2:57 PM: today i did quite a bit more on 6/23/22 handstand. the body of the female acrobat is now pretty clearly defined, and the composition as a whole is coming together.
you may notice that a patterned elent of clothing from the previous painting is visible on the upper right. no telling right now where that’s going to go.
we’ll see what happens in the morning.
3:21 PM: the thunderstorms just started and will continue through abot 5:30. the temperature dropped from 72 to 57 in a short period of time & the wind is gusting to 35mph.
i started a new 75x32” painting on the grey canvas, which is still in it’s early stages &, for now at least, is titled 6/23/22 handstand. this one, as well as the first, is inspired by the celebration following the 2020 tokyo olympics. the imagery will become clearer tomorrow.
6/23/22 handstand 78x32” as it looked at the end of my painting day
3:53 PM: i asked mikela to walk over & give me some feedback. she found that the upper portion of the painting was too busy. too many japanes letters, which strated to take away rather than add to the harmony of the composition. since they were all freshly painted, it was easy to take many of them out, and she was right; it helped a lot, as you will observe in the comparative images BELOW. before the changes is on the LEFT.
in addition, she suggested continuing the yellow ochre marks on the bottom out to the right; another excellent observation!
1:47 PM: i continued painting 6/19/22 tokyo drummer, adding more japanese letters, more lights to the garb of the drummer and shading to his bald head. as a result, the image pops more than before and, at the same time, is more integrated into the composition as a whole.
the japanese letters now covering parts of his upper body as well as the shading on his head play an important role.
11:34 AM: this morning i continued work on the upper quadrant of 6/19/22 tokyo drummer.
i’m going to have to sit with it for a bit and have mikela take a look to decide if it’s resolved or needs more work. it reads pretty well from a distance, but i just realized i took the composition to the edges in spots, which won’t allow space to stretch it. that required about 2” on all sides. so either i’ll have to show oit as is, tacked to the wall or mount it on plywood…we’ll see.
2:05 PM: japanese letters have found their way into the composition, as well as a taiga inspired abstracted landscape, which is only partially complete; to be continued tomorrow, when i’ll likely address the top 1/4 of the composition.
10:59 AM: this morning i continued painting 6/19/22 tokyo drummer, adding highlights to the body of the drummer and his garb, as well as the drum itself, which now has shadows of his hands and the drum sticks.
BELOW: LEFT-where i left it yesterday afternoon and RIGHT-moments ago after the work i did this morning;ma distinct improvement, i’d say.
and now for the spaces above and below the drummer! my brief foray yesterday, painting a fragment of a creek-scape was a complete bust and had to be rubbed out at the end of the afternoon session. i don’t want to jump into any half-assed solutions today, so let me sit with it until something clicks….maybe.
it’s too early to say, but this could end up being one of the centerpieces of my september show, along with the as yet unpainted, same sized grey canvas currently tacked right next to this one, to my east wall.
12:17 PM: and here’s my painting of the day: 3/8/14 watercolor/collage, 12x20” on arches watercolor paper.
3/8/14 watercolor/collage, 12x20” on arches paper.
3pm: i just took out everything below the drummer; it was too busy.
2:25PM: today i continued work on 6/19/2022 tokyo drummer, adding elements of creek-scape on the lower portion. the landscape, with aspens and bits of sky is being reflected in the water. the figure of the drummer has been taken to the next level, as well as the large drum itself. now that the second drumstick has been painted in, there’s no doubt as to what he’s up to, whereas yesterday it wasn’t totally clear.
much of the painting thusfar has been done using oil pastels, and i’m running out of some of my most used colors. so i’ll have to check out which colors i need & order them tomorrow. it’s pretty messy using those pastels, so i wear disposable gloves.
as i direct my gaze towars the painting now, from a distance of about 20 feet, i see that a few elements need to pop, so i’ll see if i can address that tomorrow morning when i’m fresh.
right now i need to clean up & get back to the house so that we can visit with friends who want to show us their progress on a new house they’re building.
1:51 PM: i sent my prayer to st. anthony to find at least .75” of precipitation by the end of the day today, which will get us out of extreme drought and almost back up to normal for this time of year. it will likely come in bursts, and one has just started as i write this.
today i broke through the gap in my ability to make new paintings and started 6-19-22 tokyo drummer, 78x32.” it’s being painted on a piece of a roll of primed linen i had gone over with a deep grey oil color many years ago. i have no idea what i ahd in mind when i did that, but i obviously was thinking of making a series of paintings with that dark grey ground underneath. well, at least a decade later, i’m doing exactly that! i can’t count the number of times i climbed the stairs to my studio loft, found this roll of canvas and did nothing with it. i simply wasn’t ready.
with the new 6-19-22 tokyo drummer earlier today
browsing through my newly gifted matisse book this morning, which gave me back my painting groove
10:11 AM: last week my dear friend dan gifted me a new matisse book: matisse; the early years in nice, 1916-1930. i was browsing through it this morning over coffee, when the spirit may have returned, followoing my dry spell, which always happens after the close of an exhibition. we’ll see where it leads today.
3:14 PM: as i browsed my wonderful new matisse book at the end of my painting day, i glanced towards the north side of my studio, at a vignette i found sweetly characteristic of my energy. on the left, a study i made years ago of 2 matisse drawings i love; below that, a couple of figures i have floating around the studio, which i placed in an intimate pose; to the right of them, a fayum post card, behind which is a ceramic piece made by my friend dan, behind which is a cracked ceramic vase and to the right a photo of myself painting plein air by the creek, shot about 10 years ago.
a corner of my studio
3 designs for plate paintings, each 11”, gouache on paper, ca. 1990
12:30 PM: as my break from painting continues, i’m posting todays painting of the day, which are actually three small 11” designs for plates, in gouache on paper, probably done in about 1990, when i was collaborating with a ceramicist in palm beach. the two faces are a reflection of my 15 years in greece, the time spent in the studio of my friend and mentor, yannis tsarouchis and my study of the byzantine tradition.
as i gaze at them at a distance of about 20 feet, tacked to my east painting wall, they read remarkably well from a distance. i hadn’t considered including them in my september CMC ASPEN exhibition, but now that i look at them, the two faces would be an interesting compliment to the walls where my GAZE series paintings will hang.
sangres with clouds 1 32x38” oil on linen, date?
2:36 PM:i posted these 4 paintings of the sangres with clouds last week. three of them, including this one, are 32x38,” oil on linen. one has a date: 2001, i think this one & the other two without dates were painted more recently. if i do a bit of boring research, i could probably find an exact date. but my record keeping leaves something to be desired.
the reason i’m bringing this up today is that, ever since i discovered these in my newly constructed storage space, i’ve had the feeling that i might want to turn them into a limited edition series of prints. whomever i show them to seems to like them a lot, especially residents of our slv, (san luis valley). so i made an initial call to a well respected imaging company in denver and got the info i was looking for: how much would it cost & how long would it take? so i may very well have these prints avaiable for sale at my aspen cmc show. one copy of each would be framed under glass so people could see what they were purchasing. ihaven’t yet decided how many would be in each edition & what the dimensions would be. 20x30” seems the most likely. each limited edition print would be signed and numbered. so if, for example, i were to decide to do an edition of 100, you might get one that says 84/100 with my siignature in the lower corener.
by the way, the thunderstorms we’ve been hoping and waiting for just started. let’s hope we get more than a smattering. we’re on theedge of extreme drought, so boy do we need it!!
blue-green 7/18/19 colored pencil on archival paper, 12x20”
1:44 PM: i spent 2 hours this morning cleaning up, following one more ant infestation, this time in the master bath shower. they were everywhere when we went to take showers last night, but i was too tired to do what needed to be done, so i just sprayed them & took care of cleaning up the mess this morning.
pest control was out here spraying just this past tuesday, but it didn’t prevent them from barging in.
i’m in a dry spell with my work, following the close of my space gallery exhibition in denver. these post exhibition blahs have happened in the past, so i’m not really worried about it. instead of trying to paint (how can you try to paint?) i’ve been browsing through past works: in oil on canvas, gouache/watercolor on paper and pencil on paper. in part, this is in preparation for my septmeber 29 opening at cmc aspen.
so i decided to post whatever painting i come across that seems worthy of being seen by you, the visitors to my (almost) daily blog. this one seems to have a title: blue-green, for obvious reasons, and was done on 7/18/2019. was it done on site….is it a plein air piece? maybe. it has the spontaneity and dash of a plein air drawing, done in colored pencil. that branch thrusting it’s way up the center of the composition rules, announcing itself as the key element, as well as adding phallic undertones. the yellow marks towards the top help create balance, and the green strokes made with the side of a pencil create a wavy, creek inspired motion. if it happens to make it’s way into my cmc (colorado mountain college) show, it will be framed under glass and priced reasonably, as most works on paper are.
lower creekscape 12x40” oil and collage on portrait linen
4:16 PM: today i performed minor surgery on a painting i was working on last month. i reached a dead end, so i put it in the storage room. i discovered it this morning, tacked it to the wall and saw immediately that the lower portion was a complete painting in itself. so i found 12x40” stretcher bars, cut off the bottom 14 inches, allowing room for stretching, and re-stretched it. i’ll bring it over to the house & see how it hold up over there. i’m calling it lower creekscape.
4:11 PM: i took the canvas i worked on before our weekend trip and started a new painting. thus far, there are three figures side by side: a mother and child in a beach chair and a juggler from the post-2020 tokyo olympics celebration. this may or may not be the first in a new series destined to be shown in my CMC ASPEN exhibition, opening at the end of september which, as one of the participants in our meeting yesterday said is “right around the corner.”
i’m still feeling my way along, & likely won’t have a clear direction for another week or so, although i can say with a fair amount of certainty that abstracted figures will play a big part in the new series.
DETAIL of 6-14-22 oil
