We're all for shelling out half of each paycheck to afford cute digs, but when it comes to decorating those blank living room walls—it's not always your top priority. Now, thanks to a growing crop of emerging artists dedicated to creating (and actually selling) art on a daily basis, amassing a well-curated collection is within everyone's means. Below, five of our favorite options.

By general consensus, the granddaddy of the painting-a-day blog phenomenon is painter Duane Kaiser, an adjunct art professor at Virgina's University of Richmond. In late 2004, he challenged himself to create one small-scale oil painting each day. In lieu of selling them through brick and mortar galleries, he began shilling them at $100 a pop on his Web site. Soon, the demand for his soft, somewhat impressionistic images became so great that he eventually began auctioning them off on eBay.

For high-energy imagery packed into a four by four inch canvas (at a rock-bottom price) look no farther than A Collage A Day the Web site of Randel Plowman, an inspired multi-media artist based in Northern Kentucky. Plowman creates a new college every day, then posts 'em on his site, where they retail for just $25. Each poppy piece features a thought-provoking mix of cheerful iconography and costs little more than a visit to the MoMA.

Postcard from Provence is the Web site of Julian Merrow-Smith, a British still-life painter living in Crillon le Brave, a tiny village in the south of France. Updated several times a week, his site is a visual diary of sorts, which showcases the changing seasons of his Provençal surroundings through small-scale paintings. Each of these enchanting landscape and still-life oil paintings are available for purchase through auction at his site.

Those with a taste for bold yet spare design should be sure to click on Modern Art Everyday, the daily blog of New Jersey-based artist and textile designer, Nancy Veltri. With their soothing color palate and spare lines, her giclee prints (produced on paper, canvas or cloth) of birds, deer, dahlias and more are at once elegant and charming. Sold on her site through an Etsy shop, Veltri's mod prints typically run about $30 apiece.

The works at Daily Paintings by Justin Clayton have a saturated, dream-like quality to them, yet they feel fresh and thoroughly modern—so it's no surprise to learn that the artist, Justin Clayton, spent years working as a video game artist in Los Angeles. The product of a 2006 New Year's resolution to create one painting each day, each piece on the site (mostly still lifes and landscapes) comes to fruition in three hours or less and sells almost as quickly—for around $200 to $300 per piece—via eBay auctions.

- Jane Nussbaum

RANDOM TANGENT:
This painting-a-day thing is actually so popular that there's a blog about all the painting-a-day blogs. Check it our here.

Similar Topics:Design, Furnishings, Painting

comments (0) : Send to a Friend : Subscribe

:  digg this :  del.icio.us! :