Day 1 - Yukon River, watercolor 4x6, ©2011 Nikki Kinne

In yesterday’s post I introduced the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project that Fairbanks artist Nikki Kinne and I  agreed to undertake with an eye toward sharing simple playful paintings across the distance between Wisconsin and Alaska.  We are both ‘juggling women’ with too many balls in the air most of the time, so to make this commitment we had to be comfortable with allowing ourselves to accept what the day allowed as we made room for our daily painting.

We decided the paintings may serve as our warm up art exercises for the day, but we both know that consistent and regular attention to painting moves artists forward quickly.  A painting each day, no matter how small or quick will represent a commitment to our art process that just might become a very useful habit!  When you start the day with any kind of art making it establishes a mental frame of mind that stays with you all day.  You see the world through an artist’s eyes, which makes you eager to get back to the studio as soon as possible.

We have agreed to make a painting a day, any size (from artist trading card sized on up), in any style, as loose or tight and as fast or slow as our mood and the obligations of the day require.  Nikki, a wonderful plein air painter, has decided not to use photographs for any of her paintings.  I may use photographs I take myself if its a for painting that is complicated or time consuming, or just to document source materials .  Our goal is to carry on a visual conversation for a month and three days to keep us in contact, and challenge ourselves to relax and  play a little in our art making. No rules beyond  33 paintings in 33 days.

Here you see our first small paintings that launch our experiment participating in the Daily Painting Movement, if only for a month and three days. Nikki’s first painting is an on site painting from the shore of the Yukon River in Alaska (which seems very exotic to me).

Day One- Spiral Branch, watercolor, 51/2 x 31/2, ©2011 Helen Klebesadel

For my first little painting I start with the familiar and go to my favorite meditative process of painting the dendrites and spirals in the form of a spiraling branch.

We hope you enjoy our creative journey.  Thank you for joining us!

(Nikki’s artwork can also be seen at Co-op Arts in Fairbanks, as well as on her artist website.)