Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Saturday, October 07, 2006

What Kind of a Painter ARE YOU?

Oil painting pretty much exclusively. As far as style, I did a few abstracts but preferred representational. I never really tried for the delicate, hyper-real, fever-dream lucidity on display in Alma-Tadema's stuff (for instance). Not that I could have done it! In fact, I don't think it even occurred to me that it was possible to paint that way anymore. I had a vague idea that all the tricks had been lost. And maybe they are? If generations pass with no one painting in that tradition, surely the techniques are not passed along, and so die.

But maybe it's not as complicated as that. Maybe they just painted with real tiny brushes on a real big space, and then stood way the hell back from it. That makes anything look more realistic!

I wish I'd done more. I ended up doing more drawing than painting, more plans and drafts then executions. A lot of charcoals, pencils. A lot of erasing. I love to draw with the eraser!

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