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I have all the paintings I have done so far, which is 28, laid out on my living room floor. Today’s post is the only the 19th on this blog because I started painting a week before creating this blog and there’s been a couple of days when I painted more than one piece. I put them in order as best as I could from earliest to latest (amazingly enough I have a hard time remembering the order of the earliest work). Seeing them together and in chronological order, it is really evident that I have improved as a painter. Over time, I have gotten better at working with this small size and square format as far as composition, but also I think I’m learning to paint faster and use the qualities of acrylic paints to my advantage, which in turn allows me to paint more intricate details.
Anyway, here is a photo of all 28 in order. Each column represents one week from top to bottom. Three more columns + one (22 paintings) to go! The ones that have not made it on the blog yet were either not my favorite choices or I feel they still need a little work. 
And for today’s post, I painted “Pinky Swear” suggested by my good friend Cristina. Thanks for the idea, Cristina!
When I entered the 50-50-50 art challenge and exhibit, I submitted a painting with a little girl blowing dandelion seeds as a sample. Originally I thought I would include that painting in my series of 50. However, I haven’t gotten it back from the gallery yet and I painted it on canvas paper, so it would have required me to go down to the gallery, pick it up and find a way to adhere it to one of the masonite boards in order to use it. So I decided to repaint it, include it in the collection and pick up the other painting later.
Here is the original dandelion painting called “Floating Dandelion Seeds”:
While painting this for the second time, I decided to change it a little bit – and I’m so glad I did. The addition of the field in the background gives it more depth and I think the painting took on a dreamy quality. This painting is one of my favorites in this series so far and I call it “Carried by the wind”:
I want to say thank you to everyone who visits my blog and a special thank you for all the wonderful comments.
I have several compositions now with a profile view of a little girl’s face. This seems to work really well with this small square format. There may be a few more to come.
“Bubbles”
When I came up with this theme for 50-50-50, I decided to have a balance between little girl and boy memories. So far, I have a lot more girly memories among my paintings. So to contribute to the boy side, here’s the “Slingshot”. Though slingshots are mainly enjoyed by little boys, I had one when I was little. I’m not sure I ever used it, but I made one because my brother did and I had to have everything he did.
I have met many artists that do not like painting hands. I was just thinking that this painting is the forth focusing on hands in this series. Hands are a bit difficult to paint I suppose, but I don’t mind it because I can always use my own hands as a point of reference.
This painting is very similar to the one I posted yesterday. Actually the two ideas came to me at the same time. Paper airplanes are great because depending on how you fold them, they will fly completely differently. It’s fun to experiment with different tecniques and in essence create different planes: one that flies straight and fast or one that makes a lot of turns and so on. I think this one would fly straight & far.
I’m not really sure what this is called- maybe: paper fortune game. But I remember playing this with my friends quite a bit when I was in elementary school. There was even a very funny South Park episode based on this game.
I painted this in a much looser and quicker style than what I usually do. It was fun to loosen up and step a little outside my normal style, which is kind of the point of this 50-50 challenge. It’s a good learning experience and allows me to experiment with different styles, etc.
Many children have this silly notion that if you cross your fingers, it cancels out what you say. So, technically you can tell a fib or lie as long as you cross your finger while saying it. This is what this painting is about – this little girl is crossing her finger behind her back because she is “the fibber”.
I sketched out this idea a while back and as I was looking through my sketchbook, I rediscovered it. This reminds me of waiting at the doctor’s office when I was little and how my feet didn’t quite reach the ground. It’s a very simple composition, but I think you can really get the feeling like this little girl is waiting for something or someone. And so it’s called “Waiting Patiently.
