Good day after a bad day. I was so excited to get into the studio yesterday, I was mixing my medium at 5:30 AM. I make my medium fresh every day. It’s very drying and if I prepare it beforehand, it’s too firm. But I do prepare one of the ingredients in advance–the varnish. I…
These two recent pastel drawings are on canvas. Primed canvas is an unusual support for pastels or charcoal because it’s not absorbent enough. Pastel chalk falls off too easily. I originally intended to use these canvases for paintings. I had actually started painting on the larger of the two (the gray area in the lower left),…
Playhouse Square Trip is, as the name implies, part of the Playhouse Square series. The design is based on several photos I took during one of my photo sessions at the Square. As readers know, I’ve been working on the series for a year or thereabout. The Square is heavily frequented by office workers, visitors, and theatergoers…
Living in NE Ohio, I had to the visit the RNC. I spent two hours yesterday in downtown Cleveland. I took a lot of photos but I was still surprised when I got home and discovered that I’d taken 1300 photos! I’m always taking photos for use in my paintings, of course, and I was…
Problems solved in dreams.
I have prophetic dreams, only they NEVER pan out–they’re just memorable dreams. My wife, on the other hand, has insights and flashes that DO pan out. It’s eerie.
Problems are sometimes solved in my dreams. Does that happen to you? Waking up in an eureka! moment when the solution is crystal clear? I attribute this to my penchant for letting things percolate. Some problems, in life and art, take time to work out. As I fall asleep, I reflect on a problem in the hope that its solution will come to me while I sleep. Sometimes this technique works; sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the solution comes to me even when I don’t prime the pump. That happened last night.
I dream of paintings–new paintings–too. When that happens, I rush to the studio to get as much down as I can before I forget about it. I’ve finished paintings while under the impulse of a dream.
Ah, the Internets!
I don’t prowl youTube often; I’m a reader, not a watcher. But sometimes I do watch vids, of course. Two weeks ago I watched some videos about repairing stone steps and fixing my lawn tractor’s carburetor. They were good; I learned things.
Recently I tired watching videos by so called art experts. Holy mackerel–what a waste of time! Aren’t ‘experts’ supposed to, you know, know something? I’m pretty jaded but I’m still amazed by how easily some people are impressed by themselves. Some people actually believe that all they have to do is assume an air of authority and–voila!–they’re expert enough to instruct others.
I’m not going to post links because I’m a live and let live type, but seriously, what are they thinking?
This is a pretty good photo of the unfinished Heated Discussion. It’s at the ‘get it finished any day now’ stage. I enjoy working on details but sometimes I give them too much attention. The stuff in the background is too strong–too busy. Secondary motifs can be jarring when they spill outside their intended place and…
Fresh off the boat that summer; I was a wide-eyed kid in New York for the first time. I gorged myself on galleries and museums. I was as fresh and raw as a nineteen-year-old can be. One day I was in a Madison Avenue gallery when an elegantly dressed older woman entered. As I was the only…