In the studio 7/11/15
I finished Dinner in Trenton this morning. Today’s session was the 20th. Dinner in Trenton is 40″ x 56.” The ground was a little flat; I found myself fighting against it at times. I enjoyed painting the still-life immensely. The arrangement was interesting and sometimes it’s just pure fun to paint accidental effects of light.
How Art Became Irrelevant
Michael J. Lewis‘ long piece in Commentary titled, How Art Became Irrelevant, is a tour de force of cultural analysis. In his well-written and long article (did I mention it is long?), Lewis’ breadth of knowledge provides a wealth of thoughtful observations and quotable passages. To buttress his main thesis, which I think is reasonably embodied in the
In the studio 7/5/15
This unfinished painting on the easel, Euclid Avenue II, is from my Playhouse Square series. (Euclid Avenue I has a lot more figures and is still in the drawing stage.) The painting is 4′ x 5′ and simply covering it with paint a bit of chore. I’ve already spent a lot of time on it,
Review: Charvin Fine Oils
I bought some cerulean blue from Charvin. Actually, Charvin doesn’t produce a true cerulean blue but something they call ‘cerulean blue hue.’ Charvin produces two lines of paints: Fine, and Extra Fine. This review is about the ‘Fine’ line. I don’t know what Charvin thinks cerulean blue is, but their cerulean blue hue is nothing like
In the studio 7/2/15
Woman in Purple Boots is 40″ x 50″. No part of the painting is finished; I’m in my second passage through it. This painting is has gone smoothly –so far. The scale is interesting. It’s not so big that just covering it with paint is a chore. But it’s big enough that eight figures, even
In the studio 6/21/15
Unfortunately, the overcast skies resulted in a dark photograph of Sunday Parade. The studio’s bank of natural-light lamps washes out the colors in photographs, so I have to make due with this dark photo or none at all. The painting has a long way to go but parts are done; such as the figure on the far
In the studio 6/14/15
I had two more painting sessions on Washington Square. I finally got the pigeons in there (can you see all 7 of them*?). Washington Square has a hole in the middle which is supposedly a no-no. Cleveland has a painting by Poussin with the same empty center, and it’s very effective. It took me awhile to
Artless by Michael Lind
In his article in The Smart Set, Michael Lind writes about how Millennials are disinterested in the fine arts: “…Trends in American painting ever since the plate paintings of Julian Schnabel are not a big subject of debate among Millenials. As far as I can tell, very few college-educated people under the age of 50