Old home week

For a while, I thought about starting a non-profit in the DC area that would address stormwater runoff and remediation. But, there was no money in it. I got about as far as making a demonstration project out of the yard and my house. And then, we moved to Europe. Goodbye water, hello art. Yesterday, there was an article in the Chesapeake Bay Journal about runoff reduction and the demonstration project at my old home in Takoma Park. It makes me wonder what trajectory my life might have taken if that non-profit route had become a reality. My cat wonders the same, but is very happy that instead I am here and doing art. He thinks the art is super, but he's a cat and his taste runs to tuna.

new work

So, I'm very excited about the direction of my latest paintings, in a series I am calling "Abstract landscapes." All of the paintings are done very loosely with lots of gesture.

Here's an example, called Storm at Sea II. (I called it this because I made two very similar paintings.) Both paintings were inspired by a painting I saw hanging at the National Gallery in DC on tour from the Tate, by Joseph Mallord William Turner called Steam Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (1842).

To see more, you can go to my website and click on the gallery "Abstract Landscapes."

Dad enjoys the crossword puzzle in the teahouse

It's cold in the teahouse, but dad likes to go out there for the crossword puzzle and a coffee. Here's some sketches of him puzzling.

Oil painting tips - don't end with a failure

A couple of days ago, I had a bad painting day. Everything I did was terrible.

Rather than give up, I kept wiping the canvas clean and starting over. For several hours this went on.

It is important to end a painting session on a good note, otherwise if you give up when you fail that is what you remember, the failure. So keep at it until the painting works, and don't be afraid to start over. Eventually, your head will get out of the way and the painting process will take over and it will be magical again.

When I finally felt I could live with the image on the canvas, I stopped. This is the resulting painting. For fun, I took some pics of the flowers to show the inspiration.

New work of the week

I posted this week's new "Work of the Week" on my art website, which can be seen at

http://potamoi.com/WorkoftheWeekgallery.html

It is based on a drawing I made of the "Uncertain Future" digital image, which was the "Work of the Week" for August 24-30. This digital image was based on photos I took of a various ceramic sculptures by Ah Xian in his first show here in Europe and then manipulated using software. So in other words, this week's work is a painting of a drawing of an image of digitally manipulated photographs I took of several sculptures by Ah Xian at his show here in Den Haag.

Oil Painting, part 3

Yesterday I worked on the house again, and it was a classic, pulling of teeth do-not-accomplish-anything kind of painting day. I ended up nitpicking the details and ended up with a painting that looked little different from what I started with, completely losing all momentum, rhythm, and gesture. It was hard because neighbors kept stopping by to say hello, which was nice, but it didn't help the painting process. And I ended up with something that looked more like a precious moments painting or Thomas Kincaid. Some art just shouldn't be photographed. So, no picture of that step. This morning I worked on it again for a couple of hours, this time in the studio so I could concentrate and get a rhythm down. And it worked, and the painting is much looser and something I would show. Here it is, the final and signed version.

Oil painting - the first step

Yesterday, I had a little bit of time to do some painting, and I grabbed at the chance. I set up the easel outside, and did a "quick" oil-painting sketch of the house. This is the stage where you get the main form down, and a sense of the lights and darks in the painting. This stage is called the underpainting, and is unfinished. It takes 5 minutes to an hour plus to get this down on canvas, depending on how rusty your drawing skills are and how long it takes the creative juices to start flowing. For me, this took an hour and a half, since for the first hour and 20 minutes I insisted on painting rather awful schwack.

A day at the harbor

Yesterday, I sketched and took pictures at Scheveningen's port. Here is what I saw and drew.

Scheveningen water tower and dunes

Today I packed up my bike, and went off to draw the Scheveningen water tower and dunes. It was windy, but a nice temp. It felt good to get out of the studio and work from the landscape. Here is the drawing that came out of today's effort.