Stagnation vs Overwhelm
When the work stalls, get it back into motion. Make small changes and avoid repeating moves that clearly aren’t working.
Overwhelm usually happens when the painting loses focus. Return to known quantities: strong highlights, deep accents, and a few clear, sharp edges.
Repeating a previous work can be a useful exercise—it reinforces what you did well. Just don’t rely on this approach too often.
A strong body of work balances consistency with variety. Keeping more than one painting going at a time often saves time and increases productivity.
Use small but deliberate value changes to create light—think of moving up and down a staircase, not jumping floors.
For January 21, 2026
Try to look past what things are and focus instead on the underlying relationships that give a painting its structure and feeling.
This leads to paintings that feel more truthful and alive.
A body of work doesn’t need to be unified by subject. It can be held together by shared qualities—such as value,
color, composition, light, or mood—and this kind of continuity is often more engaging.
As an exercise, take an earlier composition and repaint it as a continuation, not a repeat.
Keep something consistent (palette, layout, lighting, or atmosphere), but allow the painting to evolve.
This practice trains your eye to notice visual connections you may not yet be aware of, and those insights will carry into future work.
The single-object still lives below, for example, all have a similar palette & composition while the subjects themselves are different.
