A Year of My Life

This is a journal painting. At the end of the summer semmester where I did 6's and 7's my teacher gave me 3 stretcher bars 32x44 so I bought the 4th and stretched the canvas then braced it when the corners snapped then gessoed it heavily and gridded it off for 16x22 squares at 2" each and dated them all... so the first square I painted on august 25th 2003 symbolizes everything from the 8th to the 25th of August. The last square is Agust 10th 2004. There are 352 squares all together each one was about an object, event, emotion or moment that was present in that particular day. So if you start counting each one is about a calendar day. I'm very proud of this for many reasons, one these are all one off's. There aren't any that got a second coat later on. Two I've never kept a consistant journal for more than three days in a row and here I kept track of stuff for a year, painting as often as I could... here were the rules I set up for myself at the start.

1) No numbers or letters are allowed.
2) One square must be painted to represent something about, or that happened on that day. In other words I can’t paint something on that happened Wednesday in Thursday’s square.
3) I must catch up if I fall behind and paint something even if it is abstract just to represent that day.
4) No solid single colors are allowed. It must be at least two colors or one color with tint and shade and these colors must overlap, interlock, and or blend in some way.
5) Every effort is to be made to paint everyday and stop procrastinating. But if that fails see rule 3.
6) Every square must be painted in order.
7) No spots of blank canvas/gesso allowed. Washes count as covering. A coat of white paint is okay too but no plain gesso.
8) No Japan dryer allowed.
9) When catching up all days to the current day must be painted. (this one I had to fudge a couple of times when I got more than a week behind)
10) Once begun a painting must be completed within the same session of painting (not allowed to paint a first coat let it dry and come back to it.)

Please feel encouraged to ask about what certain squares mean.

Thanks to Baltymora2 for color correcting and straightening the pic for me. Check out his deviant art too.