This is my homage to the comic series, Charmander and the Gang, by Nekoama. In the comic strip that started it all, Charmander was losing a game of chess to an adorably dumb and goofy Bulbasaur.
Over the last two months, I completed more and more paintings. In August I completed 4 paintings, and in September I completed 10. This month was a step backwards. I only completed 5 paintings this month. I was hoping to complete 31.
In terms of excuses, I have many, of course. I was busy moving back from the UK to Taiwan, which included a stint in a group quarantine facility. My issues with recording my painting process while completing these paintings have persisted. But I feel that theses were not insurmountable obstacles, rather they were minor tests of will. There was perhaps another reason why I did not reach my goal of 31 paintings, or at least create more paintings than last month.
Throughout the last few months I have been watching videos by Harvard psychiatrist, Dr Alok Kanojia (Dr K). In particular I have been watching more about the Ayurveda system. Doing a quick online test provided in Dr K's Discord, I found I leaned mostly towards a Vata personality. This means that, among many other things, that I can achieve an incredible amount of output in short bursts. This would possibly explain how I created 7 paintings in one day before (5 of which ended up in a little compilation music video I made).
Back then I simply wanted to paint for 8 hours, roughly speaking, to see if I could. I think over time, I decided that I can paint 8 paintings in a day, which is a little funny because I technically didn't paint 8 paintings that day and only remembered this fact when I checked again for this blog post. Either way, I think me being able to paint 8 sessions in the past didn't actually translate to me being able to do that this month.
Upon reflection, I suspect the difference is that back then there was no pressure to succeed. I just did it to see if I could. This month, I was planning 8 paintings for Sundays to catch up on the days I didn't paint because I was too busy moving back to Taiwan. This month there was pressure to complete the 8 paintings in single day, and I think this a major difference. Going from 0 to 8 in a day was not the best idea. This, along with the issues I was having with my laptop, I suppose caused me to procrastinate, and days went by without painting.
As a silver lining, the reason I started the 1000 paintings was to improve my painting skills, not get through 1000 paintings as quickly as possible. Based on the advice I keep hearing from the professional artists I follow on YouTube, consistency is key, and I should practice every day. So it's probably for the best that I didn't manage to rush through a load of paintings in a few days and end up learning not nearly as much as I could have or should have.
On the plus side, I did manage to create another painting to use as a new avatar for my website and social media. I have not updated my avatar everywhere yet, but it is based on this painting.
I spent an extra 45 minute session to repaint the face in more detail for my avatar.
In terms of other work I have done, I managed to update my website to be GDPR compliant, I believe. The process was actually very quick; Wix.com provided a helpful blog post about making your Wix site GDPR compliant. In case you don't live in Europe (or online like I do), GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation, and is regulation in the European Union (EU) that protects the privacy and data of EU citizens.
I have also completed one phase of my storytelling. I have written a little bit about each of my story ideas. In total, I have written137 pages, which includes a 5 page table of contents. Currently I am working on the overarching story plot of one of my longer stories.
To end off this post, here is my painting of Jonny Kim, Navy Seals soldier/Harvard doctor/Nasa astronaut. Yes he's a real person. No I'm not joking.
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