44

Today I am 44.

I had a wonderful day.  

Dru and I went into Boston and she showed me many nice things, like Quincy Market.

We had official CHOWDA for lunch.  I had an official CHOWDA buff for several hours and basically turned into a Bostonian.

Why choose one when you can have 2??

There are cool buildings and a giraffe and a carousel and a labyrinth.

I did a painting.

It is 8x10 oil.

I would have liked 3 or 3 1/2 hours on this but I did not have that much time so I did it in an hour and a half.

And then there was a prismatic squirrel and the tea party museum and an ominous sinister building and some other stuff.

Dru has an actual dispenser for her white artist tape and if you scratch Emo’s butt in a certain spot he will lick the couch.

Today was a lovely birthday and I am very thankful.

Awesome Creepy Cemetery Trees

I am in Boston visiting Drusilla for the weekend.

The train ride up was really lovely.

I got to Dru’s in the late afternoon, still early enough to go to the lovely wonderful local cemetery and do a painting.

Dru is wonderful; she does not mind that I paint!

There were some really pretty orange trees and I was going to paint them.

But then I turned around and saw these absolutely wonderful creepy gnarly trees and we both decided they are way better than the pretty orange trees.

I rushed this painting, I was really fighting daylight.  

It took a little over an hour.

8x10 oil

Topiary Cats: Fearless

Drawing America is having a contest this month and the prizes are gift cards to Jerry’s.

I want art supply financing!

And I would like for paintings to pay for paintings.

The big prize is a $200 gift card and there is a guest artist judge who decides.

The theme is Fearless.

I did some topiary cats.

9x12 oil

Tuesday Drawing

I still think it’s Wednesday when drawing os on Tuesday.

Richard-Lael Lillard was our fabulous model again.

Graphite.

Abigail in Central Park

Abigail models sometimes for for figure drawing.

Today, she was hosting a free Bouguereau-style modeling session in Central Park, and she invited me.

It was a 3 hour session and I painted an 8x10.

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Abigsil knows a lot of art people and a lot of them are atelier people.

There was a person from Boldbrush.

All of them are really good artists, very technically proficient, professionals.

David Kassan even showed up…!!! But he didn’t paint.

I didn’t know anyone else there, though several knew each other and were friends, I guess from the professional atelier scene. It would be easy to feel intimidated in that crowd but…….. I’m glad to say I didn’t. I can hold my own.  Most of them treated the session like studio work, which I thought was interesting.

I would love to have the beautiful atelier-drawing skillset but I DO have the plein air skillset and in some ways that is more difficult.

The other thing I realized is that I’m really, really glad I’m not a 20-something anymore.

Several of the people there are a lot younger than me and…. Well, they are super-technically proficient but I don’t think any of them has had to fight to keep their art.  Hipsters, money, Bushwick, Ridgewood, a few years in NYC……. 

I’m proud of myself for being where I am in my journey and holding up artistically.  

It’s not all about how many instagram followers you have.