Hello everyone, welcome to week 14 of my 100-Week
Art Challenge.
My name is Michael and I used to work as an
engineer.
I have been teaching myself art for the past
2 years.
Through this 100-Week Art Challenge, specifically,
I am exploring my personal artistic voice.
I also document and share this journey in
my videos.
This week I continued studying and practicing
abstract acrylic painting.
I recently signed up for David Kessler’s
Abstract Painting Academy class.
It has been very helpful to get me loosened
up and paint more expressively.
I have learned about the fundamentals of design
from many resources before, but it’s very
valuable to see how a professional artist
interprets and applies them to abstract painting.
This week I first painted several black and
white value studies, which were super easy
to do and always turned out looking great.
Also, following last week’s complementary
color painting, this week I investigated painting
with triadic colors, using a red-violet, yellow-orange
and blue-green color scheme.
I started this first painting without any
planning and
quickly the painting looked dull and amateurish.
Then I realized that the black and white value
studies can be used as value references when
I paint in color.
Therefore this 9 x 12” painting is based
on this value study, and this 12 x 9” painting
is based on this other value study.
I am glad to see how they turned out.
I think before I gain more experience in abstract
painting, I should certainly plan a bit more
before putting down colorful paints on a canvas.
It’s also important to note that it’s
getting easier for me week by week to paint
on canvas with acrylics and I can already
spend more brain power on the art itself instead
of the materials and techniques.
This week I also spent several days on activities
unrelated to painting.
I have been very reluctant to better manage
my financial investment because I have never
been interested in it.
I was content with receiving a monthly paycheck
and saving money into a bank when I was an engineer.
Of course, as a responsible adult and a soon-to-be
small business owner as an artist, I need
to learn more about how to better manage and
invest money.
On that note, how to sell art and turn my
newly discovered interest in fine art into
a career needs a lot of knowledge as well.
I also discovered Webflow this week.
I have always been interested in making beautiful
websites, and I was glad to learn that Webflow
could make remarkably unique and interactive
websites without much coding required.
I might give my website a complete redesign
in the near future.
Who knows?
One day I might take on website design as
a side hustle as well
when I gain more experience with it.
Another thing I spent time on this week is
learning about the 3D program Blender.
I have always been super drawn to 3D modeling
and animation and briefly dreamt about working
for Pixar once.
I also took 3 classes in college on architectural
rendering and animation.
When I was imaging my new website design,
I thought it would be really nice to utilize
CGI to showcase my art in meticulously generated
modern interiors, instead of using generic
interior photographs and composite my art
onto them using Photoshop.
All of these activities and learning, are
they really helpful for my life and career?
Or are they just distractions.
It’s hard to tell, at least right now, I
think they are interesting and worthwhile to do.
I started my YouTube channel trying to share
my struggles of finding my personal artistic
voice, now I feel I am more certain about
abstract art and I am trying to think of ways
to improve my YouTube channel and provide
more consistent, entertaining and educational content.
If you have any advice on this, please comment
below.
As for this week’s painting time-lapse,
I am going to show this one painting.
I hope you would enjoy it.
If you are interested in any of the paintings
I completed this week, please check out more
information on my website at www.MichaelAnArt.com.
Thank you for tuning in for the 14th week
of my 100-Week Art Challenge.
Please give this video a thumbs-up and comment
below with any questions or advice.
To follow the journey of me finding my personal
artistic voice through this 100-Week Art Challenge,
please subscribe to my channel.
Please also share this video to people who
might benefit from my experience and exploration.
Thank you and have a wonderful one, I will
see you next week!
