Daily Painting Practice - Can Artists Keep a Schedule? Part 2

Last week I wrote about the new work schedule I developed with the goal of becoming more productive.  After the second week of trying to work with this new routine I have to admit a few adjustments were in order. ( no surprise there!) I thought showing my process in picture form might help explain what it is I am after... Originally, I wanted to have a new painting completed each week by Sunday afternoon. I missed that goal the first week and realised it is not a realistic target for me .
However, my goal is still to work on each of the 4 stages of development daily. Devoting a scheduled amount of time each day to each stage in order to move forward towards the goal of completing one painting a week is great motivation and does yield results.  ( my days of engineering haven't washed out of me yet , I guess). 
Here are the 4 stages:



Stage 1 - Come up with an idea. The calendar sets the priority. In other words, what is the next deadline? ( Show, gallery pieces, competition, just for fun...)


Stage 2 - Complete a transfer and under painting. Develop the previous week's idea into a composition and transfer the drawing to canvas.


Stage 3 - Complete painting to 80%. (from last week's transfer).


Stage 4 - Complete the painting. (From the previous week's 80%).

Above you can see the four stages of  development. I am cheating a bit here because the waterfall painting is still not complete.  

Here is stage one completed. My new gallery in New Jersey ( the desChamps Gallery) wants five small paintings in November for a holiday show. This would be one of them.

This is the completed ( sort of ) Stage 2 Painting.

This is supposed to be Stage 3 - the 80% complete painting. Hard to say if I made 80%....maybe 59 1/2%.

This should be a Stage 4 - Completed Painting, but oops! Again, the painting I was going to have completed last week still needs work. I thought I would be discouraged after missing my self imposed deadline. But that isn't the case, because the result of my attempting to be more productive is that I am being more productive!

 Last week I recieved a few emails and several comments  with some helpful and some humorous suggestions regarding the topic of artists and schedules. Some of you mentioned the  real goal is to be happy and not to let a schedule get in the way of  the creativity. I  agree 100% . One of my favorite emails included a quote which I will share. I don't know the author of the quote  but it is my new favorite mantra to recite when I get down on myself for not producing enough.

"God left the songs unsung The pictures unpainted the flowers unplanted so that we might enjoy the world of creation"