The Art & Poetry of Mary Coleman

I got the eyes and upper face done today. My schedule to finish has been moved out to October 11th because I really only can paint for a little while each day and I had to break my goals up into smaller achievements or I might be too intimidated to do anything at all. It isn’t realistic to think I’d be done by Thursday and plus on Friday and Saturday next week I have to clean the house and Sunday I have a half marathon. Then the Monday after I have dental surgery so I definitely won’t be painting on that day.

I read an interesting book on procrastination because I really struggle with it when it comes to art and discovered I am a maladaptive perfectionist. My expectations for my work are so high I fear a challenge in case I fail and I fear starting each day in case I fail. I have to learn that failure is part of learning and an important part and I’ll never get better if I don’t allow myself to mess up. I don’t really procrastinate in other areas of my life, just art really.

I ordered groceries for pickup next Friday with the dental surgery in mind. Because both sides of my jaw are affected I won’t be able to chew so I ordered a bunch of cream of mushroom, celery, and chicken soups for lunch and dinner, cream of wheat for the morning, and Metamucil so I can get some fiber in. I still have a bunch of sugar-free Jello at the ready. Additionally I will get some bananas to cook in the cream of wheat but I prefer to pick out bananas in person instead of letting the shoppers do it so I’ll go into the store to get them the day I pick up groceries. That’s not much as far as calories go, but there’s not much I can do about it. I don’t want to eat a bunch of ice cream and pudding because I still want to avoid sugar. I would make smoothies but I don’t have a blender and I wouldn’t use one after this because smoothies destroy the fiber of the veggies and fruit they use so I don’t generally drink them and prefer to eat fruit and veg whole. It would be a waste of money to buy a blender just for two weeks of time. We do have a food processor but that’s a pain in the butt to use and clean.

Things I saw on my walk today:

September and October goals so far…

12 out of 46 days without sugar

14 out of 46 days limited ultra-processed food

13 out of 47 days painting or drawing

Goals for this week so far…

4 out of 6 days of cooking at home

21 out of 21 miles run

5 out of 5 days of meditating

4 out of 5 days of going on Instagram

Painting Goals

1. Outline photo, grid, print out gridded drawing, grid watercolor paper. Wednesday Sept 25

2. Draw figure onto gridded watercolor paper. -Friday Sept 27

3. Outline drawing and paint in background. -Saturday Sept 28

4. Paint eyes – Sunday Sept 29

5. Paint skin – Monday Sept 30

6. Paint hairnet – Tuesday Oct 1

7. Paint mask – Wednesday Oct 2

8. Paint glove/hand – Thursday Oct 3

9. Paint glove/hand finish – Tuesday Oct 8

10. Paint shirt sleeve – Wednesday Oct 9

11. Paint shirt 1/2 – Thursday Oct 10

12. Paint other half of shirt – Friday Oct 11

Day 14: A skirt I got on Etsy a few years back, wool stockings, black Oxford shoes, and my favorite black cardigan.