My great-grandfather Ramey had a fierce personality. Even in his 90’s, he had no time for nonsense, epically from unruly children such as me. My grandmother ascribed her father’s fierceness to his harsh childhood. Orphaned early, his adopted family treated him as little more than a servant. One day, my grandmother’s oft-repeated story went, her…
Just when I finally lost all hope, we saw the sun. This winter has been harsh with bitter cold and snowstorms followed quickly by more snowstorms. But Lake Erie has begun to thaw as has the Vermilion River. I took my first walk along the river since the first of the year. Here’s a photograph…
Like the title says, I bought some manganese violet. Some artists maintain that they can reproduce every color by using a small collection of paints. While it’s true that you can create a tremendous variety of colors with a limited palette, it’s not true that you can reproduce every color that way. There are a…
My Utrecht easel has served me well. True, it’s held together with glue and clamps, but it still handles the large-size paintings that I make. One thing the easel lacks is a place to rest a palette, even a small one. I keep my normal palette on a mobile cabinet that I wheel around as…
One of the biggest shocks of my life and one of my biggest disappointments occurred when I went to France for the first time in 1993. France! home of great artists–David, Delacroix, the angelic Ingres, Manet, Monet, and many others. Writers? Balzac, of course. The master. I made a pilgrimage to his home which is…
On President Trumps’ last day in office, I’ve signed the petition that urges the president to pardon Assange. For more background, here’s a recent NY Times article. If you want to add you voice to the petition, Google pardonassangeNow.
Surprisingly, this morning a British judge rejected the US request for extradition of Julian Assange. Assange, as most of you know, is the beleaguered founder/leader of WikiLeaks. Previously, Judge Vanessa Baraitser was considered a harsh critic of Assange so her decision surprises me. Assange’s supporters expected a different decision, which would most likely spell the…
Hobby Lobby, for those like me who hadn’t shopped there before, is a craft supermarket that also does a brisk business in frames and framing. They carry art supplies too–stretchers, acrylics, brushes, and oil paints. In Hobby Lobby’s case, they sell Winsor Newton paints along with their own brand, Master’s Touch. I have 2 tubes…
I’ve seen blood moons before, the red moon that appears during Fall evenings, but I’ve never seen a red moon in the morning until today. When I first saw the moon, it was so bright and fat, I thought it was the sun above Lake Erie. But it is the red-colored moon. I ran to…
Christmas was wonderful again this year. One of my gifts was a new palette. My homemade one is decrepit, as you can see in this photo. I prepared the new palette–a glass-covered reproduction–by removing the reproduction and painting the backing neutral gray. The old palette, including the frame, is the same size as the glass…
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.…
I couldn’t wait to get started today. Problems are simply opportunities and everything is possible. You know what I’m talking about? I put aside some large designs that have been absorbing me and started working on this painting, Self-portrait with Camera. I’m happy with some bits of it. The painting has a white ground, which…
I’ve been using flake white from Utrecht a lot. Lately, I’ve run into the same problem, namely, tubes with excessive oil content. When I open a fresh tube, a lake of oil pours out. That is what happened with the last tube I opened. You can see what I mean in this photo. I placed…
Stiff paint, stiff muscles, stiff brain. This describes my afternoon. I finished a painting this morning and celebrated with a piece of pumpkin pie leftover from Thanksgiving. Back in the studio, I started working on this large painting that is in mid-career. Not in the starting stage but nowhere near the finishing stage either. I…