Kitchen Painting – Chili Peppers 002
©2015 Dave Casey
6×6″ – oil on wood panel
Daily Paintworks Auction – $23
I have been wondering how long it should take to create a piece of artwork. With the advent of the daily painting movement, I have found myself falling into the trap of trying to finish a small painting in a couple of hours or so. And I sincerely mean that it is a trap.
While there are daily painters out there that will dash off a small painting so fast that it looks like the painting just falls off their brush, there are those of us that need to take a little more time. Where one artist may finish the painting above in less than an hour, it took me almost three hours to complete and that was done in two different sessions.
The trap comes when we finish a painting that we’ve just slapped onto a canvas, having spent an hour or two on it, and thinking that it is good enough to sell, when in fact it is a canvas that would be better to wipe off and try again. We get a little precious with our works, thinking that each one needs to be gallery worthy. The best artists will tell you that they wipe or destroy more paintings than they save.
Will I get faster as time goes on? That goes without saying. Paint one hundred small paintings in a couple of months and you can’t help but get better at your craft.
I was out in the garden yesterday and I saw these three peppers on the plant and knew they needed to be painted. But, I’ll leave the eating part to Honey Bunny. Way too hot for my tastes.
