Note: I won't blog every day of this 100 days.

As the 100 days unfold, I want you to know that I realize I needed to commit to something. It's almost like I needed to believe that there was ground under my feet to catch me. I was ready to step out. Just not sure if there was ground out there.

Somehow, like magic, in two days I have gone from floundering in my art practice to making lists of goals for the 100 days. I sketched today. Voluntarily. Ok, I can tell that you didn't gasp in shock and horror, wondering what this 100 day challenge is doing to your girl, so you clearly don't appreciate how much I don't trust my ability to draw.

I opened a fresh gallon of Pouring Medium. I'm pouring again! I mean, this is big. I opened an old bucket of medium that I bought in October (I opened the old one deliberately, like opening the oldest jar of mayonnaise in the pantry first, so it doesn't go bad). The top was COVERED with dust. Dark gray with dust. I poured! 

Because I am sleepy, this is getting incoherent quickly. But I want to share some of my goals for this project:

1. Loosen up - do more left-handed works, since I am right-dominant for pretty much everything; physically loosen the grip on the brush and let the painting paint itself. Relax! Painting is fun.
2. Lighten up - I have noticed my paintings veering into the obsessed-with-magenta-and-dark-blues category. I want to literally lighten up. Instead of painting with big, bold colors and dark values, I want to do at least 10 paintings using only pastels. For some reason I think pastels will prefer matte finishing.
3. Return to my collage and mixed media roots - I always love collaging various elements, textures, and media together. I like to think of myself as a cobbled together magnificent melange of Africans, Europeans, and Americans, and I think that I see my collage pieces as somehow representing my own mixed-up identity.
4. Kill the overworker - I tend to go insane when I finish a painting. I call it "destroying the painting." Painting is like 3 steps from done. What do I do? Start frantically, obsessively, insanely painting over one section of the work. I have three such destroyed paintings on my wall right now. No more overworking. To do this, I need to work in stages and give myself permission to move on to the next painting without constantly looking back and critiquing the last one. Apply new-found knowledge to the NEXT painting, not to the current one.
5. Stop being afraid of watercolor. That's all. 

I have many more ideas and goals for this project, but these are the fundamental ones related to painting.

What are your goals for the project? How are you finding it so far?