studio saturday

okey dokey. Sometimes this process of evaluating every weekend through pictures is a little discouraging because it seems like everything goes so slowly. But there has been some stuff to look at:

wall number one, the changes are not so easy to see. I’ve started refining bits of paintings. (that’s why there is tape on the wee panel, it is marking progress)

wall one

There was really nothing different with wall 2 so I decided to take two pictures of wall three instead where the most progress happened this week. I finished drawing in the top left panel and below and to the right of that, I got a study going of a city knot. I plan to do a big one on paper, but it is very hard for me to imagine the ins and outs of forms that move through space, like a knot, so I thought I would start small with just buildings.  Get my brain working. Trying to get things to look correct and not get confused about how the strands entwine in space is not easy for me.  Perspective, blah.

Wall 3 left.

I see the light in this picture is kinda crappy. I got a little panel going and the panel below that one has a drawing I don’t like on it. That will probably just get erased. I drew in one panel sitting on the floor-I’ve always wanted to paint holes, (kind of the opposite side of my attraction to pile forms) but could never figure out ways that made sense. so I was pleased with myself when I woke up with this idea. We will see how it turns out.

wall 3 right

this week I’ve been listening to The Color Purple(the audio book, not the movie) by Alice Walker,

Crime Beat [a Decade of Covering Cops and Killers]By Michael Connelly, The Murder of the Century,

and The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized A City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars by Collins, Paul. There was some really interesting bits about how much yellow journalists used to interfere with crime investigation. yikes.

studio sunday.

whoops! Forgot to update yesterday because my sister Beth is in town. We went to see George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic. At least I remembered today. I would hate to destroy the alliteration. It would have to have been retitled My bad Monday, or Tragically too Late on Tuesday.

Anyways, what have I been doing this week? Lets see. Wall number one: This week I have been blocking in paintings. The first layer of paint. The oranges, magentas and greens living together on the small panel I started on the top row make me queasy. That painting is going to get a color overhaul. I moved a bridge on the bridge painting. Although tricky, I believe it is a lot easier than moving a bridge in real life.   I have been using some product from Cheap Joes’s called a paint eraser which is a sponge that will strip the paint off the panel. Maybe all sponges do this but this cool little sponge has been useful. It looks a lot to me like the Mr Clean magic  eraser. Maybe it is made out of the same stuff. You have to be careful though because it will take all the paint off even the stuff that has been there since I started the bridge painting a year ago.

Wall number one

Wall number two has been inert this week. Just hey! cats!

Wall number two

and yup, I finally sent off the commission to Chicago and have more room to work with on wall number three. It is not too impressive except the daunting amount of white space. Well, and stripes. I did not put the stripes on the wall, they were here when I moved in. It just seemed like someone worked so hard on them, I couldn’t paint over them. Lately though, I’ve been pondering painting the wall white or off white just for a change. I’ve been here for about 9 years. That is a lot of years of stripes.

Wall number 3

This past week I’ve been watching the Golden Girls. It reminds me of watching tv with my mom when I was a kid. Also went through Barney Miller and  finally make the connection that Shepherd Book on Firefly was played by Ron Glass who was a detective on Barney Miller. Good times. I need some interesting audio books.

 

studio saturday again

Okay, I did make some progress since last week, although it’s not the sort of dramatic progress that people shriek at on reality tv- such as “oh my god, you demolished my house and replaced it with a giant igloo! wow!!!” It’s more skeleton progress, things to build on. Not that you should build on skeletons. Didn’t any of you guys see Poltergeist? I guess I am thinking more of an underlying structure. 

This week I have been working on getting a few different paintings going, and most of my progress has been made on the small panels and paper pieces on wall 1. I did some underdrawings and began blocking in one piece on paper. The little bridge panel is giving me pains in the butt because I am revisiting a panel I gave up on a year ago and reworking it. I always think,” hey this will finish fast because it’s already started and underway!” But it’s like trying to squish your foot in a weirdly shaped shoe when you are working around old thoughts on a piece. Things never quite fit like you thought they would. And there’s a lot of unpleasant chafing. oh well. 

 

wall 2, the only progress is that I rough sketched another small panel.

(and moved my lobster anomalies.)

 

Wall three is looking all lonely and neglected this week. It looks exactly the same as last week, except that I think my tacked up paper rolls unraveled about a half an inch. Just think, at that rate the paper will flatten itself in 1.86 years. I did get the crate for the commission and so next week this wall will look different either which way any other progress goes. 

Don’t wake up Wanda! Hopefully next week I will have a studio chock full of more progress to report. Until then!

studio saturday

Okay, I am going to try a new habit. hopefully it will stick. People often ask me how long it takes me to do a painting or if I work on things one at a time or what.  Because I don’t track my time and often have no idea what day of the week it is no matter how many calendars and clocks with the day of the week are in front of me,  I usually just guesstimate.

Well I am now in the beginning stages of putting together a show (in May)and thought I would open it up and show whats on my studio walls  every Saturday.  So you (my mom) can follow the process and  I will be able to track how much I actually get done in a week, and how long I can keep my studio tidy. (that is a recent thing) Perhaps we will also see if Wanda experiences any weight loss.

here we go. click on the pictures to enlarge.

wall one, Feb 2

wall 2, Feb 2

Wall 3, Feb 2

and just so you can see that I wont be ripping you off, I submit wall 4, which does not include any art. So I wont update you on that one, unless I change my blinds or something really exciting is going on outside.

Wall 4, mostly windows.

Hopefully I can turn all these blank or almost blank panels and papers with post it notes on them into actual paintings in time for the show. Woo! the exciting life of the artist! If i think of it, and it isn’t too embarrassing, I can also tell you what I’ve been listening to/watching this past week while working. This past week was:

audio books: S’mother, by Chester Adam, (not bad-kind of entertaining but kind of sad) and The power of habit, by Charles Duhigg (a lot of interesting tidbits about how marketers  (among other entities) use our habits and habit forming practices for us and against us) and Moonlighting, season 3. I loved this show as a kid, and still enjoy it now, and it’s funny how much more aligned I am now with Maddie in my thinking.