The pros and cons of painting in collections

Weekly letter #44

Aug 11, 2023

Well hello! Happy Friday. 🥳

I’m in a good mood today, because almost 200 people have signed up for DIY Art School so far! I couldn’t have asked for a better reception. So grateful for the positive feedback. 🖤

I’ve tried to take a kind of vacation this week, to decompress after a rainy summer with a lot of hard work. I’ve filmed, edited and released a channel trailer for YouTube, to promote DIY Art School. Other than that, I’ve mostly played Baldur’s Gate 3… 🙄

And painted! I have also painted.

Finished up this fine gentleman goat today:

I tried to film the process, but it felt impossible. I gave up when I realized that I had to choose between making a video and making a good painting. I chose the latter. Going to have to invest in some new video equipment before I can film while oil painting. Anyone out there who has solved this problem? 😅 Thinking about getting one of those ceiling-mounted camera arms…

Here are a few still images from the “ugly phase”:

I am so in love with this painting. I love his enigmatic half-smile, his impenetrable gaze, and his glorious, blonde beard. And I’m proud of my brushwork. This was the first time I attempted to paint a furry animal since my catastrophic failure at day 7 of my oil painting journal. I’ve learned a lot since then. Daily practice does wonders for artistic growth.

I’ve actually been longing to paint horned animals for months, but haven’t allowed myself due to the stupid reason that “I should save them for a Spring collection release”.

I recently had a realization: I don’t think painting in collections is for me.

It doesn’t matter that Emily Jeffords, my art mentor, heavily recommends working in collections for several reasons. It creates an event out of it, it makes sure there’s a unifying theme, et.c.

But it just doesn’t seem to work for me. I’ve released two collections of watercolor paintings previously, which in all honesty haven’t gone very well. That might have been due to my inexperience as an artist, my smaller collector base at the time, or my failure to properly market my art. But it also hasn’t been feeling right for me. I was planning on continuing with collection releases for my oil paintings as well. But I noticed that the moment I had planned my next collection, gathered all my references, and made a couple of paintings for it… all my inspiration died. Even though I loved the theme, I just couldn’t seem to force myself to ONLY paint that thing for ten to twenty paintings in a row. Or even five. My inspiration doesn’t work like that.

The moment I abandoned my collection plans and let myself paint whatever I wanted, the inspiration came back. And that’s the most important thing for me. If I’m inspired, I’m ultimately going to paint more and paint better. Besides, it feels a lot more exciting to me to get to release 1-3 paintings every other week or so, compared to only a few times a year.

So, I’m gonna try doing it this way now, and see how it goes. 😊

I’m curious… Artists: How do you release your paintings? On a one-by-one basis or in collections?

The goat is drying on my studio wall right now, and will be ready for release next week. If you’re interested in him, make sure you join my collector email list, (check the box for “Art lover/art collector”) because he will become available there first.

There will probably be more horned animals to come. My reference collection has me all excited. Started blocking in this bighorn sheep today: