Yesterday I noted that many of my early pictures of my brother Michael happened to feature images of hands as visual elements. Mike is nonverbal, autistic and profoundly retarded. He does not speak, nor does he use gestures to communicate. Mike’s hands are visual elements because of the delicate awkwardness with which he holds them. […]
I’ve taken many photographs of my older brother who is autistic, profoundly retarded and has never spoken. Many of my earlier photographs of him seem to capture hands. Sometimes the hand belongs to him, sometimes my hand is in the picture. Conventional wisdom is that a portrait photograph is about the subject and the photographer. However, […]
Carving nature at it’s joints? Not quite. It took me 18+ days from January 1st, 2013 to get my first post out, but I have completed the past 365 days with a post every day. It’s been great discipline to keep to my schedule and has helped me to keep learning. I made some adjustments […]
I just finished reading about Egon Schiele in Eric Kandel’s book (The Age of Insight, The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind and Brain). Looking at his portraits, many which were portraits of himself, I can see why he is called the Franz Kafka of modern painting. Kandel said, “… Schiele, more than any […]
Original interests I mentioned in an earlier post that I started reading The Age of Insight, The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind and Brain, by Nobel Laureate, Eric Kandel. Part One is entitled, A Psychoanalytic Psychology and Art of Unconscious Emotion. I was hoping that Kandel would discuss art in context of emotions of children and […]
Recent watercolors My watercolors have recently been about the distance between my autistic brother and me. Mike is profoundly retarded, autistic and has never spoken. In addition to the physical distance between us (I’m on the Wes Coast, he’s on the East Coast), there is a communication gap that I have never been able to […]
Much to my surprise, I find myself drawn to the images I construct with latex rubber masking fluid. Even though I swore I would not use this technique again (Last Rubber Image), I can’t seem to help myself. They are a lot of fun to make. Blue to yellow The images below are rather small […]
Thought process Usually I sketch an entire study onto the watercolor block before I paint. As you can see from yesterday’s post, I completed the first half before sketching anything on the other half of the paper. I was a little concerned about discontinuity, but since my barrier studies (Back to Abstract?, Variation, My Niche, […]
… is better than none. Actually, I’ve been working on another in my barrier series. I hope I move on to another subject after a while, but this is a rich vein for me to excavate. The reason for this, is the separation between my older autistic brother and me. In addition to being autistic, […]
For a while I would sketch all the time. I thought it would be cool to use the Moleskin sketchbooks that (they say) famous artists used to scrawl out plans for their masterpieces. I found that sketching, which I assume is a quick version of drawing, helped me to appreciate the subject at which I […]
