Yesterday’s session with Taking Note was my 6th, according to my trusty studio journal. It’s coming along–so far so good. With such a simple design, the drawing has to carry the load. Well, that’s true for all my paintings, but in the more complicated ones there are other things that can make or break them, such as the relationships between objects, areas, colors, and so forth.
The unfinished painting titled ‘Taking Note’ on the easel
As an artist, do you have to love your subject matter? Do your feelings for the subject affect how you paint it? There’s a streak of satire in me. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a cartoonist. Even now, I regularly make satirical drawings and designs, but I’ve learned that those subjects do not sustain me. When a single paintings takes me 12-15 sessions, a satirical subject doesn’t do it for me–I lose interest. I discipline myself to paint only those things that DO sustain me. I am still trying to understand what that is.
My glass palette is sitting on one of my paint cabinets. This one has reds, earths, and whites. I always prepare my colors the same way, with the reds and yellows nearest me (I’m right-handed). That’s why whenever I drag my sleeve through the paint, it’s always the reds, usually cadmium red medium. I don’t know how many shirts I’ve ruined by dragging them through cadmium red. The worst is when I discover the accident only after I’ve soiled everything else around me with cadmium red. It happens with distressing regularity.