I've been working sporadically during all this time of no posts, mostly on a large portrait of Jerry Garcia, which has been reworked and reworked probably to the point of death. Every experience has its learning curve and this one has made me literally go back to the drawing board. This is what this painting has taught me so far: don't begin a color painting with an unsatisfactory black and white photograph, do an excellent drawing before starting to paint, do a small study decide what style the painting will be in and then stick to it, don't combine different photos on the spur of the moment, or in the heat of battle, don't switch to student grade paints because the painting is large and you are a cheapskate. As you can tell I made quite a few mistakes and the painting has been a battle pretty much all the way. And I spent a ton of time on it. So... angst and performance anxiety abound and inhibit.
When not struggling with that stupid portrait, I watched a bunch of inspiring videos on painting. One of my favorite artists is Scott Noel, whose work I've been following for years at the Gross Mcleaf Gallery in Philidelphia and one day as I was trolling the wonderful blog Art Odyssey, I found his work and a video by John Thorton, who's made a bunch of great art videos, and then I found more videos, etc. I found a new brilliant artist to love named Vincent Dessedario, who paints from an apparently photographic memory. Thank you John Thorton. You can check out his videos here:
John Thorton
Last week I took a fabulous workshop in Barque drawing at the Southern Atelier with Charles Miano, Elizabeth Jenness-Burge and Mandy Hallenius. Check out the Southern Atelier here:
Southern Atelier
As I said earlier, I've literally gone back to the drawing board. I bought a set of the plates and the book and I'm going to do the course! I'll have an add on blog for the drawings. I've always struggled with drawing and lately, I'm tired of fixing drawing mistakes in an otherwise decent painting. So that's my long winded story of why there are no posts. I did do a nutcracker painting, which I'll post later, need to photograph it.
Merry Christmas!
