Painting by artifical light. One day I’ll rearrange my studio and/or put in a skylight. I don’t have good north light, and this window doesn’t work well. It’s good enough for the time being. The rest of the year is planned and about as busy as I want it. The Artpath Gallery images are now up, and I’ll begin framing oils for the Catamount Gallery in late March and April. The drawing class (“Drawing for the Terrified”) will start in April. A two day workshop on “Writing and Drawing to Learn Across the Curriculum” will happen at UVM on July 7 and 8. [If you are a K-12 teacher and want to enroll, give Continuing Education at UVM a call in a few weeks]. Finally, a Teacher-Advisor section of “Drawing as a Way of Knowing” will start in September. That will fill up 2008. Good enough for this old man! And of course there is painting outside when spring arrives. This next week is family time. Both kids and grandkids and spouses will come for dinner. I will be the chef. Then off the to city of light (or at this time of year…. perhaps mist and rain)?

This class will begin in April. There are about 14 people signed up, mostly from northern Vermont, but a significant number in the Burlington area as well. Depending on total enrollment, there may be more than one section of the class in different towns. For a detailed description, click on the Courses and Workshops heading (above). If you are interested and want to get your name on the announcement list, please send me an email at:

Michael.Strauss@uvm.edu

Worked on this image more this morning and am going to let it rest now. Some of the major color spots are in. I can now let it dry, sand it down with oil, begin another layer of detail to refine shapes. Need to focus attention on the light and detail (or lack of it) in the two faces. I learned a lot doing this and seeing how Degas applied paint.  I used only the RYB triad, so the color is not that close to the original. Will begin another painting today maybe. A landscape or perhaps a portrait based on my own photographic work.

An ice “storm” is predicted for the Friday opening. Cool (literally!) The joys of the Northeast. My joints are creaking as I went to the gym yesterday. I try to do that 3 times a week, and it seems the older I get, the more hours it takes to recover. Arghh! So I read this bit by George Carlin on Aging this morning and it seems appropriate. It’s great.

George Carlin’s Views on Aging:

“Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we’re kids? If you’re less than 10 years old, you’re so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

“How old are you?” “I’m four and a half!” You’re never thirty-six and a half. You’re four and a half, going on five! That’s the key

You get into your teens, now they can’t hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

“How old are you?” “I’m gonna be 16!” You could be 13, but hey, you’re gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life . . . you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony . YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There’s no fun now, you’re Just a sour-dumpling. What’s wrong? What’s changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you’re PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it’s all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn’t think you would!

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

You’ve built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it’s a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime And it doesn’t end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; “I Was JUST 92.”

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. “I’m 100 and a half!”
May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!”

Here is a very interesting “NANOART” site that I found in my search for others doing digital art starting with molecular structures. It appears that some folks are creating art starting from electron microscope images. It’s interesting, but compositionally often fragmented.  Below is an image I created yesterday, on a break from the Degas dancers.

For readers in sunny warm climates, this is a view out behind my studio. Clear day. Cool. Around 20, which is much warmer than a few days ago. In the center of this picture is a neighbor’s black and white cat (between the two evergreens,) out hunting mice. Tracks in the snow lead cats and other predators (foxes, etc.) to critters like voles and mice. The latter, according to Hub Vogelman, are like hamburger – the fast food of the natural world. You can see tracks around the bottom of the left yellow birch because on the right hand trunk, about 3 feet up, is our bird feeder which drops seeds when the birds feed.

Went to Tad Spurgeon’s opening at the Shelburne Art Center yesterday. A great show. Lots of textual explanations and I learned much (as I usually do when I peruse his work and process.) Some wonderful paintings for very reasonable prices too. I won’t go on about it. If you are in the area you should go see the show. It will be up for some time. On his site yesterday was a quote from a Robert Hughes documentary “The New Shock of the New” and I’m quoting it directly below, because I want to remind myself about it when classes start in the Fall. My drawing students should be directed to it. [I added the boldface in the quote below.]

“In the 45 years that I’ve been writing about art, there’s been a tragic depreciation in the traditional skills of painting and drawing, the nuts and bolts of the profession. In part its been caused by the assumption that photography and its cognate media- film and television tell the most truth about the visual. This is not true. The camera, if it is lucky may tell a different truth to drawing but not necessarily a truer one. Painting and drawing bring us into a different, a deeper and more fully experienced relation to the object.

We have had a gutful of fast-art and fast-food. What we need more of is slow art, art that holds time as a vase holds water. Art that grows out of modes of perception and making whose skill and doggedness make you think and feel. Art that isn’t merely sensational, that doesn’t get its message across in 10 seconds, that isn’t falsely iconic, but hooks onto something deep running in our natures. In a word, art that is the very opposite of mass media.”

Life around the house/studio continues. The 2nd guy visiting from Vermont Gas fixed our heating system on the maintenance contract, no charge. WHEW! The first visit they said it would be about $800. I’m continuing the Degas copy slowly. It’s still dark, but I’m beginning to put in some complimentary color. I’ll push it more today and maybe post an image of it later today or tomorrow. We watch with trepidation as the Euro moves up and the $ continues to fall and our time in Paris shortly will be a diet of peanuts and energy bars.  I’m packing them along with my art stuff. A cup of coffee there now is about $5. Can you imagine lunch? Next year back to Mexico, or maybe just south to Rutland?

Have enjoyed copying a Degas painting for a few days and am learning much about how he applied paint and created so much with design, color and fuzzy edges. The latter almost happen spontaneously with the marble dust paint mixture I’m using, and it’s good for me to get away from being precise about shape in the beginning. I’m learning to shift the shapes and color from layer to layer without panic. In the past I’d look at a layer as if it had some finished quality to it. Now I can see it as one stage in a long process, and that it may disappear as I continue. For me to feel that, as part of how I paint, is a BIG DEAL. I used to throw these intermediate stage paintings away!! As for using master painters as source material…. well I see clearly they ALL did it, constantly, and evolved in the process. I know I can paint my own work well sometimes, but by starting with a master work, I shortcut the shape/color composition in order to focus on technique with paint, edges and process. Below is a very first layer of the Degas dancers ( in effect, a red earth value study.) Below it is the original. And below that is a close up of the center in which the edges of the original almost disappear in a haze of shape and color. It’s magic the way the eye/brain, from a distance, creates form and meaning. [My amatuer magician persona is, I think, what so attracts me to oil paint.] This “magic” is how we all create meaing with words as well. The distance there is not just physical distance, but memory and past experience. Literally -> RE-COGNITION.

Woke up this morning and the furnace had shut down.   With temperatures headed to subzero tomorrow night, this is an urgent issue.  Called Vermont Gas and am currently waiting for someone to show up.   We got it started by flipping the emergency switch (which was in the on position) to off and then back to on again.  It’s still very cold, but warming up a bit.   But why should this happen?    If you have a clue, email me.
Have begun work on a variation of some Degas dancers he painted around 1893.   I’ll post the process as this effort continues.  I used some odorless mineral spirits on the first red earth toning wash of the canvas, and that is in the garage drying out a bit at the moment (as much as anything can dry at 20 degrees). I’m SO happy using marble dust and walnut oil as the only things I mix with paint.   Paintings are dry enough to put new layers on daily.  And I don’t poison myself with all the turp fumes.  I’m cleaning my brushes in corn oil, followed by soap and water.  In winter ventilation is a big issue re: turp.  Tad has his opening at the Shelburne Art Center tomorrow night at 5:30 and he has over 60 paintings up.  If you’re local, go.   It will be a great exhibit.

I wonder if Corot painted this from the middle of the road or whether it was sketched there and then finished in his studio. I’ll have to read more about his life to know.  I did this on a 16″ x 20″  canvas using only ult. blue, permanent yellow, permanent rose, walnut oil and a generous portion of marble dust (which helps it dry overnight.)