Shining egg

So inspiring. Click to this set and hit the "Slideshow" button in the upper right corner. Then soak it in. Emily Gaines Demsky's show is at the Pierce Gallery in Lutherville, MD through June 26th. Get there if you can--I am already plotting my visit.

Also, interesting article about artists in the lousy economy in the NY Times.

Beating it with a hose

It may have been due to all the itching (from poison ivy), but I just couldn't get into a groove during the Solomons paint out. I wanted to celebrate what I was seeing. Instead I hauled canvases from place to place and flogged them with painting knives in an attempt to get them to confess. Maybe they told me something useful, and maybe they didn't. But that's not the kind of painter I want to be. You know?

"Introduction to Poetry"
by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

The long dog

I needed a heavy dose of figure drawing, so Mason became my subject today. I know several artists who make their living by painting portraits of pets. I have considered starting to take commissions. What do you think about pet portraiture?

Solomons Paint the Town

I am starting to spend more time making excuses than actually painting. That's probably a bad thing. During the first annual Solomons Paint the Town plein air painting event, I was handicapped by a bad case of poison ivy all over my face and between my fingers. I just wasn't focused, and it shows. Pictured above is the only painting that I completed during the paint out, "Drum Point Light", acrylic and china marker on paper, 4" x 6". It's a very stylized, retro view of the historic lighthouse at the Calvert Marine Museum.



Then I spent a very pleasant day in the dappled shade of Back Creek Inn. Again, the weather and the view were perfect. But I was busy trying to bend the painting to my will instead of opening myself to the universe. Below is the work in progress.



If you're interested, I blogged daily my way through my personal frustration at Solomons. Here are links to my rambling notes about the first day, the second day, and the third day of the event.