiety.
professional painting practice plan progress (p3pp!)
This week I launched my professional painting practice plan. Because I’ve had so much success with my daily writing practice, I wanted to do something similar with painting. I set out an activity to do each day that would move my professional painting plans forward.
On Sunday and Monday, I created my first painting tutorial video and published it on YouTube. I wasn’t thrilled with either the paintings I did or the videos I created, but I used a binary mindset: what matters is getting something done, not how well it is done.
On Tuesday, I signed up for Artrepreneur, an artist’s community and original art store, and uploaded some images of my paintings. Almost immediately, I received a curator’s mention for the painting Confidence 2, that I shared last week. That felt good, although I suspect that Artrepreneur uses such recognition to encourage people to sign up for pro plans, which cost $12 a month.
The curator’s mention also felt really really bad because Confidence 2 no longer exists as shown in the image I uploaded. Last week, I signed it with a paint marker and felt the signature was clumsy. I tried to cover the signature up with paint, but that led to a complete rework of the lower left corner of the painting. The painting is essentially destroyed, and exists only as a not-very-high-resolution image on my computer and on the Artrepreneur website.1
Wednesday was selling day, so I turned on sales for two of my paintings, Confidence 1 and The Past 1. Thursday I had identified as a marketing day, so I revived my Pinterest account and pinned a couple of my paintings along with some other abstract paintings I like. It wasn’t much, as far as marketing goes, but every baby step creates momentum and moves me ahead.
Yesterday I had listed as “arrival” — bring a work in progress to the finish line in terms of colorway, contrast, and composition. I worked for hours on a couple different paintings, but I’m not sure I could say either of them arrived.
Today I am supposed to finish a painting — glaze it and paint the edges if a stretched canvas, frame it if on paper. I always have trouble taking this last step. It’s easier to keep paintings perpetually unfinished, as though I might suddenly take a step to radically improve upon them. Here, again a binary mindset might help.
an intuitive painting process
I do not have a reproducible process for creating my paintings. Confidence 2 had at least two paintings underneath it, and the final version of it was created in one exuberant undirected painting session. I don’t even remember what paint colors I used.
I used ChatGPT to generate my Artist Statement for Artrepreneur, based on four paintings I provided to it (it can see!) I loved this paragraph that it came up with:
My artistic process is deeply intuitive, guided by my emotions and the spontaneous interactions of color and form. I create my paintings in layers over time, building up textures and depth of color but ultimately seeking simple compositions that speak boldly.
This is exactly it, and represents how I produce my most energetic paintings that I feel best express me.
“Simple compositions that speak boldly” — it’s when I get too finicky that I produce paintings that I don’t like, that don’t feel like me. I have a lot of these paintings. Confidence 1 is one of them. I’m not sure why I called it Confidence anyway. Perhaps because of the bright orange and red color scheme.
Since my process is so intuitive and spontaneous, I cannot reproduce Confidence 2. The reason I named it Confidence was because I created the final painting with such trust in myself. I didn’t rework it extensively. It didn’t need it. But it did have those layers built up over time which gave it interest and depth it wouldn’t otherwise have had.
I created a portfolio on Artrepreneur of three paintings that best capture this style, and called it Fields of Emotion:
top chef and a point of view
Last night, my mom, my daughter, and I watched the finale of Top Chef Season 21. Unlike some online commenters I was neither surprised nor upset that Danny Garcia beat Dan Jacobs and Savannah Miller. Savannah fell down really hard with technical errors. Dan cooked more cleanly than Danny, but Danny won on artistry and due to a unified vision. It might have been the candied seaweed in his ice cream that put him over the top!
Ultimately, Danny had the most clear point of view. That’s what I’m working on developing in my art: a point of view.
I’ve followed a few artists to learn from them. I’ve worked through their tutorials and been able to produce paintings in their style, without following tutorials. Among my favorites: Adele Sypesteyn, KR Moehr, and Petra Thölken. While I have produced paintings that look as though they are in their styles (in many cases because I followed their instructions), my authentic art doesn’t look like theirs at all. They each have a point of view, honed over years of work. I haven’t reached that point yet.
On the other hand, I don’t have to limit myself to one style of art. I do like my simple compositions with many layers, bold paint strokes, and unexpected color schemes. But I’ve also produced many beautiful abstract landscapes. No need to box myself in.
future possibilities
Artrepreneur includes a “ready made” store in which prints of original artworks are marketed. They encouraged me to submit digital images for this purpose. I investigated how I might produce images with high enough quality and resolution for that. It seems difficult. But it did intrigue me. Maybe at some point I’ll get into selling prints somehow, not just original works.
I bought two items supporting my future plans: a good microphone, to start a reinvention podcast, and a lighting kit, for better videos. I know it’s kind of early to be doing that. And I know that sometimes, for me, buying things substitutes for actual acts of creation. Still, I feel excited about what these things suggest is in my future.
Next I might buy a high end camera, to take high quality, high resolution photos of my paintings.
week eleven blog posts
During week ten, I decided I didn’t want to go after AI/ML advisory contracts any more, and that I also didn’t want to develop AI educational content for tech leaders. That was a direction I thought made sense for me. But I felt burnt out with the focus on AI/ML. When I wrote about it, I expressed cynicism and pessimism. That’s not a way to succeed.
This week I feel like I’m moving forward again, whereas last week felt like I reached the end of one particular path.
This week’s posts:
Saturday practice — Creating a ready ritual
Sunday planning — Week eleven plan
Monday money — Product/market fit
Tuesday book club — An antidote to perfectionism
Wednesday Q&A — Should I start a podcast? I’m scared!
Thursday thinker — What am I here to do?
Friday flash — An explosion of possibilities
Saturday practice2 — Helpful or harmful?
Anne Zelenka is a painter, a mother, a writer, and a serial career reinventor. She occasionally writes about AI. She lives in Highlands Ranch, Colorado with her 21-year-old daughter, 81-year-old mother, four cats, and two dogs.
This I am taking as a lesson to trust that I can produce many more beautiful paintings in the future. This was one painting among hundreds I will do in my lifetime.
I’m moving my weekly newsletter to Saturdays so going forward weeks will run from Sunday to Saturday not Saturday to Friday.