When my daughter was very young, with a very serious face she asked, “Daddy, why do you hold a big stick in your studio?” To a child, the most question-provoking thing about the studio was my homemade maulstick. You can see my maulstick in this photograph. It’s resting against a 40″ x 52″ painting (the…
Utrecht flak white continues to surprise me with its good performance. Considering its modest price, it’s a good value. I am using it throughout this painting titled The Fair. It covers well and handles crisply. When thinned it retains strong covering strength. An excellent flake white. I ordered another tube this morning. I’ve just started…
I am painting three new canvases that fit the bigly category. Big for me, is 4′ x 5′ or thereabouts. In the preceding weeks, I was drawing bigly too–working on the drawings for the new work. Here is a studio shot of the three biglies. Two of them are 4′ x 5′ and the other…
…but it’s all wrong… So the song goes. This is a painting that I turned to the wall for a long time as I tried to work out what was bothering me about it. I do this frequently when I hit a wall. I put the painting aside and think about it. Sometimes solutions come…
Crossing is part of the Main Street Series. I had several long sessions with it just now but I have no idea when I might finish it. Soon I hope. There are 17 figures or parts of figures in the 44″ x 60″ space. Every figure is well below lifesize. I am working on the…
I’m a little tired this evening so I’ll keep this diary entry brief. Fork, after 4-5 sessions, is moving out of the under-painting stage. I restrict the under-painting to thinly-applied darks and local colors, which preserves the drawing. I spend a lot of time on the drawing. Other news: I plan a video review of…
I completed the under painting today for Fork. Fork is 54″ 66″. Even if you’re not familiar with my blog, you can probably see that the painting is still a long way from the finish line. The lights nearly everywhere are from the thinnly-covered gray ground. Next session I start the over-painting; adding full-bodied lighter…
I had good painting sessions with Fork. The painting is so large, 4.5 x 5.5 feet, that I started painting portions of it before I completed all parts of the drawing. Today I completed the drawing and pushed the under painting farther along. There are 12 figures in the narrow space and even though they’re…