Here I come, Ready or Not!

This is the latest in my "Free-Range Children" series. What do you think?

My Studio

My Philosophy Exactly

"To try and take iron-control of a painting is to kill it at birth. Yet to let it run riot almost certainly ends in anarchy or mud. I've found that if I alternate between order and chaos, intuition and intellect, then the painting slowly reveals itself." Nick Bantock

Paintings that Keep on Giving

Here is a thought to kick you all into high gear this week.

"To me, a great painting is a painting that is able to help you see the world in a different way. And its not just what you see in the painting, but what you're able to see after you leave the painting, and the way that the painting is able to expand your ability to see the world in new and different ways." Lester Marks, Houston collector

A Museum Show!

Yesterday I found out that I got three of these new paintings into a museum show! More about this when I find out the details.

My DVD

If this works right, you can go see a bit of my DVD, Master Disaster, 5 Ways to Rescue Desperate Watercolors. My book and DVD Show you five steps to begin, work through and/or finish a painting with punch and pizazz. Check it out.

No Child Left Inside

Here is my latest (40 x 30, acrylic). For a person who never liked texture in my watercolors, I have turned into a texture queen in this painting. Actually, I spent a lot of time toning down first natural textures that occur with this style of painting, then the textures that I created or saved along the way. Does it work for you?

Van Gogh's Ear

There is an article in the current New Yorker, that I've been meaning to tell you about. Van Gogh's Ear, the Christmas that Changed Modern Art.

Based on a German book by reputable German academics, it says that Gauguin was quite the swordsman and went around with a sword often--and that HE cut off the ear...perhaps while defending himself with a sword. Evidently the cut was too clean to have been done by Van Gogh, people don't self-mutilate themselves that way and there are subsequent letters between the two men that imply that this is what happened.

So Gauguin ran off to Tahiti, became the first "primitive" painter and influenced Picasso with this style. And thus "the Christmas that changed Modern Art". Hmmmmm.