FEBRUARY
EMBRACE SUBTLY
The end of February marks the end of the second of my monthly art challenges. Transitioning to the focus of “Embrace Subtly” was surprisingly difficult coming off of January’s challenge to “Find Unexpected Color“. My brain was still in color mode.
My goal with these challenges isn’t to work on them for a month and then abandon them but to layer them into my process month by month. With each new month and each new challenge, that prompt becomes the focal point and past challenges are the supporting players. That’s how it was supposed to go, in theory, but I found that layering in that extra focus was harder than I would have imagined.
Still, I eventually found my groove. I started all in before balancing more of the subtle with the strong, training myself to ease up a little with the unexpected colors I keep finding.
The reason why I wanted to incorporate subtly into a monthly challenge is that I saw in my work a tendency toward intensity. As an artist who explores dichotomy, it didn’t make sense that I was ignoring this fundamental juxtaposition.
At the end of the month, I can say I’m fully embracing subtly. The fact that the beauty of these elements only whisper on the paper and rarely appear in the photos I share gives me a strange delight. I’m good at documenting my work for social media but these subtle parts are just for me and whoever is lucky enough to see these paintings up-close and personal. I think that’s pretty cool.
