30 Paintings in 30 Days - How it Went for Me (and how did it go for you?)

Those of you who have been reading my blog this month know I have had a magical, incredible month beyond my wildest imaginings!  I attribute what has happened, in large part, to deciding to join the 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge offered by Leslie Saeta on her blog.  Several hundred artists participated.  The challenge is now over, and Leslie did an episode of her Artists Helping Artists internet radio show all about it.  It was great fun to hear during her show about other artists who sent in emails to her of the results of their challenge month.  Leslie included my email among those she reported on the radio show!  Here is the link to the show:  30 Paintings in 30 days AHA radio show.  She summarizes my email to her right before  the hour mark (she does mispronounce my last name, but that is me she is talking about).  If you would rather read about it, below is a list of all the good that happened to me.  Warning:  Lengthy!  Because it was a great month....

I hope this all doesn't sound too "braggy," I am really trying to just recount, or sort of journal for myself everything that happened so I have it all written down in one place.  I am truly interested if my artist friends would like to tell me their own good news in the comments section!  To my artist friend who is for some reason finding herself blocked from my comment section, send me an email if you want and I will post the comments for you!  I know the artist I am referring to actually completed 30 in 30, too, and for that I applaud you!  (BTW if anyone out there can tell me why one person might be inadvertently blocked from commenting on my blog and how to undo, I would appreciate it highly, i.e. WHAT did I touch??).

1)  Above all, made friends with new artist bloggers and got to follow their work and see some fantastic paintings!

2)  Got into my first show!  The show was at the Asheville Humane Society.  I had two weeks' notice to get ready for the show (I'm not saying they gave me two weeks notice--I stumbled into this show sort of by accident.  You can read  how that happened here.  Great things happened to me through the show including selling some paintings, promising some paintings to other people when I am ready to sell them (including the painting above), and meeting a new artist friend who is helping me take another step in my art career.  You can read more about the show here.

3)  Was accepted onto the waiting list for a gallery, the Woolworth Walk.  Once accepted, an artist remains on the waiting list until a space becomes available.  I am looking forward to having a place to show and sell my work in this fabulous space!

4)  All in all, this month I sold seven paintings and have three more promised to others once they are available!

5)  No, I didn't paint 30 paintings.  As you can see from the above collage (which Leslie taught us how to make), I completed 6 paintings in 30 days.   I decided the better challenge for me was to paint everyday and let go of the idea of needing to finish a painting.  As I have said here before, this decision was SO liberating for me, because it freed me to get into the studio and paint even when I knew I didn't have enough time to finish a painting that day.  And in the interest of full disclosure, NO, I didn't actually paint all 30 days.  I missed a few around the time of the show at the Asheville Humane Society.  That could not be helped.  For example, the day I hung the show, I went to bed at 1:30 in the a.m. after a framing marathon, got up at 6 a.m. (quite late for me) for work, worked from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., finished up last minute things for the show from 5:30 to  7:15 p.m., had dinner w/friend who was helping me hang the show till 8:30 p.m., worked on hanging the show from 8:30 p.m. (earliest we had access to the room) till 11:15 p.m. , drove home from 11:15 p.m. till 11:50 p.m., readied my car and belongings for a hike, left my car in town and walked a half mile up my hill and got home about 12:10 a.m.   Had to leave my car in town due to a promised ice storm.  In the event of the ice storm, I had to know that I could get off my hill and into Asheville for the show, so I had to leave my car at the bottom of the hill I live on.   Needless to say, this is one of the days I did NOT paint!