I’m now a third of the way through the 100 day project so I thought I’d do a quick update on how it’s progressing. (If you don’t know about the project you can read about it on my previous post)

When I started the project I deliberately choose an open ended topic to allow it to takes its own course. I didn't want to commit to a narrow subject as I knew I was most likely to see the project through to the end if I could go off at tangents. My topic is '100 small art works.'
The first day I did a simple snowy landscape scene as it has been snowing heavily in Edinburgh at that time. The next day I decided to do a landscape painting using one of my photos as a reference. The photo was taken while walking in The Trossachs -one of my favourite areas of Scotland-the scenery is breathtaking!

Things started to get interesting at this point as I decided to use the same reference photo and to explore how I could render it in different mediums and/or styles; acrylics, watercolours, pastels, collage. Through this I discovered I enjoyed simplifying the landscape which was necessary for the collage work, and the naive style painting.



I loved working in a series of six like this, so that has determined my process for the rest of the project. As I mentioned before, I do have a low boredom threshold and six gives me enough time for me to explore a subject before boredom sets in. In addition working in as series allows me to set up a colour palette on a weekly, rather than daily basis.

I had a lovely vase of tulips sitting on my kitchen table and so this became my next subject. With the tulips I explored the use of collage, gouache, acrylics and even 'Notes' on my phone-this was an interesting way to loosen up as it's impossible to be pernickety when you are drawing with a large finger tip on a small screen! I also tried different compositions and styles. I particularly loved working with gouache in a naive style during this series.



The next series of six focused on the subject of snow. I had been enjoying such wonderful walks in the hills near my house and wanted to capture the snow before it disappeared, again using different media. The snow pictures were all different views using watercolour, acrylic, marker pens and collage. I brought in some abstraction towards the end. I was happy with my marker pen drawing-these can be tricky to use and it's difficult when you can't colour mix or blend easily. I think my favourite of this series was the abstract collage.



The inspiration for my next series came form a different source and in the interest of brevity, that’s a story for another post.