At the beginning of this year I started a 365 day creative project called “Life in the H2O” where I was going to paint a fish or something else that lives in water and post it online. This was a follow up to last year’s successful creative project “The Bird Project”, wherein I created (drawing or painting) and posted a bird a day to social media (Instagram, Facebook and Twitter).
191 paintings into this year and the painting stopped. Not, as some supposed because I was abducted by aliens, not because I lost my mojo, not because I ran off to join the circus (not that that hasn’t been a temptation of mine before). No, the truth is so much more boring. A couple of injuries to my neck and right arm. Now I’m going to let YOU use your imagination as to how it happened (the real tale is woefully boring).
At first, I thought, no problem, I can still do this, what’s a little pain? Not fully realizing that by tweaking the way I was sitting and newly holding tools, that I was exacerbating the injuries and causing new pains elsewhere. So, about 5 weeks ago, I set down my pencils and brushes, a difficult but necessary move.
I’m not 100% yet, nor pain free, but, I am feeling much better. Physical therapy has helped a lot. It now takes up my studio time.
I miss the routine of drawing and painting and I miss the interaction with other artists and followers of my work (I get too sad to go on social media sites). But, soon… very soon I’ll be back pushing graphite and slinging paint.
