buddy can you spare a dime?

Concentrating on ten minute poses when you haven’t drawn for a while,  can feel brutal, like threshing around in sub zero water.  Or else you want to tune out, focus on where to go after it’s all over – maybe an espresso, maybe pho. I try to remind myself to think about the distance from arm pit to arm pit, nipple to nipple etc – obviously no time to give a second thought to ratio – the Japanese music so and so just put on is soothing – come on I say to myself, concentrate dammit!  

recent charcoal drawings, 18"x24" manilla

a merry chase

Earlier, I was looking for a small painting of daffodils,  to no avail, that I did a while back,  - but instead found something else - this acrylic still life I did a few years ago. It turned up with  other loosely related items in the piano bench.  

The other  thing that turned up which gladdened my heart immeasurably, occurred last week when I found a set of keys II'd been searching for since late August. They had fallen into a hiking shoe beneath a small drafting table in my bedroom. 

I was looking for a pair of socks, and a glint of light from this shoe I seldom wear alerted me  to the fact that this was no mere sock stuffed in my old shoe. There they were - three keys - one to my daughter's apartment in Toronto, one to my studio in Hamilton,  one to my bicycle lock and also I guess, one for the road. Not a bad idea, I could use a key to wind myself up in the morning!

So the pell-mell and clutter of my house keeps me on my toes as it were. 

acrylic - pot and bottle - gessoed watercolor paper 8"x10"

two views of compression

The gesture of the figure is fundamental, it is my lifeline. I think about it – it’s always at the back of my mind. For me it’s even more basic than light, I would sense the gesture of each successive moment even if I were blind. A gesture need occupy only a brief moment or less in time and space – with variation and repetition – it is our first language – the language of ordinairy life, the language of dance, and I think also the language of sculpture and drawing.

Ed, charcoal, 18 x 24 cartridge paper

Ed valiantly holding a ridiculously difficult pose 

for an endless 30 min

charcoal white chalk on cartridge 18x24

Nostalgia

I ate some pumpkin pie today. It was astonishingly good and I realized that I could be a vegetarian if I could exist on pumpkin pie and rice custard pudding which I used to buy at Murrays – a chain of restaurants that no longer exists. Surely civilization took a tumble when they shut down their operations. I sometimes wonder whatever happened to those pea green and white institutional casserole dishes in which the individual puddings were baked and served. 

In my careless 20’s I’d hop out of bed at a disgraceful hour and head for the Plaza Hotel at Bloor and Avenue Rd where the dependable Murrays occupied a sizeable spot. As one of their regulars,  I’d take my place amongst their older, respectable clientele and order one or two servings of baked rice custard. On Fridays they also served excellent chowder, both kinds – Manhattan and New England.

Today I'm serving a drawing from a stack of mostly unfinished drawings that go back a few years.

carbon pencil on gray canson mi teintes

16"x20"

two still lifes, wet and dry

acrylic on masonite 14"x16"

charcoal and chalk on gray canson 14"x18"

warming up

I’ve decided to take a breather from my graffiti post since its format became thoroughly painful, ludicrous, bizarre. unmannerly and counter intuitive. My luddite  gene vibrated.

So I decided to muck around on an old painting which has gone through countless mutations and will continue to do so. But it  serves a higher purpose – to soothe my agitated hackles, to warm me up and get me moving while  I recharge my batteries.

                                                     16"x 20" mixed media on canvas board

                                                           same version on photo shop

                                                     earlier stage of mixed media 'warm up'

preserved in amber

assorted objects of love and neglect

One can seen on my basement kitchen counter if I permit it,  brushes soaking in a jar of vegetable oil – they’ve been there almost a year. One of those inexplicable interruptions which, when I attempt to think about it, fills me with dismay. I’ve been on the verge of cleaning them off and on. Well, this may be the day. Stranger things have happened. O to the god of craftsmanship and now, rescue these blameless brushes.

Below are two fresh air studies. 

pastel 8"x11" hastily banged off  at Andy's farm before rain last April

5"x6" sky study Andy's farm pastel 2010 April