painting class

please bear with me a bit here as i digress from my normal writings on woodworking.  there is so much more to life, and with the recent death of two close friends, the fact that time is finite and slipping by daily is on my mind ... for the moment, for what remains of summer at least, i am trying a new regimen:  into the shop by 9:00, out by 4:00, with an hour for lunch, (and sometimes, a nap).  more time with friends and family and other interests ... 

we'll see how long that lasts.  the checkbook is still, and always will be, in charge ...

click the photos to enlarge them ... 

so here is horst, my painting instructor, a few years back, with his painting, 'calligraphy'.  actually the image says 2006.  i've known horst well since the early 70's.  he's an 'old' master now, at 91, and is still painting away in nearby arlington.  i went for a visit a few weeks back, asked for some 'lessons' and now we're at it more or less weekly.  today was my third 'lesson'.  so far, his advice has been mostly 'try that bigger brush'. 'try that palette knife' .... 'use that whisk broom some' ... 'stop!' ... stuff like that.  it's a challenge ... the top photo is the results of today's lesson, and one of those paintings was a 'duet' where we passed the brush back and forth a bit without saying much ... at first i was a bit, hmmm, miffed? he was painting over my stuff !!!  in the end, when i got home, kit and i agreed it was the strongest of the bunch.  see if you can figure out which painting that was, and i'll post it at the end.
the other two 'classes' are below ..

8/5

8/11 .. 'paint something representational' was the task ... in this case he cropped off more than half of what i painted after i 'finished' .. much improved, it was, by the chopping ...

next week, i get to use white with the black ... with the black for now, i think i'm channeling robert motherwell, learning about 'volume', 'form', 'power' .. etc.  working my way up to color.  no rush .

 you can read more about horst in this blog post, 'the artist in his studio', from 2010 ...

 to get a good sense of horst's style you can see more of his paintings on my website.

a few of my clients have bought paintings, and you can too!

as promised, this image is 'the duet' ... power, form, space ..

on another subject, i took some new pottery out of the kiln monday ...

 go out and play!

pottery close up ...
update 10 17

9/10/15

9/17/15

9/24/15

10/9/15

1016/15

this week i told horst i wanted tot do something maybe 'a little more representational'.  i didn't get far with that but ... i can try that at home.  i like this guy's style, which should work well with my drawings
but for now with horst i'm enjoying learning how to handle color with a palette knife.  here's one he painted in 2014 .. we bought that from him at christmas and that's how the painting class thing started.

about 30" x 40"  sort of a hans hoffman guy

stay tuned