Twisting a 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 1

Prepping panels for painting

I am once again participating in Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge. Leslie is great at encouraging everyone to make it fun and change it to fit ones needs. I decided to do just that. First, let me back up a tiny bit before describing my challenge.

It has been a very busy summer with music, work, and painting en plein air every chance I get. The summer has been unusually sunny with very little rain for the Northern Oregon Coast. The visitors have flocked here and it has left many shopkeepers, and us employees, grateful for the customers but a bit frazzled.

Labor Day, which is today as I write this post, officially ends our summer season. The kids will be heading back to school and summer vacations are ending. Things will be slowly quieting down around here. I must admit, I am breathing a huge sigh of relief. It has been a bit too crowded and hectic for my introverted tastes.

Last September I did not participate in this challenge as I was recovering from surgery. My attempt at January's challenge did not fly as I suddenly went back to work a few days a week, to pay off the surgery bills! So here I am again.
I decided to do a few things differently this time around as I am in a different place in my drawing and painting now. Here is what I propose for myself for this challenge:

I work two days a week in a women's clothing store in our tiny little town. There are two such stores dedicated to clothing, in addition to a couple more stores that have a bit of clothing for sale, and they are both a destination for many out-of-town shoppers.
Did you catch that introvert reference? I like people, honestly, but they exhaust me and I need a lot of down time and solitude to recover after each work day. I have felt too tired to do much of anything when I get home from working at the store all day. I want to try to change that. I will not be completing and entire painting on my store work days, but I want to get into the habit of painting everyday.

So the first part of this challenge is to do just that, paint everyday even if it is for an hour. I have been building a daily drawing habit for a while and I want to continue to do that and solidify it.
The second part of this challenge is to focus on a particular skill building area. I have decided to focus on composition. I have been so busy building up skills piece by piece, that I have neglected the whole. It is time to put it all together.

A found item I won't be painting at this time, Velella,velella. A sea creature of the jellyfish persuasion.

Leslie suggests having a theme. I decided my theme is "Found". I will be using the many intriguing items that I find on the beach in various still life paintings. I am also including "found" beach scenes as I will continue to paint en plein air.

Given all of this, I probably won't have 30 completed paintings. I am not sure how many I will have. I will put any painting that I think worthy up for sale. Most of them will be small and will be $100 for the challenge month. 

I promise I won't be writing such a long post each time either! I am also asking Please, no critiques of the paintings, constructive or otherwise, at this time. They will be critiqued privately. I need the space to experiment, grow, and make a mess. I am willing to share the process but process is not perfect or perfectly finished paintings all the time. It is going to get messy!

Here is Day 1:

"Summer Green", 6"x6", oil on panel. Plein air still life, pyramid composition. Bottle, including sand, and floats found on beach. NFS

Stay tuned!
-Renee