The mind is a terrible thing to make up. What does “making up one’s mind” mean, anyway? It could mean, making a decision. However, if one has enough information available, and one’s goals are clear, it should be easy. Problems arise when: one doesn’t have all the needed information and/or one isn’t clear about one’s goals. […]
Once again, I was thumbing through one of my art books about Paul Klee. Of all the drawings I flipped past, Untamed Waters from 1934, stuck in my mind. I tried to find a link to this work, but I could not. This figure, pictured in the book as black and white, contains a multitude of lines, […]
I really like to write. I’m comfortable writing about myself, my feelings, my inspirations, my goals, my, my, my… I would love to be able to write fiction. A nice story. The kind of story I would like to read, a story I could get lost in. I wasn’t feeling too good about this the […]
I just finished Joyland by Stephen King. I am usually a slow reader, easily distracted by ambient sounds, an itch in my left ear, stray thoughts and shiny objects (for example, “Oh look, a chicken!”). However, reading this book was like a hot knife through butter (or budda, as I like to say). To praise Stephen […]
My daughter Bethany has an idea for a book. She asked if I would like to illustrate it for her. I was delighted to accept the assignment. The first photos arrived shortly after I agreed. There is a wonderfully sinewy, slightly shaggy-barked tree in front of her house. She sent me several snaps of it […]
It is a pretty universal desire to want someone else to know exactly how one feels. By the same token, many people would love to know, to feel, exactly what someone else is feeling. This is the definition of empathy. But empathy – to truly feel what another individual is feeling – is impossible. The […]
It dawned on me today. My creative process over the past few days amounts to the equivalent of an interactive Rorshach Test. Yesterday, I started out by painting swirls of metallic and iridescent paints and after spending time with them, added to them. The end result was a coherent portrait of sensory input to a human […]
Joy and I were just watching the first episode of the updated Cosmos, starring Neil deGrasse Tyson. Dr. Tyson is really inspiring, as much so or even more that Carl Sagan, the author of the original Cosmos series. I never tire of the story about how all the elements arose from the furnace of the […]
Today’s experiment: The combination of two factors is responsible for today’s experiment. First, there was a sale at a local art supply store. Daniel Smith, the watercolor manufacturer, has a line of luminescent watercolor pigments, which I decided to try. The second factor that inspired today’s sketch is my recent purchase of a couple of […]
I haven’t looked at much artwork up close for quite a while. I love a lot of the work of my fellow bloggers, but mostly I look at them on the small format of my phone. The ideal way to view visual art is in person: at galleries or museums. Sad to say I don’t […]
