Studio Favorite!

I generally have Pandora going while I work in my studio; somehow this tune pops up when I'm playing my "Magnetic Fields" station.  I jump all around hoping nobody is watching through the big windows. This is the Pogues, "Tuesday Morning".

Adult content!

So, maybe I should but the adult content warning page on this?

Charcoal and oil

While speaking with an artist acquaintance last week the subject of working in a series became part of our conversation.  For whatever reason I have chosen to work on individual pieces with a rather random, perhaps whimsical approach.  The fellow I was speaking with offered a suggestion that I think I might try to implement.  He offered that if I were to choose a subject and purchase a sufficient quantity of paper or canvas I'd have an easier time and an opportunity for efficiency in the work.  He offered that many gallery directors prefer to exhibit a series of related works.  That certainly sounded reasonable.  So, I think I am going to work on that.  Maybe I'll start with 25-30 or so sheets of exceptional paper, lots of really good charcoal and a few soft pastel sticks.  

Near Bullit Reservation

Oil on canvas board c. 18" x 20".  Took me a long time to do this; lots of changes, particularly color arrangements, brush stroke or paint application decisions, fighting myself about realism, representation and abstracting details.
The change of seasons seems to be running in our direction here so it seemed appropriate to post it.  Finished it last month.

Work in Progress

For me, a massive oil.  I keep looking and wondering if I can do it.  36" x 48"; maybe a half-dozen times to the canvas, including almost eight hours yesterday....and I'm absolutely unsure of where I am headed with it.  So far, not too frustrating.  Not sure about it but I'm "listening" and for the most part enjoying the search for balance and tempo.

Finding more lines

Finding the lines and finding the image

Green River/watercolor and ink/c. 5"x5"

I've been reading a biography of Marc Chagall over the summer. How I could have waited so long to know more about him, his family and his work?!!  Jackie Wullschlager, the author, puts the Chagalls in the room with me as I read and brings to life a period in history reverberating to this day.  
As with any individual's observations of another, Wullschlager's choice of which dots to connect might not reveal Chagall's every need or motive but the volume is a spectacular treasure. Paris and Berlin in the 1920's and later, Russia, antisemitism, slippery gallery owners and art patrons, fragile bodies stressed again and again, success in small and large increments, an artist's life intertwined with poets, actors, poverty, wealth, political and social upheaval, religious traditions, philosophical questions.  And within it all the story of the evolution of the art of an expressive painter whose work continues to reveal layer upon layer of the life he knew.
So, I'm channeling Chagall.  I hope he wouldn't be too offended.