new painting begins - gray

Because of my ankle problem, i limited my standing by not doing much painting yesterday and instead, went through old art magazines. I was, however able to start a new painting. The dimensions are 4 ft by 12 ft, the absolute horizontal limit in my studio space. This will be another gray painting; my first one was small at 2 ft by 4 ft.

I subscribe to Robert Genn's Painters' Keys free online newsletter http://www.painterskeys.com/ which is full of pithy, relevant topics in art. This week he spoke about an artist Lorne Bouchard, who once gave him some advice. "A painter needs to work from three sources--from self-generated photo reference, from life, and from the imagination. "All painters," he said, "favour one or the other, but all three are needed to gain maximum feeling--and this goes even for abstractionists and those others who glean their motifs from their minds." I see a lot of dependence on photos, which i have done as well but i am becoming very weary of paintings that rely solely on the photo image. I agree that one becomes limited and even hindered to progress if one uses only these images. When i think of beautiful imagery and freedom and joy of painting, I think of Susan Rothenberg.

Today, more painting after a visit from my old studiomate, David Hill http://www.davidwhillfineart.com/index.html. When i first met David, i was so relieved that he was cordial and friendly but perhaps after my experiences at the San Francisco Art Institute, just about anybody would seem nice.

And a close up of the panel, 2nd from the left.

I made up some more titanium white - i go through a lot of that stuff! Tomorrow, make up some of my beeswax medium.