Now that the next year of The 100 Day Project is about to start, I figured I should finish out this series before I get started on the next round in a week! I’m still not 100% sure what angle I want to take, so maybe looking through the last 25 pieces from last year will give me some ideas.
I struggled with this quarter, even more than with the third. It honestly took me months to get through this one, but I wasn’t too upset with that in the end.
Any favorites from this quarter?
Yes! But not specific days, necessarily. I became more project-based in this quarter. You’ll notice a lot of wildflower sketches… those were all for a specific commission. I also worked for a few days on larger paintings (like The High Divide), and my Outpouring branding was definitely not just one morning’s worth of work! So this quarter felt really successful, despite taking so long, because I was actually doing the work.The 100 day challenge became secondary, and the work that came out of it was my real work. It was a really good feeling when I realized what was happening!
Day 76 was spent at Fremont Lookout at Mount Rainier. The bugs were vicious that day (I still have bug bite scars on my legs!) but I got so much painting in and talked to so many people… it was just wonderful. I loved everything I did at Grand Valley (Day 77, 78, 80). It was a really challenging backpacking trip, but the painting time I got was incredible. There were so many wildflowers. I hope to fill up that tiny sketchbook with field sketches of all of the wildflowers I can find. Day 87 represented the culmination of a very nice branding project I had been working on for a few months. I love seeing that sign hanging up in Ballard! And finally, Days 91, 95, 98, 99 represent parts of some of my favorite paintings I’ve done yet.
So what’s next?
Aaahhh…. I still can’t decide! Looking back at the last year, some of my favorite pieces were all landscape pieces. So I’m inclined to follow that route again, but I want it to have some sort of twist. So that’s where I struggle now. I also really enjoyed exploring wildflower illustration and small-scale pieces. But I also really liked the large scale pieces I did! So yeah… I’m a little stuck. Stay tuned to find out what I actually end up doing!