Restarting Slowly

When in doubt draw a pine.  The move is complete, the studio set up again, though now smaller.  Just need to recover the groove of working again.  The above sketch I did yesterday after wandering in the woods in the late afternoon behind where I live now.

Three Urban Sketches

The above are oil on primed paper sketches (top two 9x12 and bottom 11x14).  The top one is Grand near Prospect; middle is Pacific and Grand; and bottom is Underhill towards Pacific, all in Brooklyn.  

Moving

The above sketchbook drawing is from my walk yesterday.  My posts will be more sporadic over the next three weeks, since I am packing up and moving.  I will be limiting myself to drawings.   Not so bad a thing.  Assuming that I am able to photograph them, and have access to the computer.

Bond and Douglass

An 11x14 oil.

Illusion of Butler Near Nevins

A 9x12 charcoal and pastel drawing.

W. H. Auden maintained that "art is an illusion of an illusion" according to Arthur Kirsch in Auden and Christianity.  Art certainly is an illusion.

Butler and Nevins - Disorder Reconfigured

A 9x12 charcoal and pastel drawing.

Richard Rohr in his daily meditation for today writes, "...the pattern of redemption...is evil undone much more than evil ever perfectly avoided.  It is disorder reconfigured in our hearts and minds -- much more than demanding any perfect order to our universe."  I like to think that making art is reconfiguring disorder.  Note that it's still disorder.

Hopper and Greylock

Greylock reminded Melville of Moby Dick, except the mountain was known to him as Saddleback and he saw it from a different direction (from Pittsfield), so he could not see the Hopper.  This is the view from the Sweet Brook Farm, where the alpacas live.  I am going to switch off to other subjects for a while until the season changes at Sweet Brook.  It's a 14x18 oil.  The above view is from earlier this summer.

Entrance

Another 14x18 oil, this time of the entrance to the Sweet Brook Farm.   The entrance is entrancing.  One immediately encounters the Hopper in the distance.

King of the Hill

A 14x18 oil of an alpaca who stands on a rock before a much taller unattainable mountain in the background (Mount Greylock).   A friend asked me yesterday if I was still under the sway of "alpaca madness".  I only have a few more to do.  It's an interesting situation for an artist to have, to take on a self-imposed project, like deciding to run a half-marathon.  There's a point where you have to see it through but it has its lessons.

Back Side

A 14x18 oil of the back side of the barn, with its stacks and sap tank, devoted to making maple syrup.  Not an alpaca in sight.

White and Black

A 9x12 charcoal drawing.  I had the hardest time getting these two to stand still!

Three Alpacas

A 9x12 charcoal and pastel drawing, part of a continuing project.  It's like Degas' dancers and horses, except they're alpacas.

Under and Through the Roof

Another 14x18 oil of the Sweet Brook Farm.  This is the opposite view from the painting below.

Alpacas, Barn Yard and Monet's Taches

Another 14x18 oil painting of alpacas in the barn yard.

I've been reading, among many books, Monet: Nature into Art by John House.   House writes that Monet instructed Lilla Cabot Perry to paint with taches or touches of paint (I call them 'marks'), thus: "When you go out to paint, try to forget what object you have before you, a tree, a house, a field or whatever.  Merely think, there is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact colour and shape, until it gives your own naive impression of the scene before you."

Sweet Brook Farm Alpacas

The top oil painting of alpacas and house is 14x18.  The bottom two 9x12 drawings are charcoal and pastel.  Yes, I am temporarily alpaca nuts.