Atmospheric 2013-W04

For them who are curious about how the 2013 (non-art) resolutions kicked off, I'll report I did very well with a couple and most excellently procrastinated another two.  I think that's a decent beginning...  after all, if you could bat .500 in the Major Leagues you'd have the world's largest paycheck among non-Sultans.

Thus we transition to one of the art resolutions from last week's blog.  Actually, another one since I already read my allotment in Fear & Art.  With that accomplished I blew the dust off Acuarela Creativa and glanced over the next project, Atmósferas.  Not in the mood to do much translation, I skimmed the overview bits about J.M.W. Turner and the exercise itself but wasn't much motivated by either.

Fortunately, in the variations to the exercise I found inspiration.  Today I worked alternately on the blog entry and on this abstracted landscape study of a gathering storm.  Even before I had gotten very far, I felt this was a theme I could reexamine again and again in the future.  Plus it was fun to pick up the brushes after a three week interlude.

Looking ahead, I guess it would be sensible to translate the Atmósferas chapter and see what it has to offer before I have another go.  In the meantime here is the January version.  Enjoy!

Propuesta 5:  Gathering Storm

Resolute 2013-W03

Among the horde of resolution makers in January am I.  With a twist though.  As a Capricorn I have a January birthday, so I wait for that to pass before I sharpen my pencil and make my list.  I aim for five maybe six resolutions, and in a year's time I'm satisfied if I did well with two and made a decent effort on a couple more.  Happily, 2012 was satisfactory.  Perhaps I should add a couple of art resolutions to the list for 2013?

I'll try to read Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking all the way through.  It's so pithy and inspiring that I keep getting lost in thought every other paragraph and stall out.  So I'll direct my left brain to ration the number of pages versus a number of Saturdays and thus conquer by division.

Next, let's re-up on last year's stated (& failed) goal of exploring non-representational art, and as a precursor to that I will do the next four propuestas in Acuarela Creativa... a nifty Spanish watercolor exploration book gifted to me by the other members of Salon deWinchester.  As the book is written in Spanish, it offers me more than just creative challenges.  ¡Muy bien!

Finally, I'm saying the motto for 2013 is Go Big or Go Home.  I have a number of barely begun projects substantially larger than my normal "big" of 9x12.  (Small) studies for several of them appear in My Gallery.  Foremost of these, a baby painting of one of my nephews.  I've done one of the younger nephew and started executing my plan for the older.  I better hurry and get it done before he's a teenager in 2014!

So, there they are.  We'll see in a year's time how I did and whether they were worthy aspirations.  Meanwhile, my resolution-year doesn't commence until Tuesday the 22nd so while I tinker with something in the studio, here is one of my sketches from the Fall Equinox party at Chicago's iconic Marina City.  I went back to my schoolboy doodling roots, drawing with a ball point pen, and I like the result...  hope you do too.

The Lonely Balcony

Winter Solstice, Belatedly 2013-W02

Despite my contrary prediction in a September post, a group of usual suspects will assemble today for a Solstice Sketching party.  Though I wager not a lot of plein air drawing.  Also defying all reasonable expectations for this, the coldest time of year, it appears our inclement weather will take the form of fog rather than masses of snow, with temperatures perhaps in the 50s.  Crazy~!

We are poised to break some more long-standing snow related records, and I was surprised to read that so far this winter, El Paso Texas has had more snow than Chicago.  And I missed what little we've had as I was in (snowy) Dallas!  However, with relatively fresh memories of "snowmageddon" a couple of years back I can't say I'm pining for snow.  I'm confident we will see it again and perhaps soon.

In any case, since I am off sketching I pulled today's painting from the vault.  I'm proud to say it's my first commission, awarded to me by the boy's mother.  She likes the painting, which I guess is the important result, though I hope you enjoy it too.  Oh, to be that young and exuberant once more!

Luca Laughs

New Tricks 2013-W01

The saying goes, "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" and I agree with that statement but perhaps not in accord with the conventional wisdom.  Many (younger) people probably understand this expression to mean that (we) old dogs are unable to learn new things.  Instead, I believe that you can't teach new tricks to old dogs because (we) old dogs have already seen all the tricks.  Or, in hipster standard punctuation:  Already. Seen. All.

My mother, for example, was adept at keeping on top of the assortment of shenanigans that I and my brothers got up to as kids.  Only later did I come to understand that her tactical advantage came from her years of experience making mischief as a child.  Live and learn.  With that theme in mind, today was more of a learning day than an artful day...

I decided to fuss around with the color green.  Many if not most painters would nod in agreement if I said painting greens is a challenge.  Making green is easy.  Making good greens, not so much.  Although I know some tricks of green, I still have plenty of scope to refine and expand that knowledge.  All of which relates back to my palette makeover from October.  Three must-have greens got restocked, when suddenly I got stalled at a fork in the road.   Should I stick with a couple of pre-mixed green paints I've been using, or switch to two basic green pigments and later mix them into whatever is needed? 

It's a puzzler.   So instead of mulling over a grid of boring swatches, I elected to make this pastoral scene from assorted greens I mixed up using all sorts of stuff.  Everything but purple.  I'm afraid the hideous result proves that "more is less" but regardless, here is today's ghastly assay of green.  (If it's any consolation, I learned some stuff AND I have a good painting in the vault for you to enjoy next week.)  Peace!

Green Exercise

p.s. Somewhere in My Gallery is a another version of this I painted four or five years back.  FYI.