Look what happened today! Disgusting…
As I feel rather troubled by this act of vandalism, I assume others will as well. And if they do, I guess it will be quite alright.
My mom came for a visit a couple of days ago. She liked the bird. “But what are you going to do with the knife?” she said, with large and troubled eyes. I thought it was hilarious.
The result: a pain in the neck.
I will let it rest for a day or so. The plan was to leave the top 2/3 area unpainted. Not so sure about that now? Boring? What does it need?
I have started a new piece. A difficult project because I am working on a pretty low grade plywood board that is like rough paper – the oil seeps out sideways and makes the contours fuzzy. And I want to keep a good part of the plywood unpainted. So I have to be very careful and work with a 2 mm wide paint brush. It is a slow process and becomes quite meditative, especially if I have some good music going. Last night I listened to piano music by Claude Debussy, Erik Satie, Camille Saint-Saëns, Zbigniew Preisner, etc. Nice for a change. Impossible to have too catchy and rhythmic music, have to have a steady hand…
The photo makes it very clear that I have to invest in new fluorescent lights in the studio. I can’t see this color difference, it is only the camera that picks it up. The piece is 60 x 120 cm. The picture below shows the lines becoming a bit fuzzy. But this is just a start.
How is a piece of art judged? By the artist? By the art world? When is a piece of art a masterwork? A piece of crap? When am I satisfied with my own work? Very difficult questions. I am not looking for perfection, but for a perfect feeling. 
Worked late last night. Added quite a bit of white and some red. It is slowly getting there. Something is not right. I can see flaws that I am ok with, that I am not going to adjust, but I can also see some areas I want to return to. In this time of fast technical advancement, with 3D printers, drones for everyone, youtube, photoshop, and so on, it is comforting and satisfying to practice the art of painting, because it has always been the “same” (and a unique) challenge and always will.
I am on a roll, things are going great, staying very active and busy, even though most of the stuff I am working on right now is too early to show, would not make sense. The big exhibition sign is ready, the profile painting of Spotted Bull is mounted and has one coat of boat varnish. As soon as my son honors me with a visit I might get his help to mount this outside, so it will be seen from the road and hopefully attract some interest ahead of Easter.
I don’t really know why, but I am getting more pleased with the “doll head”.
Sometimes you want to take an axe and crush your work. In an instant fury can hit you (me) and the impulse could lead to such drastic self criticism… but it has been years since I did stuff like that. Today I felt like doing it, then took a break and a deep breath and just pushed on. First a quick layer of some pinkish color.
After hours of work (and frustration) this is where it is now. I can’t come to terms with it. But with some afterthought, maybe it looks like a doll head. The creator is building a little doll…
I continued the work on the outside painting for the Easter show at my studio.
I won’t do too much more on this one, as it is only going to be seen at quite a long distance. Maybe a protective coat of boat varnish.
I also prepared and sent Illustrator files to the people who will cut my sculpture in corten steel. Hope to have the real thing installed by Easter time!
I have had a very productive day. A few things I have been working on:
The painting above is haunting me! I have painted this faces so many times, but this time it seems to be more difficult than ever before. But I will keep working on it until I am pleased. Just takes patience because the paint has to dry, otherwise it just gets messy and grey.
The photo below was taken a few years ago. I had a large painting outdoors for a long time. The painting was made in 2007, I think. For a number of years I stored it and last week I checked it and got an idea…
I decided to paint the whole thing black! And it looked pretty cool!
However, if it is to be seen from the road during Easter, the letters need to be painted and something else is needed… so this is what I have done so far:
Lots of black now. Have to take it back one step to be able to forward… Black is not a color in a technical sense, but I nevertheless use it to paint with, ha ha.
I covered the face with bone black (bone char) and then wiped most of it off. Some of the paint from a few days ago was not dry, so it smeared out a bit. Now I’ll let this dry until tomorrow.
