2:27 PM: yesterday was devoted mainly to video editing. mikela needs some good clips of the kids presenting their projects at the showcase last year, and i discovered quickly that i can't do a little bit of painting followed by a little bit of editing. both are all consuming, so i dove into editing, which i love except for the stupid imovie software. totally non-intuitive, plus it likes to quit just when you've done an hour of work. which you can't save unless you turn it into a movie. don't get me started.
i'm now using the paper we found at menninger art supply in denver. on monday, 3 rolls i ordered online from blick will arrive, and we'll see what the quality is. in the meantime, a large japanese paper store in toronto is researching to find the closest possible match to the paper i just ran out of, purchased 10 years ago at the now defunct NY Central Supply in nyc. she asked me to send a sample with notes on what i like best about the paper. so i put that together and am sending it off to canada.
the two i did today, which you see below, are good but not great. see what you think. my standards, on the other hand, are very high. below are four examples of chinese 17th and 13th century landscapes. less is more. here's a quote from gong xian: "nowadays when people paint they do only what appeals to the common eye; i alone do not seek to please the present."
BELOW: upper row & lower left: gong xian (1619-89) lower right: qian xuan (ca 1235-before 1307) notice how the detail on the lower left brings to mind van gogh. he did not have access to chinese art at the time, but was heavily influenced by the japanese prints finding their way into france during his lifetime. those prints were, in turn, influenced by the great chinese masters of the 13th through 18th centuries.
