If you're wanting to do a painting a day but are stuck for ideas, here are 31 suggestions to keep you busy for a whole month.
1. An Apple
Painting © Papaya
Painting an apple may seem a bit of a cliché, but if it were good enough for Cézanne, then who are we to reject it without trying? Up the challenge of painting an apple by placing it on a shiny or reflective surface such as a high-gloss table or a mirror. A piece of black paper beneath a bit of glass from a picture frame may work too.
2. An Apple Core
Photo © Bunny Brady
Sprinkling some lemon juice on the apple core may help prevent it turning brown.
3. A Bottle (Wine or Otherwise)
Photo © Kelly Cochrell
A bottle creates interesting distortions and reflections. Having some liquid in it changes these part of the way down the bottle. (See also: Tips on Painting Glass). If you drink wine, have a glass to celebrate doing a painting a day for a month!
4. A Single Tree
Photo © Jlamons
If you've a garden with a tree, paint it from life. If you haven't got a garden, paint the tree you would have if you did or go to a local park or public garden.
5. A Single Flower
Photo © Angela Lester
If you can't get the flower to stay upright in the direction you want, crunch up a plain tea-towel or cloth underneath it. Don't go picking one of your neighbor's prize roses without asking first now!
6. The Heart of a Flower
Photo © Rich Mason
Shift your focus and composition to contain only the heart of the flower. What the bee sees when its collecting pollen.
7. A Handful of Pebbles
Photo © Dalhia Cavazos
If you wet the pebbles with some water the colors show up more intensely. Let them go off the edges of your composition, not restrain them neatly within the edges of your canvas or sheet of paper.
8. A Bunch of Flowers with an Insignificant Vase
Photo © Lena Levin
Make the flowers the focal point not the vase. Let them fill and dominate the space. Don't constrain them within the area of the painting, but let them extend beyond the edges on at least one side.
9. A Bunch of Flowers with a Vase
Image: © Bernard Victor
Yesterday's flowers should last long enough to paint them again, this time giving the vase or container as much prominence as the flowers.
10. A Watering Can
Photo © Patricia Jessup
Whether an old, metal one for the garden or a cheap plastic one for houseplants, a watering can creates interesting negative space around the straight spout and curved handle.
