This is a botched "image" - bad scan with off color and part of image cut off, but I thought I would post something....I do wish it were better quality.

The print is 8 by 10 inches. Original graphics is here. The reference to pain killers is that I had broken a rib, slipped and landed on my iPod.

An iPod is tougher than bone, sometimes. iHurt, therefore iAm.

Close up from this "painting:"



BTW, please go to Sue's blog to see the Mandalas she created sampling one of my quilts. I respect her art and I would blush if it were more manly. It's here. I am very very happy to collaborate with gifted artists in our community. I am so happy to have met you. Thank you, Sue.

Also, Kris yesterday also gave me a "Day" award. It is a great honor and I want to acknowledge her site, her art and her will. Go here to experience her positive energy, her resourcefulness and her wit. She also taught me how to spell clairvoyance (ok, I fixed it with spell check). Thank you, Kris. Someday a mon.key.

Create. Comment. Enable.

Andrea of The Artful Eye had the wise suggestion that I try to salvage something of the paintings for which the scanned images were botched - she suggested aptly that I make a jambalaya.

Fearing some of you might be allergic to shellfish, I am starting with an appetizer - three thin slices of seared blackened red fish on a bed of seasoned okra. Mind you, the colors are off. But you get a sense of "stage two" of my process.





Here is the original image without paint - the print I manipulated was an 8 by 10 C-Print and mostly Golden acrylics were used. The paint was added to the photo print last June when I was working with a Broadway dancer to do a possible show. Project was abandoned, for the good actually.

I have about ten good "paintings," many are 11 by 14, but I feel I would do much better work today.

Seascape

Painted small seascape on canvas - beach scene from water looking towards land. Great water and sky. Moves well. Very content with it. Scared to mess up pic by adding flying birds - terns or gulls. Might do so soon then varnish it....

Starting another small canvas of a great blue heron. This is the bird I have painted most often over the years. It is the bird that hooked me on birding many years ago in Brigantine Wildlife Refuge on a perfect early May day. Saw it up close through inexpensive binoculars. It struck, caught a large fish and then swallowed it.

Beautiful moment - like watching Nature show on PBS.

I have not done any collage paintings in a few weeks.

Monday, Monday (my real 200th post - if you exclude drafts)

Today on Broadway near 43rd Street there was a professional high end film crew set up - apparently Eddie Murphy was going to film there. Two very large cameras and lights. Not three guys from Eastern Europe making a bad NYC documentary. Up the same block there was a 40 gallon plastic tub filled with Poland Spring water bottles, sitting on ice. Finding this unattended tub very odd, I looked down the side street and there was a catering truck unloading twenty feet away.

My first paranoid thought was "tainted water - bio terrorism," and then I saw truck and thought, "the dumb caterers will lose their water." Then I saw woman dressed for work walking with a friend and she grabbed a bottle and opened it and started drinking it, walking slowly uptown. Did she think she was in marathon race and getting free liquids?

Apparently she is not a paranoid like me and became much better hydrated that minute. Glad to be paranoid, and thirsty.

Here in NYC the motto on subway system is "if you see something, say something." It is not "if you see a water bottle, drink something...."

At home finished all prints to paint. Started on 9 by 12 canvas a simple landscape wit much sky. Need to figure out how to proceed. Progress, goals, focus have shifted.

Tonight on PBS - "The Power of Art." Watch. Drink. Experience.

Less is More

I finished last 11 by 14 print this AM - painting highlights on photographic print - pigment complements manipulated photo and does not overtake it.

This has been the process on last three prints - the first by miracle. And now I am out of prints (there is a poor quality print somewhere made at 1 hour photo shop - cannot locate it, too disorganized, I am) ....not sure where to go from here.

All of them are quality.

My 200th Post

Completed another painting last night - 8 by 10 and this on has the least amount of paint ever - the pic was prepared in Microsoft Paint very well and now only has highlights and additions. Very subtle, yet elegant.

Less is more. Happy - no, the word is "content." Only have one 11 by 16 left - most work has been good. Then I am done with printed images of former model. Will need to close the Rubicon, then.

Everyone I have shown work to has liked it. Very good response.

Oh, well....

Today walking to office and near Rockefeller Center saw fit tall blond woman on bicycle with braided hair. Wearing short clingy light blue and white sun dress and no helmet. The dress flowed as she sped by on her bike. She looked like a trim strong goddess on the way to a Swiss Alps beach (a non sequitor, understood). Simply lovely sight, yet suicidal.

You have to be insane to bicycle in midtown during rush hour.

Stovetop

It is ironic when the best light in my house for painting is the light over the kitchen range. So that is where I look at my paintings, before and after.

Right now on stove is small blue heron on canvas board that I am trying to "bring to life" (it is looking better), the shadows 11 by 14 that is valid, an 8 by 10 that for first time ever is a balance between photo and paint! A little gem and in executing it I have made a boring color quite glorious.

Good news - a little more night vision.

A VERY NICE LITTLE MIRACLE. And created without emotional commitment - painting has feelings, but grounded in artistic sensibility. It all happened like in a minor trance. Whole new way...zombie cool.

Happier.

Been painting (and not been working on the railroad)

Large problematic 11 by 14 was cut (cropped) into two pics. God bless the straight edge and the Xacto knife. Determined this on rail road car going home Friday evening. Minor epiphany - most important since if I follow it not all pics will be same size or even standard sizes.

For most part in the past I worked full frame - pure and conceptual regarding artitic preconception of final image at exposure. I am breaking more rules, many more, since started collage manipulations....less rigid. More opportunistic.

Art should be opportunistic but not rote. Liberating. Enabling.

Worked and completed another 8 by 10 and close to finishing another 8 by 10 and another 11 by 14. Very productive number of evenings. Using palette knife more and blending colors. Determining ways - more efficiently - to create graceful arcs, etc. Many etc's.

Some days you have to feel like a kid the morning you are going back to Disneyland.

This AM I await a train and am starting a glorious Friday. Warm and a wee humid with all the promise of capri pants and summer fashion. Other than Christmas Day and winter birds, I take a June day anytime over winter.

So, tonight I intend to paint. Continue with current 8 by 10, going lightly. Maybe I will throw more paint at overworked 11 by 16 and then maybe cut it up for use for collage scraps. There must come a point where you throw in the towel with bad work as well as with "black hole like sucking" aquaintances.

Adding physical collages to computerized collages is intriguing.....

Yesterday I walked through the south end of central Park and there were foreigners there with stands to do charcoal or pastel portraits. Some examples looked good. poor artists - creating momentoes for tourists - either of kids and of women the buyer is tring to impress. I am saddened to see artists doing this - more so than other street performers since these portrait makers just sit there waiting for a client. A musician plays while waiting, hoping someoned drops something in the hat. Music is so much more social than are the fine arts.

No jamming while I create. In fact, I do not like to talk or interact while I paint. Not lonely, but alone.

Makes sense? Ahh, it is a glorious Friday.

Update Re Work in Progress

Started on 8 by 10 print - light touch. Very heavy touch on my third 11 by 14 - the one that was problematic. Too busy and black and white portions destroyed by colors.

Do not think it can be saved. May cut up and use to make collage of a collage print.

Need permanent glue.....cool day in Manhattan. Will be out tonight. If I work it will be very late and portfolio case will stay at office tonight.

Paintings. iPods, thinking (or the lack thereof)

One painting just came together last night - methodically then magically. Turning tricks into miracles.

Another painting is laborious - could have been done but lacked "magic." Cannot have inferior work. Problem is the focus is in black and white and rest in now color and the color blows away the monochrome portions....Also two equal images on same plane.

So that one sucks, a wee bit and will either be pulled out or destroyed, not given away.

On way to work today walking up Seventh Ave my iPod stopped. Now fixed, reset. But at the time the first thing I noticed was how much energy music gives me. Then the next thing I noticed fifteen minutes later is that suddenly I was thinking. Thinking thoughts about the day, life, relationships, whatever.

So iPod is kind on an earful of drugs. Always felt isolated but it is also isolating even from one self. Like me always wanting to read a book, watch TV and have the stereo on. Cannot think - like a sedative. I crave not thinking too much. Escaping. Art. gardening. Birding. Looking.

OK, enough for today. Keep painting. Keep loooking. Maybe think some more.

Lipstick art, or not

Worked and completed second 11 by 14 image. Have not varnished either that is "done" - taking it slow since these are for my portfolio to show to NY galleries. Extra pressure, pressure for the first time actually.

Could have started another one, but did not want to tempt acrylic fate.

Did not fall to the seduction of my metallic oil pastels - such immediate gratification, then so ephemeral (easily disturbed or ruined by touch - like harder lipstick).

I will start third image soon - old habit tells me to work on an 8 by 10, but needs to be larger.

Wish I owned camera good enough to photograph finished paintings. Someday. Too many other commitments.

This is the unpainted image.

Yogurt, cause effect and weekend

Think had bad yogurt - felt awful starting Wednesday evening, out on Thursday and Friday.

Painted and finished one 11 by 14 this weekend - second half done (reworked ) - not sure if I can pull it out. Slow dance with myself.

First painting is kind of psychedelic - I love those sixties posters.

Second one is not great - not bad. Issue is split composition - hard to work with two equal images on same plane - it is a fine composition unaltered and that might be problem. Hard to create movement with two static elements - might need to sacrifice or weaken one....

Computer alteration is part of the process but it is seductive and always tempted to make it stunning.

What is sometimes amazing is how it has to get worse before better. But you never know. Like working on the bomb squad.

All I know is that I am happiest when successfully creating, alive and aware ... .... .... ... extra ellipses for effect.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - wanting Friday

Monday - no, Tuesday. But posted on Wednesday.

Perfect start of the work week.

I took number of fast snapshots and couple are good. My oldest son is developing an eye - he saw the photo of the dogwood and van and said, "That is good.". There was a pause and he then said, "You take photographs that look like paintings."

Worked and "completed" third painting of the three sisters. Funny, not funny really, but each pic has had a lighter touch. Needed to do because keeping first two.

Need two get more good paints at Pearl - reds and greens and metallic. All expensive. Will start working on 11 by 14's. 8 by 10 are too small.

Doing (painting) same image three times was good exercise. Learned a bit of what worked and did not. For example, in third painting I left white areas untouched. Dress rehearsals and each pic different enough so that I am not just going through the motions.

Reading on train, walking to work, need to go back to MOMA. Listening to Yo La Tengo. Interesting.

quote of the day ("...that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too.")

Given this quote to read -

W. H. Murray in The Scottish Himalaya Expedition, 1951. There the text apparently goes:

'But when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money--booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!'

Tale of two paintings

Same image - computer manipulated photo of three sisters when younger. Eight and by ten size prints on C photo paper. The first one I started on I used a light touch and then I went past margins with the paint (tactical error) and so to save it the pic got heavy and then heavier . Meaning more paint and less of original image. A vicious cycle not unlike lust. Sometimes whatever you do just drags you down deeper.

So the first pic was heavy and I did a lighter one and stayed light and within the frame and then somehow I pulled it out and the pic is so magical I cannot give it away. It is a sort of template. Balance between transformed pic and the paint. Magical.

So for two days I have been trying to save heavier pic and everything I did made it worse, then better, then worse. Like a bad roller coaster ride. I know sometimes it get really bad and then you pull it out - like delivering a baby.

So I am working and my wife says - that is horrible, throw it out and I am like thinking - thanks for the vote of confidence. So she makes me work harder not to destroy but to remove or blunt many elements and suddenly it pops out....slow motion like a car crash (all senses alive) nicely. So quick yest so slow.

The high point of my day. I look at it and melt. It is good, which makes me want to laugh (not because funny, but because I am charmed).

It is this feeling as much as anything that makes me crave to create. All day I did mundane things like clip hedges,m take trash to the dump but what I was going to do to the pic was always on my mind....

But I like the second one with a light touch even better. The one I would keep.

Spelling lesson

Long Island railroad had switch problems and getting home was frustratingly slow this Friday evening. Wish I had not forgotten my new book or bought 250 ml of a Cabernet. Listened to the New Pornographers on my iPod and they did not blow me away, old pornography apparently was (is?) more original and inspired.

Train finally moved and rolled. Friday was a hot day - first of the year, really. I so wanted it to be warm and now it is here. Smells like the beach and summer fashion is in full swing out there. I enjoy all the seasons, but tolerate winter the most. Spring and summer. Baseball and all things beautiful.

Worked late Thursday night on painting of the three sisters. Lot of image painted over. Looked promising. Finished it tonight and got up in the middle of the night to varnish it. Looks quite dashing. Hard to give it up.

Some paintings you do and do not mind when they are gone - like those done specifically for a gallery show. Others have a bit of our heart beat in them, or your tears, or your laughter, or your sleepy mind (as I feel at 4 AM as I write this).

My fingers are a bit sticky - the clear varnish does that to them. Yet, I enjoy the chemical smell and how my hands are slightly gummed by the varnishing process. Varnishing is like delivering the baby. Or like when a baby turns two months old and suddenly it smiles.

Once a pic is varnished colors pop out and it is like being young and in love.

Three day weekend. Looking forward to it. Manic male mockingbird is singing in triplets outside. Endless and rabid.

How do you spell insomnia?

Photo Opportunities

If what I am doing are base collages, I need close up lens to photograph elements.

The wedding collages and painting are striking and honestly the photos provided were just excellent snapshots.

What I work with does not need to be perfect photos - they need to have material I can manipulate.

This morning walking to train I saw the most splendid bright pansies in a storefront pot - dark purple pansies mixed other pansies with pale warm white washed flowers with delicate precise purplish veins. Beautiful in early morning light. Morning light is by far my favorite.

Those pansies were moment's visual delight. Might well be the visual highlight of my day.



My pansies were better than these - much better. Inferior eye candy.

Collages, losses and a song

I have been examining the collages I have made via MS Pant et al. Collage - this is the best description - and I believe my work is valid. Every layperson I have shown them to has made positive comments, other than those few that do not like "modern art."

I need to take the C prints I have made and paint on them - create a portfolio and then shop a minimum of eight to galleries. Size will be 11 by 14, maybe a few smaller.

Finally see the "altered forest" for the trees.

The idea that the images all have to be of one model might seemed necessary until today. Have to develop alternative strategies. Still needs to be tied in - you need a gimmick (bad word). Theme, let's call it.

I wish I were paid to think.

Read an interview by Croatian born actress forced to leave home and career due to civil war. She holds a Buddhist view that "life is a series of losses." Funny, but just when I wrote quote regarding life and losses, a song started on my iPod with snappy refrain that "you can close your eyes and never be alone."

Life is a series of iPod songs, sometimes.

Take advantage of opportunities and accept and appreciate gifts and wonders before they are lost.

New Prints, Music, Maybe, Always (Never Mind)

Picked up more 11 by 17 prints - look good. Need time to paint them up.

Been listening to music - best "record" I have heard in a while is Lucinda Williams "West" Great songs, lyrics, vocals, exact performances. The only thing I might fault it on is how good the musicians are - so perfectly polished that maybe it detracts ever so slightly because their polished quality and taste are so blatant. Like putting a tiara on a drop dead beautiful woman. Does she need it or does it distract attention form the miraculous?



Hell of a record. Hell of a band. Miss a random note on purpose, next time. We need to honor The Clash, everyday, somehow.

Also bought "B Sides" for two Moby CDs - "Play" and "18." Liked "Play B Sides" but less so "18 B Sides." Drums machines cannot be upfront - they lack soul, you have to hide them. On "18 B" they are front and center in the mix and their contribution, or lack there of, depresses me. Not enough vocals either on the B's - vocals bring humanity to Moby's electronic centered music.

I never want my images to be automated. I use MS Paint because it is crude and subject to human error. Better yet it can lead to the chance of miracle. I pray for the those little miracles. There aren't enough, maybe.

Maybe is an important word for me. Maybe and the word "always." I long for always. Settle for maybe.

Prefer always to never, most of the time. Maybe.

I never want to own a drum machine. Never. A bit about Natalie Merchant next time - did I spell her name correctly? But not about her art.