The Oughts

As I said in a previous post, I will turn sixty this month and it is with mixed feelings on my part. I'm not sure what the cause of this is but, the decade of the oughts was  somewhat turbulent for me. The decade started with my Pop having health problems which started a general decline for he and my Mom and both of them passing just after mid decade. I have no siblings so looking out for them fell to me in its entirety. I would have liked to have eased into it but that was not the case and I always felt I was two steps behind.

Laura, Charcoal on paper, 8"x10"

During this time I had decided to finish my undergraduate degree also, my work was always in flux, feast or famine, getting paid or not. Work is work, enough said. School was a strange mix of love and loathing, of feeling out of place. Being around twenty somethings really made me feel my age.

So, here I am, through with the oughts. Throughout my life every ten years or so I have reinvented myself and that time has come around again. Its more of an evolution than a metamorphosis and I have no idea how it is going to go but I am getting a little excited. It's always interesting.

So. here to the teens. I hope you are looking forward to them as I am. Have an interesting weekend.

Brad

Interior Scene

I do admire the figurative work of Richard Diebenkorn, He produced figurative work for but a few years after doing dedicated abstract paintings. Then, he returned to abstract work and did no more figurative work. Oh, the delightful figures he produced, beautiful blends of abstract and representational themes. 

Sunroom, Charcoal and conte on paper, 8"x10"

Have a happy holiday.

Brad

Snowy Tuesday

It's a snowy Tuesday morning here in North Georgia, Looking toward the top of the mountain, I can't see it for the falling snow. The schools are closed today so, Laura is here and that makes Scooter, our silky terrier, very happy.

I've posted another charcoal drawing rendered from a studio study. I've included the study, which I have posted previously, also. 

Seated Nude, charcoal on paper, 8"x10"

Seated Nude, charcoal and pastel on kraft paper, 18"x24"

I think I will have some breakfast and watch the snow. It started about 5:30 AM and is now beginning to accumulate. Have a most exciting Tuesday.

Brad

Revisiting an Old Drawing

Dear Friend,

As I said in my previous post, I am revisiting old studio drawings, working on my use of hatching and value. I am trying to achieve depth and a greater feel of volume. Don't get me wrong, I am deeply enamored of the simple line drawings of Matisse but, I am a bit of a fussy worker liking to push and pull at the media working and working it. It gives me great pleasure to manipulate it.

Nude, Charcoal, 8x10

This is my original drawing, a fifteen minute studio drawing from life.

Nude, Conte on Newsprint, 24x36

Any comments or suggestions, either techniques or practices, would be appreciated. So, have a lovely afternoon.

Brad 

PShop Painting Update

Here is an update to my Photoshop painting that I have been posting. So far I have about two and a half hours in it. The lines are perspective line in an upper layer that will be discarded.

Have a lovely (it's really storming here) Good Friday.

Brad

Tattoo

Yet another sprayed composition.

Being a neophyte artist at middle age feels strange to me. I'm carrying the baggage of all the things I've found interesting over the years but, now there is little time to explore. I don't know if starting out at an advanced age is an advantage or a hindrance. It's a little like taking classes at my age, there's just never a good fit. Always, there's a feeling of being out-of -place. Also, I have so many techniques I like, it's hard to focus on one or two. I read in a blog in the past couple of days the author's lament about being frustrated with not having enough time to carry out all the creative impulses they were having. I find that with the growth of frustration I, myself, get more creative and find it difficult to focus or edit my creativity.

A friend of mine, a counselor and social worker, was doing creative therapy workshops using art and writing as cathartic mediums. I always argued with her my point that the mind was always working on ways to solve its problems and it was not the relating of them that helped but rather that by inducing it to become more creative it came to a solution sooner. So much for my psycho-idiocy.

Back to my sprayed work. I'm trying to pare down my laundry list of techniques and interests so that I might be more productive. I'm going to maybe used sprayed techniques in concert with my work in oils as under painting and details instead of stand alone works. I'm working on an engraving now based on the 'Masquerade' painting from a previous post. I'm hoping to combine this with other techniques, monoprint and inkjet printing as a venue to concentrate on.

There, the problem of the day spelled out. How to curb my enthusiasm and work in a more structured, focus way. Have a lovely day.

Brad