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In June I decided to paint the same corner of the balcony every evening at six for a month. Postcard sized, twenty minutes, no fixing anything the next day. I finished twenty-eight of thirty, which I’m counting as a month.
The rules
One view. One size. Twenty minutes on a timer. Whatever it looks like at the end is what it is.
The constraint was the entire point. I have a habit of starting things at a scale I can’t sustain, and then not finishing them, and then deciding I’m not really a painter.
What I learned about light
Six o’clock in June and six o’clock in July are not the same six o’clock. Over four weeks the light moved a long way along the wall and went from yellow to a much flatter grey as the monsoon settled in. I would not have believed the difference if I hadn’t got it on paper in order.
The greens went strange too — the plants read almost blue on the wet evenings and I fought that for a week before I gave in and painted what was actually there.
What I learned about me
Twenty minutes is enough time to make something and not enough time to ruin it. About half the studies are genuinely bad and I don’t mind, because they’re a Tuesday, not a statement.
Nine or ten of them are good. Three I’d frame. I would not have got those three without the twenty that came before.
What’s next
I’m doing it again in December to see the winter light, same corner, same size. And a few of the better ones might become prints — I’ll post here and on Instagram if that happens.
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