(post updated 2 January 2021)
My COVID-19 Degrees of Separation project has completed. With the turn of the year, I stopped making daily iPad artworks after 193 days. Hello fresh energies. Hello 2021 😊
This was a ‘survival’ project. I began it in mid March, as the world locked down, to help me keep my own mental state strong. I shared it because I hoped it might help other people feel accompanied, and I’m told it did.
Creating daily art allowed me to process my 2020 experience, and acknowledge and transform any challenging feelings. The discipline of the project supported me and helped me make sense of my situation. Eventually though, even a self-created structure can start to feel restrictive. When this one did, I realised I had myself transformed from the state I’d been in when I’d started. By late December I knew I must shift my focus: from discipline (and the daily effort dedicated to just one medium – painting on the iPad) to a greater sense of ease overall. So, I let the project structure go at New Year and set myself free. It’s a release, and a relief.
The project output follows below. It’s a large body of work with multiple layers. There is SAL-style honest self-expression around my oh-so-human experience through the C-19 pandemic. There are strong elements of 2020 documentary — as a whole, these paintings and their stories are a record of a period in our collective history. (For this reason, I may make a book of all the artworks or a selection of them, I’m thinking about this.)
And, there is SALchemy (the touch of magic I believe in); some of the artworks have special energies, and prints of 25 of these are available in the UK to buy. I feel that, in a very practical way, these prints can support our best intentions at any time. I’d LOVE you to visit https://salchemy.uk and see! 💛
Thank you for reading my blog and accompanying me in this project in 2020.
Above are some pivotal paintings made as I was making the decision at Christmas to end the project and make a fresh start.
You can see all the paintings below…
Days 273 to 293 (on days 291 and 292 I made mixed media paintings – part of the transitioning process, I will share those in a future blog post but they can be glimpsed in the final artwork, day 293):
Days 257 to 273:
Days 241 to 256:
Days 225 to 240:
Days 209 to 224:
Days 193 to 208:
Days 177 to 192:
Days 161 to 176:
Days 145 to 160:
Days 129 to 144:
Days 113 to 128:
Days 97 to 112:
Days 81 to 96:
Days 65 to 80:
Days 49 to 64:
Days 33 to 48:
Days 17 to 32:
Days 1 to 16. On day 3 I knew it would be a project and that I would share it.
You can read about how it all started, here.
SAL
Instagram: @salchemy11
#thejoyexperiments #SALchemy #C19_degreesofseparation
The paintings are made on an Apple iPad Air (3rd generation) with an Apple Pencil (1st generation). I’m using the pro Art Set app.
The project was, in part, inspired by my visit to the London National Portrait Gallery in early March 2020, to see David Hockney: Drawing from Life; I loved his iPad work.
I’ll be super-happy if you share my creations. Please use short quotes from the piece if you like, but always always link back to this page.
For any other use, please ask me first.
See the journey of my paintings and drawings over the years here:
Follow me on Instagram? I post a little, more often, there…
