It started snowing Thursday afternoon and didn’t stop until Christmas evening. Six-inches of snow with knee-high drifts, as you can see in this photo taken from our dining room on Christmas morning. Every year we resolve to restrict the number of gifts to a manageable number, and every year we fail horribly, as you can…
I want adventure. When I started, art was an adventure. When I confronted a landscape, a figure, or whatever, it was an adventure of discovery. I saw it for the first time. Each time I started a painting, I had that experience. Guess what? I still do! You might think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not.…
In Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage, the protagonist studies painting for two years in an atelier school in Paris. At the end of that time, he screws up his courage to ask the master if he actually has talent. The master tells him that his talent is modest; he will never rise above mediocre. This…
When my daughter was very young, with a very serious face she asked, “Daddy, why do you hold a big stick in your studio?” To a child, the most question-provoking thing about the studio was my homemade maulstick. You can see my maulstick in this photograph. It’s resting against a 40″ x 52″ painting (the…
Sometimes when I draw, like in the oil sketch in the middle of this photo, I grab hold of things quickly and stop before the moment passes. Other times, I enjoy what I’m doing so much I don’t want to stop. Looking, seeing, and knowing on and on. SO WHY STOP? There is no end…
Lake Erie keeps the Fall weather mild in NE Ohio. Halloween is often shirtsleeve weather here. New Jersey, where we lived before moving here, is always cold by this time. I remember freezing as I pulled the wagon with our costumed-children in it around the neighborhood. It was so bitter cold that we curtailed trick-or-treat…
The first day painting on a new design is always exiting. True, paintings almost never live up to the vision in my mind’s eye, but I start every new painting with the same anticipation. I can’t wait to get started! This photo shows The Green Umbrella after a four-hour painting session. There’s a long way…
I planned on starting a podcast for a long time and today I finally got around to doing it. In the initial Turpentine diaries podcast, I talk about recovering a painting that failed, materially failed, as well as other art-related things. The podcast is about 14 minutes long. I understand that a successful podcast requires…