Day two of the centre painting for the reliquary, it's now complete. Here is a little blue tit. Yes it's supposed to be upside down. Yesterday I was trapped in detail and felt like the whole painting was a disaster but today I finished the rest! Zing!! This shows that you should indeed try the hard bits first. One of my rules is do the hard bits, the best bits, the most scary bits, first. That builds confidence, and means that you do the most demanding parts when you have the most energy and focus.
For the last two years I've had the same work routine:
9:10-10:40 painting.
10:40 break (20 mins).
11:00-12:30 painting.
12:30-1:30 lunch.
1:30-2:20 painting.
2:20 break (20 mins).
2:40-4:10 painting.
4:10 break (20 mins).
4:30- 6:00 painting.
Done. This was based on the "90 mins work, 20 mins rest" theory, which I read was the best for biorhythms. Actually it didn't work very well. I got too little rest and those 20 minute breaks were all to easily eaten into by a few addictive minutes at the end of a painting session.
Yesterday I started a new one and I'll see if this works better:
9:00-10:30 painting.
10:30 break (30 mins).
11:00-12:30 painting.
12:30-1:30 lunch.
1:30 walk (20 mins).
1:50 meditative sleep (20 mins).
2:10-3:40 painting.
3:40 break (30 mins).
4:10-5:40 painting.
5:40 rest or painting (20 mins).
6:00-7:00 evening meal.
7:00-8:30 painting.
This gives both more rest periods and more work time, partly because the days are longer, but that's fine because I don't have anything much to do in the evenings.
