I know. You’re probably going to kill me. “Stace, what is this? No posts for nearly two weeks and then three in one day?!?” It probably wouldn’t be so annoying if I didn’t have a tendency to get so darn wordy…

Anyway, as some of you know, I’ve been experimenting sporadically with drawing and painting and stuff like that over the past year. I won’t go into my arty-crafty background and why reinventing myself as a fine artist is such a revolution for me (that would be wordy, after all). Leave it to say that I am very much a beginner when it comes to basic drawing and painting.

One of the the things I’ve discovered is that I’m particularly interested in making faces, and not so much landscapes or trees or abstracts or flowers or horses. Oh, okay. I do like painting horses too, but what I’m really interested in is people.

I pinned it down to the fact that, as a writer, I’m always making up characters. And I’ve always longed to have visual interpretations of those characters. Some people, I know, will latch onto an actor or illustration and say, “Yup, that’s him.” I’ve done that too, but except in a few rare instances, I’ve never been entirely satisfied. It always feels like a substitution: “Well, he sort of looks like him, but not quite.” I think it’s because I see my characters as unique individuals, not just roles to fill … so why don’t they have their own unique appearance?

Ergo, my interest in being able to make portraits of people, and of my characters in particular.

So, in my forays through the artful blogosphere, I have found many artists who have benefited by putting themselves to a one-a-day art challenge. The focused attention on one particular theme, style, mode, media, or whatever leads to increased proficiency and heightened awareness of purpose.

No, I don’t know what that means either. I just made it up some fancy jingo to sound impressive. But to put it frankly: people are just get better at doing something if they do it every day.

So, I’m thinking of doing my own one-a-day art challenge, one sketched face a day. I’m not sure I can commit to a full 365-day challenge, as I’ve seen others complete, but I can certainly try for 30 days, and see what happens. One sketch a day, for 30 days. Should be doable.

But I have two questions for the peanut gallery:
1) Will it annoy you who read this blog if I start posting my admittedly wonky scribbles here on a daily basis? I don’t want to drive anyone away. I could always use an alternative forum like Flickr or DeviantArt or even set up a sub blog for those of you who are interested (Is anyone actually interested? I don’t know!). Please be honest — I won’t be offended if you say you really don’t want to see my work so often. I’m doing it for me, after all, not you.

2) Is there anyone who wants to play along? Group support is a wonderful thing, and you don’t have to draw portraits yourself. You can do tissue paper flowers, if you want. Think what a lovely arrangement you could make for your mantle in 30 days!

So go ahead. Push the button and tell me what you think. Don’t be afraid to be wordy…