Buds #370

Daily painting #370 6"x6" oil on primed canvas panel

 We have had some much needed rain over the last few days and everything is looking green, crisp and clean! Sun is forecast for tomorrow and I have no doubt that it will be steamy and hot after the rain! Hello rain....hello humidity!
But I am not complaining, the trees and gardens are flourishing again and my Jasmine bush full of buds and about to burst into flower and sweet perfume!

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Bumble bee #369

Daily painting #369. 6"x6" oil on primed canal panel

I found a big bumble bee in my outdoor studio that I teach from. I haven't seen one of these in ages and yet I remember seeing them all the time as a kid! We used to call them 'helicopter bees' because they make a loud buzzing sound. They also enjoy the sport of tantalizing and tormenting as they dive bomb the heads of children. We used to think that they were great fun and nothing was more hysterical than a giant bumble bee finding its way into the classroom. I can remember shrieking and ducking as the little drone completely disrupted class as it whizzed around our heads and created a scene of absolute mayhem and hysteria! I am not so sure that as a teacher I would now appreciate these antics quite as much....but I was happy to see they are still around [sadly not this one any longer].

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Trigg Beach #368

Daily painting #368 6"x8" oil on primed canvas panel

By now those of you who are getting to know me, will know that I am just a huge sucker when it comes to sentiment! We all have our 'special place' and those places are made more special by the special people we share them with! 

So this one is for Shirley in Australia.....

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China rose #367

Daily painting #367. 6"x6" oil on primed canvas panel

Something you may not know about me is that when my children were born I gave up full time teaching for a long time. Not being one to sit around and do nothing, my Mum and I started up a business called Shedlock House Interiors from some beautiful old out buildings from our home in Kloof (a suburb inland from Durban centre). We moved from that house almost 9 years ago but running Shedlock House Interiors with my mum was so much fun. We would trawl the antique markets and auction houses in search of treasures. We would buy up bits and pieces and old furniture which we would recover and restore with a shabby chick vintage look. Last week my mum found a box with a pile of old, beautiful plates. It must have been part if an auction lot we purchased way back then. Well I was delighted to rescue them from the dust and I now have some more interesting little treasure cluttering my studio which no doubt will find their way into my little paintings....

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Just another day #366

Daily painting #366. 4"x6" oil on primed canvas SOLD

The question everyone was asking me yesterday was ... "So what now?" Well, what else would I do other than paint....so today was just another day. Only I didn't stay in my studio I found my familiar and comforting little spot on my upstairs veranda overlooking the sea. We have had some much needed rain lately and so the sky has been heavy with clouds.

Thanks to everyone for the messages yesterday....it felt awesome to load daily painting #365 onto the Paintings in the post website....I hope you are visiting again today and will continue to visit regularly. I always struggle when uploading images of the sky because as you crop the image, it abstracts the image slightly because you are viewing it so close up....and quite frankly with the images of the sky, the image gets lost to a degree. So I have loaded another image taken of the painting to show you the difference (particularly with the sky paintings) when viewed from a regular distance and I have placed a pencil next to it to give you a true idea of the size....

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Sunny side up #365!!!!!!!

Daily painting #365!!!! (Yippee!) 5"x7" oil on primed canvas panel 

365 DAYS OF LITTLE DAILY PAINTINGS .....what an awesome journey!

So how does one decide what to paint for your 365th painting ....a milestone worthy of celebration! Well that particular decision has been on my mind all week, until I suddenly realized at one of those 3am moments that I had to be true to myself and my year long journey. I NEVER know what I am going to paint and have never allowed what I am going to paint be an issue. My journey has simply been the recording of my everyday, banal existence in a hectic, busy life where I have tried hard to slow down and 'smell the roses' (there have been many roses!). My recordings have been of the ordinary, the seemingly unimportant which for some reason has caught my attention! And so I decided to not try too hard.... To keep it simple and record something ordinary from yet another simple day in my everyday life. The simple day which will forever be etched in my memory as the day I painted ordinary little eggs (breakfast) as the 365th painting in a year of daily painting! What an amazing journey of reflection and (most importantly) painting! Thank you to all of you who have joined me along the way .....I have made special friends (I bare my soul to you!) ....and I hope you will continue to follow along and share my journey with your friends! Tell others about Paintings in the post.....in the hopes that I can inspire a few people out there in some way or another. There are so many daily painters and what I have done is not new or novel, I just never thought I could do it! I encourage all of you to find the courage to do something you didn't think possible ...and hang in there(even when the going gets tough)....anything is possible if you start with the decision to try! 

 With all my love and thanks  x Heidi 

I will be celebrating 365 days of daily painting with an exhibition at Gallery 415 (above Spectrum Art in Umgeni Road). The opening will be on Thursday 30th October and no invitation is needed....all are welcome to join me. I would love to meet you if you have been following Paintings in the post. The exhibition will be open for 2 weeks. On Saturday 1st Nov I will be at the gallery giving a talk on my daily painting journey and experiences. On Saturday 8th Nov I will at the gallery painting a daily painting on site for anyone who would like to see. I hope to meet you there, both old and new friends alike!

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Studio proteas #364

 Daily painting #364. 6"x8" oil on primed canvas panel

1 DAY TO GO!!!!! I can't believe it....I feel like I need to pinch myself!

I remember so clearly loading daily painting 100, it was at the beginning of January. It felt so good to be typing in a triple digit and 100 seemed like such a huge milestone! Tomorrow marks 365 days of little daily paintings .....and I sit back in my studio looking at all the little paintings feeling quite nostalgic and quite frankly in awe! We never know what we are capable of until we try. Some days have been easier than others ....and some little paintings have worked better than others (working on such a small format is NOT easy) ....there have been a few little gems and lots of (excuse the language) absolute bugger-ups! There have been times when I have had to substitute my trusty oils with watercolors and inks (which I am not as confident with) because traveling with wet paintings was not possible. There have been challenges and days when I thought I would just simply give up! But I didn't and it has become such an important part of my being that I am not sure I could survive without my meditative ritual.  Most importantly I have enjoyed the journey, grown, learnt so much about myself and best of all, regardless....I have painted...everyday! 

These 2 proteas have been keeping me company at my desk in my studio this week while I try to sort, document and organize ALMOST 365 daily paintings!

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