Salem Art Group Daily Art Challenge

In July, my Salem Art Group hosted a 31-day art challenge, inviting the community to join our group in doing something creative every day for a month and posting on Instagram. I joined the challenge and managed to create something for all 31 days. I wasn’t always on time with my work or my posts, but I completed the challenge. Some days I did a little painting in my journal, other days I painted on 12×12 wood panels. And a few times, I did scut work, like prepping a bunch of panels. Most days I wandered into my studio and did something, but this challenge insured that I would go in and at the very least, create a collage or a small painting in my visual journal.

In no particular order and not all of my posts, here is a sampling of what I did during July to participate in the Daily Art Challenge.

Daily Art Practice: Visual Painting Journal – Selected Pages

I will soon complete journal #6 in my quest to do a daily painting in my visual journal throughout 2019. We’ve been revamping a house in Astoria on the Oregon coast, so I’m about ~~a week behind~~ two weeks behind in my daily paintings, and I plan to get caught up after Thanksgiving. Yesterday I cataloged the pages I have completed since early October, so I thought I would share some of my favorites.

Daily Painting Journal: How I Do It

Several people have asked me if I plan to offer a class on how I keep a daily painting journal. Whenever I’ve been asked, I’ve thought, I just paint something every day in a book. But there is more to it than that, so rather than a class, I thought I would share using my blog as the means to convey the details of what I do and the benefits of why I do it.

I’ll start with why I decided to keep a daily painting journal. The simple answer is I wanted to have a prompt or motivation to get me into my studio. I figured if I set an intention to do a small daily painting, I might just linger and do something else and build upon the time I spend in my studio. Many times that has happened, but other times, I do my painting and that is it for the day; but it is something.

Another reason I decided to start a practice of creating a small painting in a journal is that it allows me to experiment and play with ideas. By creating in a small journal, the painting isn’t precious, it isn’t for anyone but me, and it allows me a certain amount of freedom that painting on a large canvas or painting for a show doesn’t allow me.

What I learned along the way:

It’s fun. Sometimes I don’t want to stop and I allow myself to put leftover paint from my current page onto the next day’s page so I have something to respond to the next day.

It isn’t precious when it’s in a journal. It seems my inner critic is quieted by painting on the page of a journal. I approach it as just practice or at best playtime, so the censors are muted.

I was inspired along the way. I often use my daily journal pages as inspiration for bigger paintings, either in acrylic or in oil and cold wax. The pages allow me to play with colors and compositions so when it is time to show up in the studio and create bigger pieces with a deadline or for some other purpose, I have lots of ideas to choose from and use as a spring board, even if the finished piece looks nothing like my journal page.

My process:

It is important to have a dedicated space for doing my daily paintings. I have a table set up in my studio with acrylic paints, paintbrushes, palette knives, a brayer, water, paper towels, and mark-making implements such as pencils, acrylic paint pens, and oil pastels.

I use a 9×9 inch Super Deluxe Mixed Media journal by Bee Paper Aquabee (manufactured in Beaverton, Oregon). The journal has 60 sheets and the pages are 93 lb. weight; the journals retail for $21.25 (and at the time of this blog post, they are on sale at Dick Blick for $10.04).

I cover each journal with handmade paper, using sandpaper to rough up the cover’s surface, then adhering the paper with matte medium.

When I started this project at the beginning of the year, I painted an entry on each side of the page, but after a few days I wondered if I might want to do something with the individual paintings, i.e., pull them out and hang them for a show, or pull them out and mount them to a panel. If I had paintings on each side, I wouldn’t be able to do either of those things, so I quickly abandoned double-sided painting and now use one page for each daily painting. I go through journals more quickly, but I have options if I choose to do something with all or some of the paintings in the future.

I use acrylic paint on the pages. A few times I’ve incorporated collage, but so far the focus has primarily been on creating abstract paintings. For making marks, I use No. 2 and Stabilo pencils, Woody chunky crayons, acrylic pens, and oil pastels.

In my first four journals, my paintings are in the middle of the page, going out toward the edges, but not to the edges. When I started my fifth journal on August 11 (Day #223), I was ready to mix it up and started painting all the way to the edge on all four sides.

I let the paintings dry thoroughly, but for the first few days after I have painted a page, I insert a piece of wax paper to prevent the pages from sticking together.

I number and date each page, and then photograph each painting, which I store on my computer by the “day” number.

I regularly post photos of my daily paintings on Instagram and on my Facebook art page; I share selected photos on Pinterest, and on occasion, I do a blog post highlighting some of my favorite pages. Here are links to previous posts:

I recommend giving a daily painting journal a try, using my methods or coming up with something that works for you. The benefits are more than worth the effort and I love watching my journals stack up.

Daily Art Practice: Visual Painting Journal – Newest Pages

I started doing a daily painting in my visual journal on January 1st and believe it or not, I’ve stuck with it. I got a little behind over the past couple of weeks, but I’ve been slowly doubling down on my daily paintings and I’m almost caught up. I did my first post about this project on January 25 and then an update on March 27. In both of my previous posts, I shared a selection of daily paintings from my journals (I’m on journal number 3). I figured it was time I did another update and share more paintings. Going through the pages of my journals, I am reminded why I’m incorporating this practice into my daily schedule: 1) It gets me into the studio, and 2) I’m experimenting with composition, colors, and ideas. All very good things.

100th Painting!
April 10, 2019
Dayna J. Collins

Daily Art Practice: Visual Painting Journal

I decided to shake things up a bit when I hung my 2019 calendar, thinking I would paint a quick abstract each day in my visual journal. Who knows how long I will maintain this practice, but so far, so good, and today is January 25th.

I’ve learned a couple of things along the way. First, it is fun to paint quickly, loose, and free, for no reason other than the joy of painting. And second, as a result of painting quick, loose, and free, I have several ideas for bigger paintings!

My acrylic painting station in my studio. Photo taken the morning of January 25.

No need to share every daily painting, but here’s a random selection.

My journal is 9×9 inches, mixed media paper, and spiral bound so it lays flat when it is open. I’ve been using Golden acrylics, a black Stabilo pencil, sharp pointy objects for scritching and scratching, Stabilo Woody 3 in 1 Stabilo pencils, a paintbrush, occasional stamps and stencils, a No.2 pencil, and a palette knife.

Palette paper for the week ending January 25.

Eastern Europe: Tapestry of Resilience

104/48/14/8

I created 104 journal pages.

We’re going to be gone for 48 days.

We will be staying in 14 cities.

We will be visiting 8 countries.

We leave on Friday.

MY JOURNAL

South American trip, Southwestern USA trip, current trip (just waiting for an embellishment to grace the cover).

Creating a journal for this trip has been a highlight and a labor of love. I started working on it about four months ago, tearing watercolor paper into 9-1/2 x 11 inch pieces, gessoing the front and backs, and then painting the pages in a variety of colors. By doing this Herculean task in advance, all I need to take on the trip in the way of art supplies is a pair of scissors, a jar of gel medium, a paintbrush, and Uniball pens in red, white, and black. Presto – instant art studio. At the end of each day I will glue in the ephemera I collected, and write little notes and summaries about what we did.

The Trip

We try and take a big trip every two years. Last year would have been our year, but the stars didn’t align for us to be able to plan to get away in the fall. When January of this year rolled around, we started dreaming and scheming and settled on eastern (central) Europe. We worked with a travel agency to help with the planning, and that proved to be a great decision. They worked out all of the details to get us from one place to the next, and gave us limited choices of where we would stay. We’ll have an initiation city tour the first morning of every city where we stay, and then we’re on our own (We’re starting in Dubrovnik, Croatia and working our way north, east, west, and continually north, ending in Berlin). You know we’ve got some good stuff planned – on the beaten track, and definitely off the beaten path. Can you say Sniper Alley? Thank you Atlas Obscura.

The Packing

We’re trying to pack light and compact, each of us taking one medium suitcase and a carry on backpack/messenger bag. For those who know us, packing light isn’t our thing. But probably one of the most important decisions, is what books to take. These are the two main ones I chose (thanks to Joni, who recommended The Art of Fielding).

Getting Out of the House

Howard is busily working late into the night thanks to a one day trial that was supposed to be over last Thursday, but turned into a 4-1/2 day trial and concludes tomorrow. His three days to get work wrapped up and ready for him to leave, dwindled down to just tonight and half of tomorrow. But some of it will ~~all~~ get done.

Tomorrow is my hair day, a three-hour ordeal, plus several more errands . . . and maybe one final trip to our downtown bookstore. Today I met with my friend Jami, who will be house sitting for us and keeping company with our six-toed cat while we are away. So many details to attend to.

Friday morning we will be picked up by Sam and Stewart and escorted to Portland. We’ll treat them to lunch, and they will deposit us at the Portland Airport. And it begins.

Deluxe taxi service from Sam and Stewart in 2015.

NOTE: I won’t be blogging during our trip as I sometimes have in the past, it is just too time consuming. But I will be posting on my Facebook and Instagram pages, so if you’re interested, follow along.

Facebook: Dayna Davidson Collins

Instagram: DaynaLovesArt

Art Camp in the Woods

I recently went with four members of my Salem Art Group to make art in the woods. This is my kind of camping. The cabin belongs to the family of Katy, one of our members, and is located along the Metolius River in Camp Sherman, which is located in Central Oregon. This is an annual trip, where we do five basic things: eat, art, read, walk, and laugh. Repeat.

We arrived on Sunday and got set up to make art outside under the trees. My goal was to get layers of oil and cold wax onto boards in preparation for an upcoming show. Mission accomplished.

In the evenings (and the mornings, and sometimes in the afternoon), we all created little art journals, which Bonnie had made for us. One night we even worked outside by candlelight.

There was lots of creative food preparation and dining on the deck.

There were a couple of wildflower walks.

There was lots of sketching.

And lots of outdoor painting.

Here are the pages of my completed journal, which I titled By the River: A Make Do Journal. My title reflects that I had no art journaling supplies along with me, so the pages were created using what I could forage either from outside, the junk drawer at the cabin, or from my fellow artists who planned ahead much better than I did. It was fun having to make do.

What a restful, peaceful, energizing four days.

I’m Headed to the End of the World and Around the Horn

I’m headed out in about two hours for a trip that Howard and I have been planning for the past three years. We had hoped to take a big trip last fall, but we had too many other things going on so we had to veer away from our every-two-year travel plan. In the past, I’ve blogged about our month-long trips, spending many hours editing photos, writing text, and then publishing as we made our way through a country. My dear, patient husband would sit nearby as I connected to weak internet signals in little Internet cafes back before WiFi was as plentiful. One of our early trips was to Italy in 2008, where we rented a car and explored for a month. A link to those posts is here: Arrivederci! Then to France in 2010, where we rented a car and drove all over the country. Here’s a link to that trip: Viva La France. I blogged about our cruise in 2012 when we went to Italy, Greece, Croatia, and a bunch of other cool countries. Here’s a link to that one: A Grand Adventure.

We are off this time for another cruise, this time we’re heading south. However, I’ve decided not to blog during the trip (well, I might sneak in a post or two or three at the most, or I might not). I’ll be posting regular updates on Facebook (Dayna Davidson Collins) and occasionally on Instagram (daynalovesart). Unbelievably, several friends have said to post lots of photos, although I hope to show some restraint in what and how many photos I post.

So, where the heck are we going? We are flying to San Diego early tomorrow morning, then on Wednesday afternoon, we’ll board the Holland America cruise ship, Zaandam, and head south. We’ll be making three stops in Mexico, I’ll be spending my birthday in Antigua, Guatemala, then on to Ecuador, a couple of stops in Peru, five stops in Chile, a visit to the Falkland Islands, a stop in Uruguay, and finally ending up in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We’ll truly be at the end of the world and just across from Antarctica as we round Cape Horn and go through Glacier Alley.

This ambitious itinerary means we have to pack for tropical equator weather and then prepare for cold, windy, penguin viewing weather. The cruise is 32 nights, then we’ve rented an apartment in the San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires, where our oldest daughter, Melissa, will be joining us for a week. Melissa speaks fluent Spanish and is a tango dancer, so it should be an adventuresome week and I have a feeling she will keep us out late and way past our bedtime.

Preparing to be gone for six weeks has taken a lot of energy, time, and planning. The house sitters have been arranged……

… my hair has been colored . . . .

. . . . the plants have been corralled . . .

. . . . hiking boots have been packed . . . .

. . . . winter hats purchased . . . .

. . . . a variety of reading material tucked into our luggage . . . .

. . . and, of course, art supplies and pre-painted and prepared art journal pages lovingly placed in my backpack.

Tapestry: Collaging the Seasons

I recently had the pleasure to meet and take a class from Roxanne Evans Stout, an artist from Klamath Falls, and the curator of the blog, River Garden Studio. The class was held at The Art Department in downtown Salem. I hadn’t taken a class in a long time and since it was on the heels of my show opening at Guardino Gallery, I was primed and ready to let Roxanne take the reigns so I could just play.

After staring down the white, I jumped in.

Roxanne did demos and provided lots of materials for us to play and experiment with.

Of course, I brought some of my own personal treasures to use on my pages . . . .

We worked on four pieces at a time, front and back, meaning we created eight pieces of art during the day-long workshop. Not all of my pages are finished, but here is what I got completed during the day.

And now I can’t wait to see where I takes these pages for the next layer.

Mid Week Retreat at the Hop ‘n Bed

I’m a member of the Salem Art Group, a small closed group of six (soon to be seven) women. About twice a year we plan a mini retreat where we pack up food and art supplies (and a portable latte machine) and head out of town. Last week we landed outside of Independence, Oregon at the Rogue Brewery Hop ‘n Bed. The Hop ‘n Bed is a big old six bedroom farmhouse located along the Willamette River and smack dab in the middle of a working Rogue Brewery farm.

Come on in and I’ll show you my room: The Honey Bee.

Part of the check-in process included joining the Rogue Nation, which required a swearing in process of drinking a shot of beer and repeating a long oath of allegiance. Tory took the oath and drank her shot (and mine since I don’t drink anymore). PS Being a member gets you a hefty discount on the house.

As our group trickled in, we moved furniture and set up tables to accommodate our huge amount of art supplies. Joanna claimed the living room to set up her sewing machine, Kathy took over the laundry room for her encaustics (there was a back door for ventilation), and the rest of us jockeyed for space in the living room: Tory with her clay, Nancy and Katy with their oil and cold wax, and me, kind of in the kitchen prep area, with my oil and cold wax AND acrylics for my visual art journal.

After getting settled, I took a walk around the grounds.

It was time to spread some paint. Working in oil and cold wax does not bring immediate gratification the way working with acrylics does, so I brought both mediums. I started with the oil and cold wax, knowing I wouldn’t finish any pieces, but I would sure have the opportunity to add layers, scrape back, and add more layers over the three days. None of these pieces are finished, and some haven’t even been scraped back, but it gives you an idea of what I worked on.