Cat

This was a fun, and challenging, drawing to complete -- drawing the tongue was the real challenge.

The Wolfman -- a progression.

Updated Website

Sure.

Updating the website

Well, it's just a landing page, but it is a start. The newly revised and redesigned website will be posted on Friday, February 22, 2013.
Be on the lookout for it: www.djfineart.com

New Studio

No excuses now for not painting and drawing.  I have new digs for my creative muse.  The house we’ve moved into has an in-law unit on the ground floor that I have turned into my art studio.  It’s not an ideal space – lighting is difficult and the long, narrow space makes setting up my equipment a bit tricky – but it is a dedicated space that I can retreat to and sling paint in peace.  And since there is a complete kitchen in the space, I can also bake bread while painting – multitasking.  It’s exciting, and terrifying.  It’s been so long since I have painted or drawn I’m wondering if I remember how to do it.

The Hidden Palette-taboret

Sprouts With Sunflowers Update

I watched a PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) painter creating her magic on paper with watercolor the other day and was mesmerized by the systematic approach with which she attacked her subject.  Each step was calculated with precision and executed with a deftness that only comes from hours, maybe years, of repetition.  Unfortunately, when she was finished her painting, though lovely, lacked spontaneity or originality and was completely void of any mistakes; in short, it looked like a painting that had been created by the numbers.

My painting approach is not that systematic.  In fact, I don’t have much of system at all.  What system I do have can be summed up with the following: “I start with a nice drawing and hope to hell I don’t mess it up with paint.”

That is exactly the case with the current watercolor, “Sprouts With Sunflowers”.  I started out with a nice drawing and now I am hoping that I don’t screw it up with paint.  A few days ago I painted in the background and today I started the under-painting of the flowers, mainly working on the center of the sunflowers.  It is my intention to use the yellow as a base layer and then cover it with a dark color which I will sprinkle with salt.  The hope is that the salt will absorb most of the dark paint leaving the yellow to show through, thus rendering the look of a pre-seeded sunflower center.  Hopefully it will work.  If not, I’ll try something else – systematically, of course.