More New Work in Progress: Dates in a Life Walking Project 2026

 

In July, I retired from my day job, and changed how I document the number of steps I walk each day on my Dates in a Life Walking Project 2026 year-long painting. Starting then, the background color behind all icons for the rest of this year is now Light Ultramarine Blue. Each month, I am pre-painting the days of each month, month by month ahead of time, and each week I collage on the icons for each day walked.

During the brief time I stopped working but was still on the payroll, the background was Light Phthalo Blue. Up until my last day in the office, I was painting Florescent Magenta on the days I was off such as weekends, vacation, personal, and sick days.

In this picture, you can see the August 1st icon is already in place, a little section of July to the left of August, a little of the Light Phthalo Blue in the diagonal upper right of August. and the Florescent Magenta background paint before that.

More Ideas For New Work in Progress: 12 x 12 x 12 August 2026

Yesterday I coated what I had done so far on my monthly 12” square painting, 12 x 12 x 12 August 2026, with 50/50 watered-down matt medium. When wet, the bottom row was very badly puckered and I was considering cutting it off and replacing it with a different piece of fabric. 

While it is a fabric painting, and fabric does pucker, the amount was really bothering me. Thankfully it's reasonably flat today after drying overnight.

While it was drying, I played with a few ideas about next steps in Photoshop. Here are two sketches. I think I'm going to use the idea in the first photo and do more after that.

While I like the idea in the second photo, and might try that in a different piece, it wasn't the right thing to do with this one.

 

More New Work in Progress: 12 x 12 x 12 August 2026

I started working on my monthly 12” square painting, 12 x 12 x 12 August 2026, combining a piece of monoprinted and painted fabric of a construction fence from many years ago and a piece of fabric that has many layers of fabric paint from hand stamping the icons for my yearlong walking painting. I cut and stitched as you can see in these photos, and now I’m paused while I think about my next steps.

New Work in Progress: 12 x 12 x 12 August 2026

I’m considering using some of these fabrics for my monthly 12” square painting, 12 x 12 x 12 August 2026. I think I may collage parts of the bottom left and/or top left fabrics which have paint from the icons I stamped for my walking painting, on to the blue and red stitched piece on the right.

New Work in Progress: Dates in a Life Walking Project 202

This is the month of July for my Dates in a Life Walking Project 2026 painting, a year-long painting documenting the number of steps I walked each day. I have documented my steps in paintings since 2016.

The painting is created with monoprinted textures of a construction fence as the background, handstamped rubber erasers which are collaged on the background grid, as well as handpainting and stitching on stiffened fabric.

I use a system of symbols to represent each thousand steps. Instead of showing exactly how many I walk. The black icons represent up to 9999 steps walked each day, red represents 10,000-19,999 steps and yellow represents 20,000-29,999 steps.

In July I walked over 10,000 steps 11 times and came close to that as represented by the circles (9000 steps +) two times, because of hot weather. 

Under some individual days, there is a painted line of color to represent reasons that may lower or raise the number of steps I walked that day, such as snow, rainy, extreme hot or cold, illness, and vacation.

In July, the red lines are for hot days, and the orange is for when I was on vacation, which this time reduced my walking.

The base monoprinted grid is black. Before I retired from my day job, the Florescent Magenta background paint signified the days (mostly weekends, but also including holidays, vacations days, and sick days) when I was not at work, which usually gave me more time to walk for exercise than the days I am at work.

On June 19, I changed the background color to Light Phthalo Blue to signify the days I technically on “vacation” and still on the payroll at work, but actually retired from my day job and my email access ended. On July 1, the background color changed to Light Ultramarine Blue when I was fully retired. It will remain that color through the end of the year.

The second image shows January through July and plenty of room for the rest of the year.

On Exhibit at Gallery 01760

 

I am exhibiting eight small paintings at the Micro Gallery 01760 in Natick, MA. The gallery is outdoors on the wall on Adams St, in Natick Center, close to a lot of public art. The interior dimensions are 12” high, 29” long and 13” deep, which is perfect to exhibit eight of my nine Sewer Covers and the Sealed Crack Lines Around Them. 

The paintings incorporate photos of sewer covers in my neighborhood and the sealed crack lines around them. The sealing of cracks is meant to help prevent further damage on the street.

Some neighbors described the process of crack sealing as loud and as less than desirable to look at. I see it as mark making and find them inspiring.

The paintings include acrylic skins of the photographs collaged on monoprinted, painted and stitched construction fence fabric, painting, stamped dots, and more stitching on 6” x 6" board, created in 2021.

Planning Ahead

 

I'm planning ahead by making sure I have plenty of printed stamped icons for the number of steps I walk each day. In this picture on the middle right you can see black icons for 4000, 5000, 8000, and 9000 drying. On the bottom, to the left of the scissors are the steps I have already walked this week, in red, for 10,000, 11,000, and 10,000 steps for this past Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. On the bottom left is the key to what the stamps mean, black for under 9999 steps, red for 10,000-10,999, and yellow for 20,000 or more. On the right side, the stamps are lined up in a row, lower numbers at the bottom and counting up by the thousands to the top. At the top of the photo are stacks for stamps ready to be used as needed, and above them, black, red and yellow bottles of fabric paint.