A little doggie sketch tonight | art inspired by @flechaslife #sketch #dog #art #artist #njartist #pet #petportraitartist #petpirtrait #doggy #dogs_of_instagram #doglife #petparent #petpreneur #mikebo

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30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge

30 in 30 reference I'm about to embark upon a 30 day painting journey taking on the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge presented by Leslie Saeta. Somewhere around 750 other artists are doing the same and we will be posting our work daily here.

For my theme, I'm reaching back to my 100 day project from a few months ago where I selected a daily photo from my Instagram feed and did a  sketch on my iPhone. This time I'm selecting 30 out of the 100 and turning those into paintings. This should be an interesting challenge. I plan on posting on Instagram and tagging the original user again inviting them into the process again!

It will look a little something like this:

Original Instagram photo:

photo

100 Day iPhone sketch:

photo 1

30 in 30 days painting:

photo 2

If you would like to join in the fun, it's not too late!

The pen is mightier than the... pencil?

pens Back in April, I picked up a book by Danny Gregory called "The Creative License". This was a huge step in reintroducing me to a drawing habit. One of the things he encouraged in his book was to use a pen not a pencil. Why? Because when using a pencil, we have a tendency to make less confident lines, and erase again and again. That coupled with a perfectionist streak can spell trouble for a completed work ever seeing the light of day.

So I took the challenge. At first it was awkward. I wanted to redo some lines and strokes, but had to learn to live with the lines I had made. I had to learn how to make mistakes a part of the beauty of the work. Pen has taught me to make a more confident line. I had poked perfectionism in the eye.

The funny thing is, when i returned to pencil recently, there was less erasing and fretting. Less giving perfectionism a foothold. More confidence.

Back in the day when I first started learning to play guitar, I had an old Yamaha acoustic guitar that had a tree trunk for a neck. At least that's what it felt like. I struggled and filleted my fingers until I had my chord changes down. Over time, I got used to it. And when I got an electric guitar, I marveled at how smooth and easy it was to fret my chords.

Sometimes we need to push ourselves to embrace difficulty, discomfort or resistance. You just might be amazed how it impacts your growth.