From #1 to #56 in One Year

What's Left of Fall ©2011 Dora Sislian Themelis
7x10 Watercolor on Arches

Last year I posted this watercolor still life of rocks, a favorite shell and leaves I kept in my copy of the Artist's Way as one of the tasks of abundance. They served me very well at the time. I was already painting twenty minute works. When I decided to join in the 100 Paintings Challenge this was #1.

Four Shells with Rock ©2012 Dora Sislian Themelis
7x10 Watercolor on Arches

This watercolor painting with more of my favorite broken shells and rocks is #56 in the challenge. It will seem as if these items were the only subjects I painted, but that would be the wrong assumption.

Plenty of challenges were met in between these two paintings.

This weekend I also had time to go through all 56 paintings I did this year. Some works were twenty minute pieces. Others took a couple of days to complete. How I used the medium seems to me to be tighter on this last work than the first. My handling of watercolor evolved to where I'm more at ease with it. I learned a lot and still have far to go.

The 56 works evolved into different series of pieces, mostly still life work in watercolor. When I looked at each painting I could relive the past year. I can remember my days with every work, how I felt, what I was thinking, where I was and how I got myself to paint. It was a moment in time. A lesson of life.

Feel free to drop in some comments.