This is how I want to paint, with the pentimenti. The beauty and poignancy of mistakes is one reason for the power of a work of art. It is why I love looking at drawings, where the thought process is still evident. When I find myself unable to paint it is usually because I am trying to be perfect: an impossible task. If people expect it of you, run.
Painting and Drawing Read More »
So far a lot of bad news this year but hoping for better times ahead for myself, my wife and my friends.
Something Old, Something New, Feeling Blue Read More »
Today I worked on adding color to the figure study
Where we are now, day 2 Read More »
Today was the first day I felt I could work in my studio in many weeks. I began this 16 x 20 inch oil sketch. It is a preliminary study for a larger 30 x 40 inch painting I will be making. The figure in the background and the snake in the foreground are taken from a drawing in the collection of the Princeton University Art Museum. The dog is Sammie, of course, while the figures are models on the Croquis Cafe website. The composition’s subject is how I see things now. That is rather like hell. However, the presence of Sammie, whom I only added towards the end of the workday seems to indicate I am feeling less hopeless. A good sign.
I am happy with this just as it is but I will most likely do more work on the background ‘drawing’
I am loving the colors in the skin tones so far. The figure behind these two men will be a drawn figure, and I am not certain how I will do that. So I am playing it by ear. This painting is 30 x 40 inches.
Painting I am working on now Read More »
A recent portrait and a mythological painting Read More »
This painting was created in response to our perilous political times. We are indeed in the Lion’s Den and though I do believe in a higher force at work, only our common sense will save us. Though it is nice to think that faith alone can be a guiding light, we all see faith so differently, that in the political context it gives less comfort than perhaps it should.
Daniel in the Lion’s Den Read More »
Every time you wear sandals instead of shoes you make yourself vulnerable; you do so if you go barefoot. Why do our bodies make us open to judgement, or worse, attack? Why do we allow ourselves to live inside skins that can be ridiculed, pummeled or desecrated? And after we have been humiliated why do we say “once more, please?” Good questions for which I don’t have the answers. Rather, I choose not to answer. This particular illustrated body is in danger because something has weakened him. His feet being exposed seems to be the least of his problems.
When I first learned about Caravaggio, one of my professors talked about why the artist painted a figure’s dirty feet. These dirty feet showed that the painter used every-day people to represent Jesus’s disciples. The gutter was brought into a work of art. Low meets High. The art of Caravaggio is for the masses and about the masses. Those feet demonstrated that Caravaggio came from a world that was decided on the streets. This is very different than the figures seen in Rubens: those lush, bathed and neatly quaffed figures more at home in the Courts of Kings and Queens.
This is where I am with the most recent painting. Perhaps I have overworked these feet already, and I am feeling a bit insecure about that.
Of Feet and Vulnerability Read More »
