Totally not following my initial intentions AT ALL. I've already gotten little bored and wanting to stretch myself a bit - these are interesting - ESP the last one. Felt very BOLD to just paint on the dark, dark blue-almost-black blob and then go from there. It's working I think but still kind of feels awkward. I'm always reminded when I now remember doing these paintings in only 20 minutes - that there is such an awkwardness and for sure 90-95% of the way through the painting (which means about 15 minute mark), I'm thinking - "This is crap!" And then I have to just push my analytical mind out to rush to make small changes here, then there, and then timer goes off and it's ok - it actually looks finished.
This process is SO different from making a real, much larger painting. You have time. You have all the time in the world that you want! And you can just "let it cook" so to speak. And of course I feel that a lot of the time the process of painting feels super awkward and I trust that. But these 20 minute paintings really accentuate that of course because I don't have time and I am not allowing myself to come back to the painting - which I can do for any of my other stuff.
And this is great to remind myself how this feels for a newbie. The reassurance that you are actually on the right path if you feel awkward is so important. It means you are stretching, you are growing and trying new things.
One part of me is a bit frustrated with myself that I'm just NOT working withing my "series" mentality which I thought I would be. But the other part of me just reminds myself to chill. I realistically haven't painted in a couple months. Getting back into it and then perhaps later I will make a "series" for myself. Who knows. We have a while here - 95 more days left!