| August 20, 2006 - After a long couple months battling the Austin summer and a malaise that has affected me all year, I finally dug out some blank canvases that have been littering my studio for months and started in on some quick little studies that will hopefully benefit me stylistically and thematically in the months to come. With the big EAST and Art Bazaars coming up, I want to
produce a lot of work in the next couple of months.
I've taught a lot of classes in the past couple of months, and with a new batch of students, I've been able to refocus my thoughts on the basics that plague young artists: apprehension to move paint around a canvas, learning the differences between hue and value, and correcting drawing problems when they rear their ugly head. A lot of these lessons are things I've learned from art school, others have been largely self taught, and constantly bringing up the strict techniques that you need to learn to become a good painter - after
all, it seems the large part craft plays in producing good art is largely forgotten.
And so in this series of quick paintings that I've begun before my two week trip out to California, I've concentrated on staying loose throughout the painting, letting the image develop from my initial strokes on colored canvases, and have tried to use a saturated palette largely devoid of white.
I feel that the work I'm doing right now is a good start in refocusing for the always productive and cool(-er) fall months, and its an exciting and fresh new start after a long, hard summer.
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