Inkbird

I don't remember who this is from...
"oh I wish I could sing like you~" fan to widely glorified operatic singer
"do you wish to practice for a minimum of an hour every day for years?" (paraphrasing)

Don't underestimate practice.
This must be remembered

Landscape a day....
This is kind of hard.  I have been very busy lately, with birthdays, fathers day, and weddings coming up, I have had much added to my personal life. In addition to that, I have been looking through many many schools, in consideration for this year or next.  Naturally cost is still the tallest obstacle.
Currently I am behind in 3 paintings--but they will be caught up.  I simply can not be lax on this, not only is it important to me to improve on my skill, but I find the prospect of improving very very exciting.  

To keep up with Landscape a day, I will be needing to set out some more better defined rules.  For example, my time goal for each landscape will be no more than 2 hours, at 2 hours I will save, and stop. I understand that a finished work is very important, but I as I continue I would like to shrink this time.  I realize in the professional art world, your speed is considerably important,  also to this, I feel I learn better when required to learn techniques in faster time.  

Funny, 2 brushes, 2 layers, 2 hours  The odd thing about limiting myself, is that it feels so freeing.  2 hours seems long for a painting, maybe eventually I can make it half an hour~

I would also like to make a comment of thanks to the artists I have been in contact with recently.  Your opinions and anecdotes have been very valuable.

just an fyi, I'm not abandoning my landscape a day! My schedule has simply been out of ordinary without time at home to post. I'll be camping this weekend, so catchup will be beginner next week.

Been looking at schools again lately, but for art school the cost is normally double or triple that of a normal university.  Knowing the reality of money... it has scared me off from professional training for what is maybe another year. This would change if I could find a school at low cost with excellent instructors.  It's not particularly that I feel I need professional training, but I feel it would make things faster--and considering my age, I'd like to move as fast as possible.

With the help of the internet, and it's many helpful artists, I've decided to give myself my own curriculum--which I am to strictly follow!!  

IF there are any joes or janes out there like myself, and are looking for some structure in developing their skills, I'll write up what I'm doing.

until I devise a more elaborate plan...
1 Landscape painting a day.
From scratch-(no scanned drawings)using no more than 2 layers no more than 3 brushes--I'm learning that I am more comfortable using simpler techniques of digital painting.  To myself, I call it 2x3 (for 2 layers, and 3 brushes).  I find it is simpler to come into digital painting with this approach. Complex texturing and layering I'll forget for now.  I know many of the very experienced artists I like actually use very little layers, textures and brushes.

This is a little annoying to me because I have a number of non-landscape drawings I would really like to be painting...