I painted the same still life 5 times with different lighting and canvas sizes. I probably could've painted this with more drastic changes, such as moving the light source to the right, etc.. but I felt these subtleties would be more interesting and consistent.

Lately, I've been enjoying experimenting with my painting but at the same time honing in on a style or something close to it - some consistency at least. I wanted to take a few minutes and demonstrate some points with my recent works.

Slow-drying acrylic paints. I have been using Golden paints for a few years now and have found them to be of exceptional quality. The Open Acrylics are a bit expensive, but luckily I purchased mine from the UC Davis University Store where most of their paints and supplies are 30% cheaper than other stores - so, for 4 tubes of paint it was around $34. They will last me quite a while though so it is worth it.

Keying a painting deals mainly with value [black and white], although it can also deal with color. But for now, I'm only going to discuss it in terms of value. Basically, keying a painting is determining which sets of values you are going to use throughout your work.

I've come to realize that painting or any kind of art is a life-long journey with twists and turns rather than a destination or place that you arrive.

Many aspiring artists get stuck in the rut of copying work from artists they enjoy but when attempting to create a piece of their own, they fall short. There is nothing too wrong with this in the beginning - the main problem comes when this is repeated and becomes habit. Now that we know one of the problems, we can fix it before it happens.

I always enjoy coming up with new ways to think about painting and art. The process of creating a painting or any kind of art can become stressful or even a burden after a while. So, When you change your perspective, you’re able approach your art from a different angle to make it fun and new again.

I decided to take on a challenge of painting 1 small painting (6" x 8" canvas board) every day for 30 days with a time limit of one hour. Not only was it a physical challenge to create these paintings, but it was also quite a mental challenge to do this much work in such a tight schedule.