Day 12. Studio

Tuesday. Rain. My studio lockdown is almost half over. I have successfully ignored paying bills until the last moment and my freshly washed sheets have been in the dryer for about 3 days now. Worked on bathrobe painting while having coffee.

A friend's mom passed away yesterday.

Discovered this essay on the painter, Edwin Dickinson, by John Perreault this morning.

If you do not bring anticipations to the sight of an object when drawing it, anticipations which are connect with associations in your lay life, it is easier to get it right then to get it wrong.

When asked about his influences, he replied: “I suppose being alive and awake.”
When queried about the meaning of his art, he replied: “I wouldn’t be able to say.”
-Edwin Dickinson 

White acrylic paint finally attached itself to the cuff of my actual bathrobe. I will attempt to remove it. I also discovered dark green and brown oil paint on my down jacket. I came in from walking the dog and had to make a few strokes before hanging up my coat. I am not going to attempt to remove this. I fear turpentine will make it worse. It's mostly dark on dark, though there is a small barely perceivable smear of white mixed in. It's like a micro palette smear. I assume it happened while cradling a small painting in my arm while painting. I work like that sometimes.

I went to the train car studio. It's been almost almost a month since I've worked there. It felt nice to be in the white cube studio space again. Made headway on a painting. Cleaned my palette cart. Capped as many tubes as I could. I even scrubbed my slop sink. Sometimes it feels good to start fresh.

I'm starting to wonder if social networking is the equivalent of reality TV. For instance, I accidentally watched Survivor the other night.

It's been interesting to work on the same large painting every morning. Discipline. Focus. There's something zen-like about the process now. When I get to a point where I don't know exactly what to do next or a place where I want the suspense to linger, I wash my brushes and call it a session, make more coffee and move over to work on the smaller paintings.

DETAIL of  "The Walk"