December Culling – Productivity or Endurance

I have been working for a while with a productivity worksheet

December Culling – Making Change

December Culling – Gift of Change

December Culling – Meaningful Disappointment

December Culling – Justify

After a long stream-of-consciousness rant about the nature of art as work, being on and off, and so forth…I hopefully arrive at some more productive thought patterns.

December Culling – A Rant Before Clarity

This morning I got worked up about the idea of strategies for detaching oneself from work because I find the entire concept flawed. Life is to be lived and work is part of life, but the nuanced juggling of creative tasks, lost experiences that cannot be reclaimed or forced, and putting your time up for auction are all too much for me to make sense of today. Hopefully I will process this into something more useful soon.

Today I was able to finalize a preliminary drawing and get started on a small painting. It is another thing wedged into goals I had already set for the month, but what can you do…

There is a Christmas party I’m attending this weekend and a white elephant gift exchange. This is an artist party so all the gifts will be handmade. I need a contribution, so I have to make something. I usually choose to paint an elephant and try to limit the technical aspects so I can get it finished.

This is a small wood panel and I’m starting with vine charcoal. It’s easy to fix mistakes and easy to set the drawing on the surface for painting when satisfied.

December Culling – Retraining and Reunions

Reaching a point closer toward finish on this project. The scene is populated with characters walking and interacting. I was finally able to get all of them drawn and flatted this weekend.

At some point, Beebo started getting judgmental about how many figures and how much detail I had added. I got defensive, “Well, it can’t be an empty street if it’s supposed to look inviting…and they have to be having a good time…”