I prefer and muted colors lately. I don’t know why I began with the most saturated of saturated colors today. Before I applied the earthy terra rosa, my favorite part of all the colorful arched streaks, was the watery interaction between the purple and yellow pigments. Since purple and yellow are complementary colors, their combination […]
My worry and concern these days is not only for the country but for circumstances closer to home. I used my sketch book today to try gathering my feelings. Today’s painting began as a gestural study. I began with the lightest yellows and drew an outline from my sketchbook. I surrounded it, first with Peacock blue, a saturated pigment, then with […]
Today’s painting is in the abstract style. It represents something very real, and not abstract at all: the fact that each of the days to come has less promise and more ugliness.
As with yesterday’s painting, I also made today’s painting a day before the US election. Its colors are on the red end of the spectrum. I suspect that most of my paintings in the foreseeable future will be more toward the cooler blue end. Not for any political reasons, but rather to portray the emotional imbalance I feel. I […]
I painted this (and named it) before the election. At this point, I don’t know the final outcome, but the fact that the race is so close just breaks my heart, not to mention the unimaginable prospects for the future.
I began with dry paper and a brush loaded with Payne’s gray. I laid down gray squiggles, ending with a diagonal stroke from lower left to upper right. Somehow the gray foreground suggested a yellow background. I used Indian yellow (a pigment tinted toward the orange part of the spectrum) to color in the more […]
You should have seen the first wash of this study. Very subtle contours and graded grays. The second wash was a curtain of gray drips. I decided to add color to the mass of gray, and started with a primary blue gouache. I echoed the gray drips and added a primary red . The red […]
Background for today’s art: Mixed feelings, mainly sadness. The funeral was today. I’m usually very stoic, but surprised myself by the intensity of my emotions about the death of my niece. The kids came up from down south and one gave a heartfelt eulogy about her cousin. At the reception my niece’s sister presented a slide […]
There is an optical effect called the ‘waterfall illusion’. If you have ever watched the credits scroll by at the end of a movie, or scroll a computer screen, and then look at a still picture, it appears to move in the opposite direction. A similar thing happened this morning, when I looked in on […]
Long day. Lots of people over to visit us and our niece. She is sick with cancer and the docs say she does not have long. Don’t know how they know that, but it’s looking like they bay be right. Below is a watercolor which was inspired by today’s events.
