alla prima

Sketchbook Tuesday

2009-04-21T12:57:00.000-07:00

Name the plant.

"One's destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things."

Henry Miller

Mexico

2009-04-15T12:24:00.000-07:00

I've decided to move back to Mexico. This will allow me to continue to paint full-time and help me to focus more attention on just painting and drawing. I don't know if I will be posting to Alla Prima on a regular basis while in Mexico, but I will leave the blog up and running for those of you who like to wade through its images or peruse its link lists. Hasta Luego!

Raymond Logan over at Daily Painter Review was kind enough to post about my work. Check it out when you get a chance.

"If you ask people to remember a painting and a photograph, their description of the photograph is far more accurate than that of the painting. Strangely enough, there is a physical element intertwined with the painting. It shakes loose an emotional element within the viewer."

Luc Tuymans

Sketchbook Tuesday

2009-04-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

"Drawing is a kind of hypnotism: one looks in such a way at the model, that he comes and takes a seat on the paper."

Pablo Picasso

Sketchbook Tuesday

2009-04-07T09:24:00.001-07:00

Just a page of typical, everyday still life objects.

"You are lost the instant you know what the result will be."

Juan Gris

Not Alla Prima

2009-04-02T19:23:00.001-07:00

9" x 12" Oil on panel. This is a larger still life that I've been working on over several sittings. I thought I would give you a peek at the work in progress.

"Images and colours are, for a painter, his way of being, of living, of thinking, of feeling. For this poor devil, art is his only reason for being."

Georges Rouault

Sketchbook Tuesday

2009-03-31T14:21:00.000-07:00

"A painter who loves his art must be careful not to see too much of critics and men of letters. These gentlemen, however unconsciously, distort everything, thinking that they are explaining it—the artist's thought, sensibility, and intentions. They take away his strength, just as Delilah took away Samson's. They have no gift for nuances, and they have an instinctive aversion for everything that is beyond their reach and baffles them."

Georges Rouault

Tobacco Tins

2009-03-25T23:13:00.001-07:00

5" x 7" Oil on panel.

"The beautiful, which is perhaps inseparable from art, is not after all tied to the subject, but to the pictorial representation. In this way and in no other does art overcome the ugly without avoiding it."

Paul Klee

Sketchbook Tuesday

2009-03-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

"Rough sketches, which are born in an instant in the heat of inspiration, express the idea of their author in a few strokes, while too much effort and diligence sometimes sops the vitality and powers of those who never know when to leave off."

Giorgio Vasari

White Cube

2009-03-21T14:04:00.001-07:00

5" x 7" Oil on panel.

"The artist needs but a roof, a crust of bread, and his easel, and all the rest God gives him in abundance. He must live to paint and not paint to live."

Albert Pinkham Ryder

Sketchbook Tuesday

2009-03-17T18:45:00.001-07:00

"Drawing is the artist's most direct and spontaneous expression, a species of writing: it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality."

Edgar Degas

Cube

2009-03-16T19:24:00.001-07:00

5" x 7" Oil on panel.

"Creative people... are distinguished by the fact that they can live with anxiety, even though a high price may be paid in terms of insecurity, sensitivity, and defenselessness for the gift of 'divine madness.'"

Rollo May

Sketchbook Tuesday

2009-03-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

"A colourist makes his presence known even in a simple charcoal drawing."

Henri Matisse

Alas

2009-03-08T16:02:00.001-07:00

5" x 7" Oil on panel.

"I am never in a hurry to get into details; I am first and foremost interested in the large shapes and general movement of things."

Camille Corot

Sketchbook Tuesday

2009-03-03T11:49:00.000-08:00

"Every change is a form of liberation. My mother used to say a change is always good even if it's for the worse."

Paula Rego

Edgeworth

2009-03-02T20:00:00.001-08:00

5" x 7" Oil on panel. If you have a minute and a half to kill, you can see a demo of this painting here.

"With Jackson there was quiet solitude. Just to sit and look at the landscape. An inner quietness. After dinner, to sit on the back porch and look at the light. No need for talking. For any kind of communication."

Lee Krasner

Albert

2009-02-27T09:33:00.001-08:00

5" x 8" Oil on panel.

"Common objects become strangely uncommon when removed from their context and ordinary ways of being seen"

Wayne Thiebaud

Sketchbook Tuesday

2009-02-24T20:19:00.000-08:00

"Everyone knows that even a single line may convey an emotion."

Piet Mondrian

Oval

2009-02-23T07:51:00.000-08:00

5" x 7" Oil on panel.

"If a painting of mine suits me, it is right. If it does not please me, I care not if all the great masters should approve it or the dealers buy it. They would be wrong."

Arshile Gorky

Sketchbook Tuesday

2009-02-17T20:57:00.000-08:00

Pencil, ink, and white conte on tan paper from my Cachet "Earthbound" sketchbook.

"Artists love to immerse themselves in chaos in order to put it into form, just as God created form out of chaos in Genesis. Forever unsatisfied with the mundane, the apathetic, the conventional, they always push on to newer worlds."

Rollo May

Vanilla Extract

2009-02-15T18:02:00.000-08:00

5" x 7" Oil on panel.

"Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality."

Goethe

Sketchbook Tuesday

2009-02-10T00:29:00.000-08:00

The hard drive on my Mac has been acting up the last couple of weeks...clickity-clackity-cluckity...won't be long before it blinks out completely. I long for the days before computers.

"The thing with high-tech is that you always end up using scissors."

David Hockney

Sketchbook Tuesday

2009-02-03T14:16:00.001-08:00

A page of ink wash drawings from the Holbein sketchbook.

"There are tonalities which are noble and others which are vulgar, harmonies which are calm or consoling, and others which are exciting because of their boldness."

Paul Gauguin

Sketchbook Tuesday

2009-01-27T05:42:00.000-08:00

"Look and make your hand do what your eyes see. How you draw it becomes what it is. Keep your eyes on an object just to see how much looking you can do."

Vija Celmins

Sketchbook Tuesday

2009-01-20T10:05:00.000-08:00

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. "

Abraham Lincoln

Crowding

2009-01-15T20:56:00.001-08:00

5" x 7" Oil on panel.

"Art is creative for the sake of realization, not for amusement: for transfiguration, not for the sake of play. It is the quest of our self that drives us along the eternal and never-ending journey we must all make."

Max Beckmann