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,
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
In the studio 6/7/15
Grandfather was turned against the wall for a long time; I just didn’t like the direction it was going. Since then I’ve completely altered the background by adding the landscape through the window, and the green curtains. I wanted to make a painting that didn’t look ‘modern.’ I used to think about categories of subject
In the studio 5/3/15
I build paintings slowly. I spend a considerable amount of time on the drawing before touching a brush. Once painting starts, I try to work as efficiently as possible. It doesn’t always work out–so much can go awry. But the point of so much preparation is go get a painting to the finishing stage where
In the studio 4/26/2015
Junk in a junk shop–oops!, antique shop–and people milling about doing what people do. Main Street #1 is composed from three photos. I moved figures around, as I often do, in a photo of an antique shop on Main St, and added figures from two other photos. Three photos for a painting is about par for me these
In the studio 4/25/15
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