NICOLA YOUNG

Happy new year!  I hope everyone made the most of the Christmas break and whilst the festive season may have been a little different it was good to see family, even if on a very limited basis.

12 Day Christmas Art Challenge

I was lucky and had a full two weeks off work so managed to get some studio time each day.  I doubt I would have been quite so disciplined but an art challenge from a fellow artist I follow on Instagram, Clare Millen, inspired me to get into the studio each day.  The challenge was to paint for 12 minutes each day for 12 days on a single piece.  I actually opted to work on two so rather than the accumulative 144 minutes, I clocked up 288 minutes.  On the face of it, it sounded simple but actually I was surprised by how tiring it was.  The pressure of sharing work in progress combined with the fact that I couldn’t put it to one side for a few days made me very focused but I’m not convinced it made for good art.

However, I did take the opportunity to just enjoy the process – letting myself go – pushing paint around without any plan is very liberating.  I also took the opportunity to just doodle, also a very carefree exercise.  The latter stages were, however, more stressful as I realised at around day nine that I had no idea how to resolve the works. 

The Results

In the end the rectangular piece which had been my favourite throughout the challenge didn’t work out but I did get to try out masking which was on my “to do” list.  And the square piece which I hadn’t felt connected to actually resulted in a painting I like, although this was only down to some very drastic action in the final two days.

What I do enjoy with challenges is the clarity of plan – you know what you need to do each day which takes the head scratching out of it.  And the sharing, knowing that others are going through the same experience creates a bond.

So what’s in store for 2021? 

Definitely more painting but I’m hoping to mix things up a bit and push myself more. I’m also going to have a go at creating some videos so watch this space.