Still Life with Italian Plum and Silver Creamer (A Meditation on 10 Years)

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5-day auction ends at 7:30PM EST on Thursday, Sept. 28

A Meditation for 10 Years
A Meditation on 10 Years

Today marks 10 years since I began making paintings for this blog. Starting with a pink zinnia, I set out to make a painting a day and to see if I could develop a sustainable painting practice for myself -- I had no idea it would lead me to where I am today. Ten years later, my blog has had well beyond a million visitors from over one hundred countries, and my work has been the subject of many interviews and articles, and is in books, magazines, and private, public, and museum collections on six continents. I know these numbers because what comes with the Internet-age is data, and, for better or worse, data is a force of nature. That said, I don't know exactly how many daily paintings I've painted since September 23, 2007. A close estimate is between 1300-1400 hundred paintings.

More important to me than that number is what my daily painting practice means to me. Spending time doing this created a way of life. Some days are a challenge, but for ten years, this vocation has enriched my life, and this inspires me to continue painting as often as I do. Painting for me is about paying attention and capturing a moment. Contemplative paying attention allows me to have an intimate relationship with my painting subjects. Mutual respect and exchange of energy manifests itself as gesture, movement, weight, edges, texture, and color harmony. I often choose from my collection of handmade pottery or local co-op produce or a scene out my window -- and it is magic to me that my subjects can be simultaneously animated and meditative. Painting is both big and small. It is humble and majestic. It is reflective and sometimes difficult. It is present moment and vast potential.

This blog has made my daily painting practice public, but for me, my daily paintings are intensely personal. They are a sort-of diary of my life. My painting practice is a mindfulness meditation. Through my work, I hope to share with you a sense of awe and wonder I feel about beauty that is all around us in our daily lives. In a small way, I hope my work might awaken the same thing in you.

Today's plum is from my local co-op, my colorful shirt was a recent hand-me-down from my wonderful sister, and the silver creamer was an amazing gift I got today.

Today, while I painted this painting, I felt an overwhelming sense of humility.

A decade later, I still feel like a beginner every time I sit down at my easel.

Today (and every day) I offer my gratitude to you for your continued interest in my work. Thank you for allowing me to share it with you.

P.S. My free print giveaway in honor of 10 years ends tonight at midnight. Throw your name in the hat.

If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see my other "anniversary" paintings.

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To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Thank you for 10 years,

Aquinnah Cliffs, Martha's Vineyard, 9x12 (+ Free Print Giveaway)

Aquinnah Cliffs, Martha's Vineyard
Oil on linen on panel, 9x12 inches, 2017
AVAILABLE - Contact me at abbeyryan@gmail.com for purchase information

After my July Cape Cod workshop, I painted on Martha's Vineyard for the first time. I have a few other MV paintings that I will post soon. Also, I'll be posting some of my snapshot photos on instagram/facebook soon, if you're interested.

Win a signed print

Free Print Giveaway
Tomorrow marks 10 years since I began posting small daily paintings on this blog. In honor of you and your interest in my work for a decade, I am giving away 10 free signed giclée prints of my paintings. (I don't currently sell prints of my work, so this is a chance to win one of the high quality prints pictured to the right.)

HERE'S HOW TO WIN:
1. Like/follow one of my social media pages (instagram, facebook, or twitter)
2. Leave a comment that you want to throw your name in the hat (if you're not on social media -- and I admire you if you're not -- send me an email to enter your name).
3. Share my work with one person you think would enjoy it. You can share any social media or my blog or website.

DEADLINE: Saturday, September 23 at 11:59 pm EST

PRIZE WINNERS:
10 prize winners will be picked out of a hat and announced on September 25

Feel free to share this with your friends. Good luck.

Detail view:


If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see a bunch of my paintings of seascapes.

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To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Best,

Still Life with Bird's Egg, Apple with Leaves, and Ike's Handmade Vase (+ update on auctions)

Back in May, I asked for your comments on using auction sites. Thank you for all your replies! The overwhelming response was that eBay auctions are the easiest. However, if you don't use eBay, I usually have a small group of available non-auction paintings. Email me to inquire.

Anyway, there were a few questions regarding last minute bidding. I think the best answer is that eBay has a built-in proxy system that allows bidders to enter their pre-determined maximum bid. All you do is enter your maximum bid and let the auction proceed. From eBay's site: "If the auction ends for less than your maximum, that's all you'll have to pay. eBay will only use as much of your bid as necessary to win. Just enter your highest maximum bid once, and eBay will take care of the bidding for you." One comment I received about max bids was this: "stick what you are willing to pay as a hidden max bid and be done with it." That said, if you're interested, another commenter told me that eBay does allow people to use online auction "sniping" sites to assist them with end-of-auction bidding. I have never used one, so do your due diligence if you decide to try it.

If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see Still life with Peach and Ike's Drop Vase or Still Life with Ike's Handmade Vase, Apricots, and Blue Jay Feather.

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To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Thanks in advance,

Peach Half with Spanish Pitcher (from Seville) (+ email hygiene)

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Email Hygiene
If you're considering subscribing to my Painting a Day email, or if you already have subscribed, a big thank you for your interest in my work.

I post periodically now that it's good to check on your email list preferences. I have a few different email lists:

Click here to choose your preferred email list to get exactly what you want (or don't want)

IF YOU'RE ALREADY SUBSCRIBED, check your email today -- you can adjust your preferred email lists by clicking on the "Update Profile" link at the bottom of every email I send.

If you find yourself just deleting my newest painting emails or marking the emails as spam or just feeling like unsubscribing, it is easy to do so -- again, at the bottom of every email I send.

To get my painting in your inbox, sign up here.
To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Thanks in advance,

Jug and Heirloom Tomatoes (with Self Portrait Reflection), larger painting (+ Peto Museum workshop)

Still Life with Jug and Heirloom Tomatoes (with Self Portrait Reflection)
Oil on linen on panel, 9x12 inches, 2017
$3500
Update: Sold

This October 14-15, I will be teaching a workshop at one of my favorite places: the John F. Peto Studio Museum. If you're not familiar, John Frederick Peto (1854-1907), born in Philadelphia, was a late nineteenth-century figure in the trompe l’oeil school of American still life painting. The Peto Museum is a renowned museum about 2 hours east of Philadelphia where I live and work.

My workshop next month at the Peto Museum is open for registration. The 1.5-day workshop will be held inside the Studio Museum on Saturday and Sunday, October 14-15. I'm especially honored that the museum allows me to use J.F. Peto's own original still life objects for my demo paintings.

Space is VERY limited, so I recommend that you sign up right away if you're interested. The Museum is located in Island Heights, NJ, and details are here. If you have any questions, please contact me or the Peto Museum directly at info@petomuseum.org.

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To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Best,

Still Life with Seven Figs and Silver Cup (+ upcoming Tucson Museum exhibition)

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24-hour auction ends on Thursday, Sept. 14 at 12:15PM EST

My larger painting Still Life with Three Satsumas and Handmade Cup (now available for sale) will be included in the Tucson Desert Art Museum's upcoming exhibition "American Women Artists: Under a Vast Sky." The exhibition was juried by Christine Brindza, Glasser Curator at Tucson Museum of Art, Rhonda Smith, Director of Tucson Desert Art Museum, and Dr. Mark Sublette, founder and president of Medicine Man Gallery. The exhibition runs from October 13 - December 3, 2017; the artists reception is November 3. The Museum's address is 7000 E Tanque Verde Rd, Tucson, Tucson, Arizona, (520) 202-3888.

If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see Self-portrait in a Blue Vase and Eight Figs, Fig Halves with Spanish Cheese, Fig and Reflections in a Japanese Cup, or a bunch of my paintings of figs.

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To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Thanks in advance,

Still Life with Apple and Firewood (+ film about my teaching)

If you're interested in registering for one of my upcoming fall workshops, some of my students share their thoughts about my teaching in this film:



UPCOMING WORKSHOPS

September 16, 2017
Artists of Yardley, Yardley, PA
REGISTER or contact James Bongartz at aoyadult.ed.coord@gmail.com

October 14-15, 2017
John F. Peto Museum, Island Heights, NJ
REGISTER or contact Harry Bower at info@petomuseum.org

November 11-12, 2017
Artists of Yardley, Yardley, PA
REGISTER or contact James Bongartz at aoyadult.ed.coord@gmail.com

If you're thinking it over, you can read workshop reviews or see what a workshop is like.

If you enjoy today's painting, you may also like to see Silver Cup and Apple with Leaves, Still Life with Apple & Silver Cup (A Meditation on 8 Years), Still life with Vintage Apple Juice Bottle and Apple with Leaves, or a bunch of my paintings of apples.

To get my painting in your inbox, sign up here.
To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Thanks in advance,

End of Summer Seascape with Waves (+ "it's ALL TRUE")

I painted this during my birthday weekend last week, and it was beautiful but windy at the beach in New Jersey. I posted a snapshot of this still on my easel on facebook / instagram, if you use those and want to follow along.

Workshop Update
I have three upcoming fall workshops. This is the last week to register for my Sept. 16 workshop in Yardley, PA. Register today -- space is limited to allow for plenty of individual attention. If you're interested, a painter in my Cape Cod workshop wrote:

"Your painting and instruction and inspiration were terrific. There was a growing excitement to see you paint and what you would paint next, and then the rest of the day for us to plod along with our own work, so I felt the time schedule was perfect. And I don't mean to sound like some adoring fanatic (I had read some glowing reviews of your workshops and sort of took them with a grain of salt), but it's ALL TRUE. Thank you so much for your incredible ability to share. You are a great teacher." ~ LM

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS

September 16, 2017
Artists of Yardley, Yardley, PA
REGISTER or contact James Bongartz at aoyadult.ed.coord@gmail.com

October 14-15, 2017
John F. Peto Museum, Island Heights, NJ
REGISTER contact Harry Bower at info@petomuseum.org

November 11-12, 2017
Artists of Yardley, Yardley, PA
REGISTER or contact James Bongartz at aoyadult.ed.coord@gmail.com

If you're thinking it over, you can watch my students talk about my Teaching Philosophy, read workshop reviews, or see what a workshop is like.

If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see a bunch of my paintings of seascapes.

To get my painting in your inbox, sign up here.
To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Thanks in advance,

Still Life with Cape Cod Blueberries, Cup, and Peach, 6x8" (+ Leonardo da Vinci's Notebook ('The Codex Arundel'))

Still Life with Cape Cod Blueberries, Cup, and Peach, 6x8"
Oil on linen on panel, 6x8 inches, 2017
AVAILABLE - Contact me at abbeyryan@gmail.com for purchase information

If you're interested, the British Library has published 570 images in a digitized version of Leonardo's Notebook ('The Codex Arundel'). It is "a collection of papers written in Italian by Leonardo da Vinci (b. 1452, d. 1519), in his characteristic left-handed mirror-writing (reading from right to left), including diagrams, drawings and brief texts, covering a broad range of topics in science and art, as well as personal notes. The core of the notebook is a collection of materials that Leonardo describes as 'a collection without order, drawn from many papers, which I have copied here, hoping to arrange them later each in its place according to the subjects of which they treat' (f. 1r), a collection he began in the house of Piero di Braccio Martelli in Florence, in 1508. To this notebook has subsequently been added a number of other loose papers containing writing and diagrams produced by Leonardo throughout his career."

If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see a bunch of my paintings of blueberries or peaches.

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To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Best,

Still Life with Figs and Drop Vase on Marble (+ the Cognitive Science of the Perfect Daily Routine)

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24 hour auction ends around 4pm, Friday 8/25/17

Related to my postings on mindful studio practice, I often read renowned writer Maria Popova's work (my previous mentions here). Her piece on the Cognitive Science of the Perfect Daily Routine is interesting. It's about writing, but has many connections to painting and any art form. In the article, Popova is sharing her thoughts on and excerpts from the 1994 volume The Psychology of Writing by cognitive psychologist Ronald T. Kellogg, which "explores how work schedules, behavioral rituals, and writing environments affect the amount of time invested in trying to write and the degree to which that time is spent in a state of boredom, anxiety, or creative flow."

Here are two excerpts that caught my eye:

"What matters, Kellogg points out, are each writer’s highly subjective requirements for preserving the state of flow: 'The lack of interruption in trains of thought may be the critical ingredient in an environment that enables creative flow. As long as a writer can tune out background noise, the decibel level per se may be unimportant. For some writers, the dripping of a faucet may be more disruptive than the bustle of a cafe in the heart of a city.'"

And this could be useful to many artists or writers who haven't yet created a dedicated space for creating their work:

It "isn’t so much superstitious ritualization — an effort to summon the muse through the elaborate juju of putting everything in its right place — as cognitive cueing. Kellogg considers the usefulness of a special space used solely for writing, which cultivates an 'environment that cues the desired behavior':

'This phenomenon can be reinterpreted in terms of the cognitive concept of encoding specificity. The abstract ideas, images, plans, tentative sentences, feelings, and other personal symbols that represent the knowledge needed to construct a text are associated with the place and time of the writing environment. These associations are strongest when the writer engages in few if any extraneous activities in the selected environment. Entering the environment serves as a retrieval cue for the relevant knowledge to enter the writer’s awareness. Once the writer’s attention turns to the ideas that pop into consciousness, the composing process flows again. Particular features of the environment may serve as specific prompts for retrieving, creating, and thinking.'" [Keep reading]

If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see a bunch of my paintings of handmade pottery.

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To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Best,

Still life with Delft Vase and Figs (the light, the shade)

Still life with Delft Vase and Figs (the light, the shade)
Oil on linen on panel, 6x8 inches, 2017
Available - Contact me at abbeyryan@gmail.com for purchase information

A couple years ago, my mom (who is of Dutch descent) gave me the Delft vase in today's painting. Also, this painting is part of my the "light, the shade series" that I began back in December 2012. I wrote about how Robert Lax was the inspiration for this series here.

If you enjoy this painting, you may also like to see some of my fig paintings or my paintings of this Delft vase.

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To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Best,

Heirloom Tomato on Blue Block from Patmos, Greece (Solar Eclipse, August 21, 2017)

I painted this heirloom tomato yesterday in honor of the solar eclipse. It's sitting on a wood block I found on Patmos during my month in Greece in June.

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To purchase my work, view my Current Auctions and All Available Paintings.

Best,