Milk and Honey Days 9-16
A 40-day chronicle documenting a new collection from first idea to finished work, in real time.
Day 9: Laying Down Acrylic Layers
So yesterday we I showed you how I ‘kill the white’ and block in large shapes to start establish composition. That’s easy and pretty quick. Its actually a lot of waiting around for wet paint or textures to dry.
And then there’s this stage.
Midtones.
This is honestly about 50% of the painting process for me. It’s where forms start taking shape and the actual decisions get made. What stays. What gets covered. What matters. What the final piece is actually becoming.
Depending on the size and complexity of a painting, this stage can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days.
Today’s blog goes into more detail about the process during this stage.
Today was also a little frustrating because I had to stop and figure some things out. I’ve never painted a rainbow before and apparently getting one to actually glow is a lot harder than it sounds. It takes way more layering than I expected and there’s a fine line between luminous and looking like a cartoon sticker slapped onto a landscape.
Tonight will probably be the hardest part of these two paintings: the sky on the left side of the diptych.
I know exactly what I want it to feel like.
I just have absolutely no idea how to paint it yet.
So that should be interesting.
Day 10: The Ugly Middle
Yesterday’s painting session completely derailed in the best and worst way possible.
I had spent hours building source material and compositions digitally, and on the screen everything looked perfect. Then I started painting and the foreground absolutely fell apart. After three failed attempts and a full wipe down with water, I had to step back and admit the painting was no longer asking for what I originally planned.
Somewhere in the middle of the mess, the process turned into a conversation again. The intuitive side of painting collided headfirst with technical problem solving, forcing me to reevaluate composition, movement, and where the piece actually wanted to go instead of where I was trying to force it. I talk about this and the ugly stage of a painting in today’s blog.
after scrubbing off the third attempt at the foreground
I finally switched gears and had to redo the plan.
Today I’m moving back into the sky and foreground with the goal of simply resolving the issues and getting the painting back on track. I don’t really have a full plan yet, which honestly feels fitting for this stage of the collection. Sometimes the best thing I can do is loosen my grip on the original idea, let my muse take over for a while, and listen carefully to what the painting is becoming instead of trying to dominate it into submission.
I did rework the foreground and sky and I’m a lot happier with it now. I’m pretty much done acrylics at this point and both of these will move into oil paint tomorrow.
Day 11: Pushing Through Resistance
Today’s blog is about the symbolism of bees in my work, which honestly feels fitting after battle with resistance in the studio.
Bees are tiny, gentle creatures, but they are also unbelievably industrious. Entire fields bloom because they quietly keep showing up and doing the work. There’s something powerful about that to me, especially in seasons where progress feels slow, messy, or unseen.
I think a lot of creativity works the same way.
Read today’s entry here:
before and after adding oil glazes to start bring colors to life.
Today was interesting because I felt a massive amount of resistance before I ever touched a brush.
Itwas also the transition point where I started taking the first several paintings from acrylic into oils and, for whatever reason, I really did not want to make the switch. It’s Memorial Day here in the US and I had already planned to only work part of the morning, but the temptation to just fully take the day off and ignore the paintings altogether was very real.
And if I’m completely honest, I think the resistance had less to do with the actual painting and more to do with setting up my oil palette and mentally shifting gears. Sometimes the hardest part of creating is not the work itself. It’s crossing the threshold into it.
Which is funny because today’s layer is actually one of the fastest and easiest stages of the entire process, and also one of my favorites.
With just a few thin washes of oil paint, everything suddenly comes alive. The colors deepen, the atmosphere starts to glow, and the paintings gain a kind of depth acrylics just can’t fully replicate. Today was mostly transparent glazes, cooling down backgrounds and warming up foreground elements to start creating space and movement through color.
The actual painting moved quickly. While this layer dries I get a much needed break to go spend time with my family.
Day 12: The First Pieces Are Finished
Yesterday’s resistance is definitely gone.
I spent almost the entire day in the studio today and I’m just wrapping up now a little after 9 pm. To be fair, there were a few large breaks in there, but this final layer is always the stage where I completely lose track of time. Once I get into details and highlights, the rest of the world kind of disappears.
This is the layer that makes a painting feel finished.
edges
It’s tiny adjustments, precision work, subtle shifts in color temperature, small highlights that suddenly make something glow, that need softening, areas that need sharpening. None of it is dramatic on its own, but together it’s what transforms a painting from “almost there” into complete.
And I’m really happy to say the first three paintings in this collection are officially finished. Honestly, I’m kind of obsessed with them.
The first two pieces have settled into their names naturally: Cloud by Day and Fire by Night. Those titles felt obvious the moment the paintings were done, like they had been carrying those names the entire time and I just finally caught up to them.
The third painting is still unnamed for now.
I’ve learned not to force titles because sometimes a painting needs space to settle mentally before I fully understand what it’s trying to say. Usually when I rush that process, I end up changing the title later anyway. So I get to sit and stare at it a little longer.
Seeing the first finished group together feels important. Up until now, this collection mostly existed as sketches, references, unfinished layers, and ideas scattered across the studio. Today felt like the first moment it became real.
And I used extra oil paint from these to start the background layer of the next two so tomorrow is straight back to step 1.
Day 13: When Life Hits Hard
Yesterday (its actually day 14 as I write this) was a hard day personally and I didn’t end up posting here, but I did spend some time in the studio starting new pieces for the collection.
Ironically, it was underpainting day, which felt strangely appropriate considering how messy life felt too.
This stage of painting is loose, chaotic, imperfect, and honestly not very pretty yet. It’s mostly instinct, movement, color, texture, and building structure that no one will fully see later because so much of it gets layered over. But it matters. The underpainting creates the foundation everything else will rest on.
And maybe that’s part of the lesson right now too.
Not every stage of transformation looks polished while it’s happening. Sometimes it just looks like a mess in progress. But that doesn’t mean something beautiful isn’t being built underneath it.
Day 14: Learning a New Language
A lot of my time today was spent dealing with the fallout from Wednesday's personal challenges, but I did make progress. Most of my attention went into one painting in particular. I have a pretty clear vision for where it's headed, with flowing lines, river forms, and geode inspired elements woven into the landscape. The only problem is that I've never painted anything quite like that before.
There's a difference between painting something difficult and painting something unfamiliar. Difficult usually means you know how to get there. Unfamiliar means you're inventing the map while you're walking. I have this vision of a geode coming and going through out this piece and it’s not something I’ve painted before. So its definitely a work in progress.
It's still only in acrylic, but I can finally see the painting I was trying to find when I started.
Day 15: Managing Creative Chaos
Today my easel is overflowing.
A few days ago I was focused on two or three paintings. Now there are eight works in progress competing for space in the studio, drying on every available surface, stacked against walls, and waiting their turn at the easel.
Most of these are a little smaller than the first group, but that doesn't necessarily make them simpler. Every painting carries its own set of decisions, problems to solve, and ideas that need room to develop. At this stage, part of the challenge isn't painting. It's holding all of those threads in my head at the same time.
The studio has become a constant rotation. Work on one piece. Move it aside to dry. Pull another forward. Reassess. Adjust. Repeat.
It's a little chaotic, but it's the good kind of chaos.
For the first time, this feels less like a handful of individual paintings and more like an actual collection taking shape. Each piece is finding its own voice, but they're also starting to speak to one another. Colors repeat. Shapes echo. Themes emerge.
The room is crowded today but it feels good.
Day 16: Taking A Day Off
Today was mostly a day off, and honestly, that's part of the process too. I had intentions of doing more but.realistically, living with chronic health issues means sometimes your body says no.
Sometimes the most productive thing an artist can do is step away from the easel for a day. and truthfully, I need a break.
That doesn't mean I stayed completely away from art. A box of new supplies arrived, so I spent some time unboxing everything and playing with new things. There is something really magical. about new art supplies. Every new color, tool, or texture carries a little bit of possibility with it.
I also spent some time working on a review of the new MEEDEN oil pastels that will be heading to YouTube soon. Oil pastels have played a surprisingly important role in the development of this collection. During the winter months, when my Michigan studio was too cold to work in and I was confined to a small desk indoors, oil pastels became my primary creative outlet. Many of the concepts that eventually became Milk and Honey were first explored in that medium.
So while yesterday wasn't a painting day, it was still connected to the collection in its own way.
Not every day is about making. Sometimes it's about refilling the well.
