I have always wanted to join the Plein Air Challenge held by the Warrior Painters, but never found the time in the past years.

This year, I had more free time due to a sudden decline in commission requests, possibly due to the introduction of AI to Fiverr. Instead of jumping into a new course, I decided it’s time to join the challenge, or just tried to see how far I could go.

The challenge was a good distraction in this transitional period. Fiverr has “encouraged” creatives to allow AI to create free or cheaper artworks for users, which forced me to accept how sloppy my art career is. While I still managed to work with long-term clients or projects to support myself in this period, I felt an existential crisis slowly burning myself out. On some days, when waking up, I was hit by questions such as “What am I doing here? Are my goals realistic or achievable enough? Am I feeling and doing like this forever? …”. The challenge helped me refocus my attention, simply speaking, I know today I need to finish by #13 painting because today is 13th.

The challenge also introduced me to a few more talented background, concept and landscape painters. Some are Giacomo Sardelli , Lex , Ferrari Duanghathai, and more; it ignites a bit of hope in me about posting arts online. I have always struggled to stick to a regular schedule of posting; and now that I’ve accepted it, I just post whatever I’m ready to. I also got featured on Warrior Painters page and story a few times, which helps my audience grows a bit.

This challenge also motivates me to appreciate small things, both physically and mentally. A quiet morning, a few hours focus in a distracted day, a tree coming up with new leaves, a cool summer breeze, a small commission, a regular client ordering little comics. In the days that I’m haunted by big questions about career and life, these little things keep me grounded. I tried to simplify everything, from declutter my art corner to relationships in my life.

I tried to simplify my tools as well, I used the same set of brushes and only four main colors: red, yellow, blue and white. I use a portable palette recycled from a plastic package of some electronic devices, which already has some grayish and brownish paints left. They help create the neutral gray parts of all paintings.

My original plan was to use this to motivate me to go out of my neighborhood, but in the end, I painted mostly houses in my area. I already have a collection of references taken by me during my weekly run. Painting from photo references taken on my own doesn’t lure me into copying the image, because I know the limits of my own photos and already have my own impression of the place.

And in the end, I have a lot of works to share and talk about, 29 paintings. I realize I have worked much faster, since my landscape sketchbook has only about 10 pages left and I began it 2 years ago. Along with reading about Mary Cassatt, I found more hope in myself and an art career, motivation to stay resilient and patient. Of course, I’m still at loss visualizing what kind of career I truly want, but there’s one thing I know for sure: I want to draw and paint everyday.