Ruby with Broken Leg, 2

12 inches, square oil on board

Hurting and on drugs! Awful. Cast comes off Wednesday.

I'm using different brushes, old ones, even though I have new bushes with perfect edges...trying to save them for the last bit of the painting when I need precision, and possibly taking care of them better so they laaaaassst. So - working with the old brushes makes me draw more and simplify shapes, I'm surprised how helpful this is. Also out of paint and having to substitute, for instance Naples yellow for yellow ochre -- a world of difference, but I am getting better acquainted with what can happen. It's so wonderful to be painting, OY!

Ruby with a Broken Leg

Back in the saddle at last.  12 x 16 inches, oil on panel.

Maren with Bow, 8 in square, oil on panel

This was done from a Christmas photograph, and so -- many challenges, oy! In particular, the edges, some merged and some stingingly clear against the dark. I looked at lots of portraits for help, or permission, or whatever jolt forward I could get hold of.  Some of the most helpful were: Jennifer Balkan, Suzanne du Toit, Frank Duveneck, and the most awe inspiring that brings me to my knees, Rembrandt's Portrait of a Girl in a Gold Braided Coat. That painting is so amazing it makes me afraid to paint anything.  Best to ration your exposure, like look at it at night, and then there will be some hours before you are at work again.

SP, Blow 12 x 16 inches oil on panel

My intentions were to go for color, and worse still, pattern in the background. As I got going it seemed that the folds of my nightgown, which I had tied around my head, made a busy enough area, so I let it go.  Maybe you have to hold the intention of pattern in your head in a strong way and not let the painting take you where you are not wanting to go, maybe even do the pattern first and outsmart yourself.

For years I have been trying to figure how to do Van Gogh, how to have the color and the form too.There is a majesty  about  just the skin itself  that might supersede color, maybe you have to give first importance to the skin until you get weary of it, and then you can go for the color. Might be a good problem for exercises.  I have a little postcard of a baby's head by V.G. in my studio, the whole thing is mint green, the baby AND the background, and it is just jaw dropping good.  There are not that many paintings of babies that I remember as good, or remarkable,  but his are always positively gripping.

Eye Surgery. 16 x 10 inches, oil on canvas paper

It is what it is.

How many times I have thrilled, I mean really gasped out loud --  to see that line that Freud can paint on the top of the lower eye lid. It is usually pinkish or reddish, it gleams on the edge of that flap of flesh that embraces the lower part of the eye,  and all the complexity of the eye ball and lids pass into my understanding, and also its aliveness, its wetness.  I am waiting for that day to come for me. I have painted it, and wiped it out 10 thousand times. Maybe his models had more protruding eyes,  his lights were better, they all had allergies.....I don't know the answer. I wanna see that line and paint it and have it work.

Drawing Class Christmas Cookies: 3x2 inches, royal icing on sugar cookies

Another year under the belt.  These are my offering to the drawing group Christmas bash, at which there are multiple models to draw from and plenty of food and drink. Ah, Los Angeles...

Mug shot 106: Casper (Oil on linen, 16 x18 inches)

Although I have not posted at all since May I have been painting consistently but wiping most of them.  This one though is a commission and I used real linen and worked larger, life size -- so I knew I had to  take the painting all the way to the finish line.  That  sort of altered the way I tackled it.  Also I did a few preliminary oil sketches to get familiar with everything and  had a wee bit more confidence when I got down to business.  I just loved his face, his  level gaze. And the plaid, the plaid!

Portrait of A. After a Bad Haircut, Mugshot 105 (12 inches square)

This one was touch and go. A.had just got a bad haircut and was very upset, crying, and her nose and eyes were red and swollen. I was immediately in a hurry to get it down ( and yet not seem heartless)  but keep her in her engorged state as long as possible.

Mugshot 104: Portrait of the Immigration Lawyer (12 x16 inches oil on panel)

This is the nicest guy ever, the guy you would want to be your lawyer if you HAD to have one. He attends  the same drop in life drawing session I go to, and agreed to let me shoot him under the model's light -- which as you can see is extreme from the top down, a very friendly situation for painting. There was a painting on the wall  behind him which I took out and then put back because  -- well, this guy can really draw and yet is a lawyer, and I think all lawyers should have to take some life drawing classes along the way and learn to see human beings with some tenderness, and when I am dictator.....
But really, this painting is all about the plaid shirt.

Still Life With Plates, 36 inches square, oil on canvas

This started out in realism and finished itself in abstraction, my old home.

I  have a thing about plates, dishes --- I love them. Also fun to work biggish  again, to really swing the arm and use fat brushes and palette knives and work in a frenzy, collapse into a chair and evaluate for a couple of hours. Realism is  a different way of working (for me so far), a lot of technical stuff (and some of it crap I think, but which?)  needs to be established and then I think, transcended. Oy, I don't know the answers.

Mugshot 102: The Italian (12 x 12 " oil on panel)

Well, I have been doing a lot of painting but no posting because I have been taking a class with Joseph Todorovitch and learning new stuff, therefore I've been in that in-between place where nothing is any good, nothing really resolved because, well, the whole experience rocked my world.
I recently decided I would finish everything up, starting from the left off place of not knowing what to do, and just taking the whole thing gently but firmly to its logical end. New stuff seeps in somehow,  but it's the old bicycle thing, all the parts working smoothly without wrenching effort, and then you're simply riding, fantastic
Do more painting is the thing to do, and make more of an effort to paint for pleasure. So in these paintings next up,  it's what I did for fun.

Mugshot 101: Mario/The Nose

I've done this motif several times, trying to work my way through it, to learn about the space, color, landscape (aaaugh!) clouds, lots of new things, but fun things. This still isn't what I want...I wanted something that is  more abstract and modern in regard to color and space. Still this was fun to execute. And I can see better what the problems are that must be dealt with in the planning stages. Upper one is mine and the lower is by Piero della Francesca, known in Italy as "The Nose". Correct title is: Portrait of Federico da Montefeltro, c. 1485.

Puppy

I got overwrought on a portrait and had to stop and do something fun, or else cut everything up with a chain saw and be done. Hence, this one, 6 x 6 inches, Chihuahua mix -- so feminine.

Mug Shot: Italian Boy

This is 8 x 10 or so, oil on board.  His skin was so colorful, pearlescent.  And there was such sweetness in his face. It is difficult for me to recall an American adolescent, or anyone else for that matter, with such an absence of cynicism.  You never really know about these things, even so - beautiful to observe it.

Mug Shot: Boy in Class

This is the second painting of a boy/man in a painting class I took last year. He was indifferent to everything that went on, never brought supplies, borrowed everything from the rest of us, came late or not at all, was emotionless on the surface. And yet, he had a sort of princely thing about him. He was young enough to have softness in his face still. He seemed strongly rooted.

It has occurred to me recently that I have underestimated how long it would take to learn the skills that are necessary for realism - and I don't even want to do photorealism, or any heroic form of realism....just a straightforward realistic take on the beingness quality of  the model - how to state that? - and also to have the physical presence of paint, lots of paint. So now that I realize I had that (ridiculous) goal, of thinking I would reach a level of competence and could go on to other issues, maybe I will have more room, more ease in the process of doing it. Maybe be more r-r-r-r-r-relaxed.

Italian Babies (Gaya)

With Maria Lassnig in my heart, I am soldiering on, looking for a way to use color differently and also psychological acumen rather than precision. Although, of course, it would be very fine to also have precision.

Practice plums 1 6x8 inch oil on panel

I have another jam jar label to do a painting for, so I have done a couple of warm ups. In Italy when the season is finished for something there is no more of it to be had, so I thought to brush up on plum while there still are some.

Self Portrait in Black Hat 1

9x12 oil on canvas

Because I am taking a class from a figure drawing association where they teach you how to draw and paint like Rembrandt, and all their work looks like a Rembrandt, and who doesn't like Rembrandt?, and even if you don't want to paint like Rembrandt, you want to know the method so you can do your own thing hopefully at that level ... anyway, all this pressure is making me want to paint like anybody but Rembrandt and to use any palette but his. So I whipped out my splurge tube of Old Holland Veronese green and built myself a palette of this with Winsor red,  Raw Sienna,  Alizarine, Cad yellow, also Ultramarine, and yes even some sap green so I could get a good black. Here's the thing: I'm just going to have to figure out how to do it with color. I can't be making brown paintings. It was exciting to use this fabulous green -- and because I was semi-hysterical overreacting while I was painting I figured out just from vigorous blundering how to tame the green, how to mix it into everything so there was some harmony, but the painting, whatever the quality of the image is, has color that (in my opinion)works, and does not read as brown. Bwa-ha-ha!

Pomeranian Twins

14 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

Here they are, the Pomeranian Twins.  This is the latest addition to the crew of dogs rescued by
the Dallas couple.  A few years ago I copied some paintings of Queen Marianna by Velasquez because I fell in love with (among other things) the steady gaze of the young queen, so grave and patient. The gaze is the same here. And both Queen M. and the Pomeranians had good bling to paint, always fun.

Jean on the Pillow, 2

16 x20 inches,
charcoal on butcher paper

This is another go with the Natrim charcoal. It did not stay up on the surface on this paper as it did on the Mi-tientes so it was hard to manage. With drawing, the paper becomes a concern, how to keep it intact, keep its surface receptive, get the charcoal to come off, not too much, not too little. (Unlike painting, where you can happily work the surface to death, scrape it down, still viable.) This is a different method of drawing than I have used before, because only the big shapes are established in the beginning, so there is a lot of adjusting and fitting pieces together while the charcoal is still light. Maybe everyone draws this way, I don't know.  It's certainly an easier way to quickly get the whole figure in proportion. But there's a guy in my drop in life drawing class who starts with the tip of the model's thumb and moves the entire figure out from that point, everything in its perfect place ---aaaugh! Well --
crawl, walk, run, I say.