Spent half of each of the last three days flogging away at a piece of writing that just won’t be tamed. Lots of wildness but nothing that fits the form I have been intending for it. So I’m down on myself a bit. blah.
Went on my bike to get lunch, since I didn’t want to miss the sun again. Happened to sit down in front of a Sunday New York Times, which I haven’t read in years.
Haven’t missed much.
But I came across a review of Egon Schiele’s Portraits at some museum in New York. This quote caught my attention and I copied it in my sketchbook:
“In those vacuous academic exercises, he trained to express ideals of bourgeois propriety. He hated that program. What he sought instead wasn’t amoral or immoral but something more generously moral, a view of people that accepts them (himself included) as imperfect and animated by all sorts of desires, including those conventionally deemed perverse.”
Made me want to look at more of his drawings.
So I went on google and Pinterest. Just to see.
Suddenly I was inspired again. Like the day I discovered “the mark makers” Matisse and Picasso. Never had I looked at their drawings before.
And now Schiele. Not only portraits but landscapes. Sketchy scribbly distorted things that I just LOVE.
So I started to move my hand across the paper. Just move your damn hand across the paper!
“Hippie Artist” – acrylic and Neocolor II on paper, 11″x14″
Watercolor, oil pastels and charcoal, 4″x7″ paper
I think my self-criticism about my writing not getting produced the last few days has translated to tentativeness with my art. I do one thing, then I stop.
After looking at Schiele I started to get curious again. What happens when I just move my hand across the paper, not caring so much about what it is?
And FACES. Can’t forget the endless inspiration of FACES.
A couple of new spreads from my altered Prana catalog:
And this piece that emerged from playing with gesso and gel medium and ink and acrylic washes on paper, inspired by desert shapes and colors:
OK I guess it has been a good couple of days.
Exhale.
5050 Art 