Picasso said so

One of my mental blocks about art is that I am always trying to create a masterpiece.

After all, Picasso said,

Everything you can imagine is real.

So if I can imagine a masterpiece, it is real already.

I just have to paint it.

So I come to the daily practice, reminding myself of another Picasso quote:

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

It is often discouraging. At times I just want to do something perhaps a few steps more sophisticated than a kindergartner.

Picasso is especially helpful on this topic. He famously said,

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

and,

It takes a long time to become young.

Right. How to regain innate creativity and give it form?

I chose construction paper because it is something we use at a very early age. It is simple and tactile. It forces me to focus on basic colors and basic shapes.

Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.

I already had the supplies. While playing with ideas around Kandinsky’s “13 Rectangles,” I had taken 10 different colors of construction paper and randomly cut them into squares, rectangles and triangles. They’re stored a large plastic envelope, each color divided by a plain sheet of paper.

Today I was trying to think of some very simple art exercises, things I could do in 25 minutes. I thought of choosing seven of these paper shapes at random and then trying to create something from them: a mood, a landscape, an object, a figure in action.

Because Picasso also said,

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.

I closed my eyes and drew from the envelope. I got two light-blue squares, a red square, a yellow rectangle, a blue rectangle, a purple triangle and a green triangle.

I started working just with movement created by contrast:

Then I tried a figure:

And finally a landscape:

Not very sophisticated, but fun to play with. And at the same time, a discipline.

Picasso also said,

Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.

Day 125’s penny is a 2015, for its sense of childlike renewal.

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.