Bob's ART du Jour

Hi, I'm Bob Eggleton and this is my painting and "life in general blog" but mostly paintings. Usually they're for sale. Anyway, if you like something contact me at zillabob@cox.net and ENJOY!!

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Location: New England, United States

I am a Hugo award-winning fantasy/SF artist who works on both publishing projects and film concept work(such as Jimmy Neutron and most recently, The Ant Bully) but I have a passion for landscape work, small paintings and exploring the properties of paint. This blog will mostly showcase my "painting-for-the-day" as kind of a personal voyage. I'll also be inserting sketches,photos and ideas of projects I am working on, that I can, when I can, so look for those every so often(usually as paint is drying!)

Monday, December 18, 2006

So why "a Painting-a-Day"?

Shell(8x10 inches, oil $100)
Some people might ask "Why a painting-a-day?" One, it means I start-and finish-a painting in one day, usually an hour. Something done for the day. There is nothing worse, to me, when a painting drags on and on. Even on complex pieces, they should start to look fairly good by three days in, or I start to lose interest. Also, it instills more confidence in me. Oddly, in recent months, I lost alot of confidence in what I was doing. I just can't figure it out, but I was second-guessing myself and feeling like I didn't have what I had when I started in this business. I'm being deadly honest there, no pretentions with me. Anyway, I know I promised a Trilobite, and he's coming, but this cool shell grabbed my attention and, it's a grainy picture, but still something I'm happy to share.

10 Comments:

Blogger Sahi said...

No need to loose confidence! It all looks great to me. A friend of mine (Gigi) pointed me to your blog, and I'm loving it, I think it's a great idea. Keep 'em coming! ;)

3:44 PM  
Blogger Bob Eggleton (Zillabob) said...

Thanks Sahi. I intend to keep the pix coming. Plenty to do...keep stopping in, that's what, in the end, it's all here for!

3:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh boy do I know how hard shells are to paint. I have no idea how you got this far in just an hour.

6:07 PM  
Blogger Bob Eggleton (Zillabob) said...

I just bought some more today! Some really cool looking ones too, as a challenge. I also have a starfish I am going to do as well.

6:10 PM  
Blogger calebcharles said...

Dude, I love your fortitude. It inspires me.

10:01 AM  
Blogger Bob Eggleton (Zillabob) said...

Thanks sir! That's what I aim to do. And it's giving me back a little of what I feel good about in my own work.

10:21 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm curious to hear how it's going with the painting-a-day, is it helping with confidence? Confidence is something I've fought with recently as well (ok, for a long time, just moreso recently), and I've been thinking about doing something similar (I tried a couple of times, but life was in the way). I wasn't sure if it would work, or if I'd get burned out and not pick anything up afterward.

10:54 PM  
Blogger Bob Eggleton (Zillabob) said...

Indeed it is giving me back confidence!! It's like "If I can start and finish ONE in a day...and it looks like a halfway decent painting, then I am batting a thousand". The confidence I lost came from doing a number of things either my heart was not in or, I was implicitly told what and *how* to paint. This leads to burn out and total lost of ideas, and, the feeling that you are not *painting* but merely rendering...which frankly feels dead. A number of good friends have recently passed away and you start thinking that life is too short to make bad paintings.

11:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good to hear it's going well, and thanks for the quick answer. A close family member passed away after a long battle, and being away from art has made me skittish. I'm trying to get back to basics with art, and this sounds like a good step forward.

Thanks again for the answer, and good luck with the paintings!

11:25 PM  
Blogger Bob Eggleton (Zillabob) said...

Back to basics was the thinking. Still lifes,landscapes, etc. The better I paint reality, the better the fantastical will appear. I took a step back to take TWO steps forward as it were. Death and discord has been sobering lately. HOwever the almost hypnotic trance of painting quickly is like meditation and puts some perpective on things.
Condolences on your family member. My Dad died in 1998 and I am still "working through" it as it were. Please stop in and see what I'm up to with this. Comments are always welcomed.

11:33 PM  

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