back to blogIn January 2021 lockdown was creating havoc with my schedule and I would find that I wouldn’t leave the house for 3-4 days and be constantly glued to my computer screen. I decided I needed another project which would give me some structure and this coincided with the start of the 100 day project which was running on Instagram.
The idea is to pick something you want to do every day for the 100 days. What can you do? Anything at all! Paint, draw, dance, knit, doodle, sing, build lego sculptures... For my 100 day project I decided to create a small painting (10 x 10 cm) influenced by the weather and using a limited palette of colours to keep it simple.
The idea came from my residency at Brisons Veor back in 2018 where each day I created a series of small warm up paintings. This was a great exercise and at the end of the two weeks I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had documented the changing weather during my residency. With my 100 day project I decided to take this further and create paintings which documented the Yorkshire weather from winter through to late spring.
The project started on the 31st January and ran through to 10th May and each day after work I would hop over to my studio in Bingley and start the day’s painting and then post onto Instagram. There was so much support on Instagram, I met some new friends and also got to play around with Instagram’s new Reels feature and show my process whilst choosing some appropriately cheesy music.
Disaster struck over Easter when my partner was rushed into hospital and life for a few weeks changed quite dramatically. He is okay now and is recovering but it was a hellish week not being able to visit him in hospital because of COVID restrictions. Painting certainly helped but there were a few days where I didn’t get to do my daily painting and had to catch-up another day.
The project started to get bigger as I decided that all 100 paintings needed to be exhibited together, even if it was just for a short period of time. My framers The Artworks in Otley came to the rescue and came up with a brilliant solution for framing and exhibiting the collection in my new studio at the Craft House in Bingley. All that needed to happen was for me to complete my paintings.
The 10 May marked the end of the daily paintings but work still carried on. Once finished the paintings are mounted onto a wooden board, signed, varnished, framed and photographed… phew! That’s a lot of work.
So much work that the paintings came on holiday to Scotland with me so that I could put the finishing touches to them ready for the exhibition on 12 June.
Each painting is individually named and either references the weather (Dreich), how I was feeling at the time (Dark days)… or sometimes may refer to the cheesy music I choose for my Instagram post (Purple rain)…. And some titles are just for a bit of fun (Mr Puffy Clouds).
My exhibition, The Light of 100 Days, will run from 12 June to 12 July 2021 at my studio at the Craft House in Bingley. Due to COVID restrictions visiting will be by appointment only so that I can manage numbers.
There will also be an online preview for my subscribers on 11 June – sign-up here for an invitation.
