ARTISTS TALKING

# 5 [3 August 2009]

'How blogging helps you make paintings you wouldn't normally make'

Through making a painting everday you have to be pretty creative in the things you find to paint. This will sometimes lead to some expected subject matter, like a lemon or a sweet pea flower. Sometimes an object will present itself that might be unrecogniseable without the title, #253 beetroot root for instance. I love those ones! I find myself wondering if other people find things like beetroot roots that have two 'tails' and a wierd shape and dont do anything about it? If you do, take a deep breath and a moment to think about it, then you can throw it away..whatever!

http://danyoungdaily.blogspot.com/2009/08/253-beetroot-tail.html

# 4 [22 June 2009]

I thought I would update my small part of the web with some new paintings. I completed these paintings far too close to the deadline date for the Threadneedle Prize last week. But I got them in on time and they were dry! Thank you Mr Siccative!

I have used the library of objects that I have built up over the 200 odd days of my current daily painting project http://danyoungdaily.blogspot.com to select from. Some of the objects I painted during this project I have  kept on various shelves and pots around the studio not really knowing why but always wondering how they would work together in small groups or even large groups of all of them. 365 objects in one painting, oh boy!

These three pictures grew out of a selection process based on sympathetic or contrasting ideas. So, the soft kangaroo head gets paired up with a sharp mussel shell and (for added anticipation and excitement) an unpopped popcorn kernel. Three very different and, other than their previous selection by me, completely unrelated objects.

I have spent some more time over the weekend creating small groups of  objects limiting myself to things I have already painted. More soon I hope.

# 3 [2 June 2009]

I thought the most difficult days to make a painting in my odessey would be family holidays. The christmas day and boxing day paintings were hard to fit in but eventually nephews who are under four years old do sleep so you take adavantage of the quite time and paint a sprout or one of their toy boulders. But making this saturdays painting while camping was slightly tougher. First of all you have to make sure you take everything you need and pick a limeted pallette of colours, while at the same time not knowing what you will paint. You also have to find time in your busy schedule of laying out in the sun, BBQing all your meals and using the wash up facilities on site. It's a tough life. But I was blessed when we spent the afternoon at cleawell caves in the forest of Dean which is now an iron mining museum but used to be a working Iron ore mine. The red oxide in the caves is quite spectacular in some areas and it was a piece of iron oxide that I painted that day.  I also made my own oil paint out of some pigment they sell there made from the rocks from that very mine! Brilliant.

# 2 [28 May 2009]

I cant believe it was a month ago I started this blog as an adjunct to my daily painting project http://danyoungdaily.blogspot.com/ . Apologies for leaving you all hanging like that.

Painting a complete painting every day is fast becoming secong nature to me at the moment, I have been doing it for 186 days straight now. I love the way a project like this snowballs. I began it merely wanting to force myself into finding a bit of time every day to do the thing I love, painting. I made the decision to try and sell the work on ebay as a way to make the endeavor pay for itself in terms of paint, brushes and materials. Plus if a lot sold I didnt need to find storage for 365 paintings! To date I have sold all but 7 paintings, a satisfying amount for any artist in the current climate. 

As the popularity of the site and the paintings has grown I have discovered followers in most corners of the globe from Slovenia and Australia to America and Japan. This is extremely exciting and I love hearing from people who like the work. Its also interesting to find out how people found out about it, one chap is a self confessed lichen and succulent 'nut', he discovered the painting of a lichen covered twig in an ebay search for 18th Century engravings of lichen and is now an ardent follower even suggesting some plants to paint!

I have just passed the halfway mark and am already thinking about how to continue next year. I plan to retire the size, 16cm x 12cm to keep the first year cohesive feel. But as to the direction I will take after the 23rd of November.....who knows. I do know I will continue my daily doings!

# 1 [29 April 2009]

Well, Hello there,

 I have started this blog to supplement my other blog http://danyoungdaily.blogspot.com/ which  documents my current project. I am attempting to make a painting every day for a year (at least). As of today I have made 156 paintings nearly all of which have sold.

I post the paintings on the blog then auction the painting through ebay. Surprisingly, nearly all of the paintings have been bought before the paint is even dry!

 I cannot imagine not painting a picture everyday its almost an addiction. Each painting is the same size 16cm x 12cm and oil on gesso board and the objects usually have a significance to the day they were painted on and must all fit within the small white 20cm x 12cm platform i paint them from.

But, as I get further into this painting odessey I find myself wanting to paint other objects that dont fit the rules of Dan Young, Daily. Which is why I have started this blog to give an insight into the studio and other work that may appear!  more for me to organise thoughts and ideas but other folk might be interested too, you nosy buggers!