A Hardship

This is where Isis spends about 85% of her life:

Yep, right in front of the toilet.

This is extremely awkward and inconvenient.

It is important to note the cat does not move for anything.

I already had to change the color of the bathroom rugs from dark to light because of the cat, but she was sleeping in front of the sink and bathtub. (And I thought that was bad......)

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LISA this blog isn't going anywhere.

You can follow me on Facebook but I don't post a lot there, usually just paintings without much commentary. Sometimes there's a stupid joke or 2 as well, but not much else.

So I will still be posting here as normal but you just won't get emails about it.

I know it's a bummer.

Maybe bookmark the blog link and check back now and then.

Daya on Stage

Tonight was the last performance of 6 at Manhattan Youth Ballet since Friday.

Daya was in all six performances, but there were 2 casts so she was in 2 dances for three performances, and 1 in the other three.

She killed it.

I never get to see Daya dance and she hasn't been on a stage since May 2019.

(Two years. Wow.)

It's one thing to know your kid is good and see audition acceptances etc.... but seeing it is really a whole other thing.

When Daya is on stage she's like this different person that I never experience, even living with her.

She can move.

It's pretty astounding, actually.
You have to see it in person to really get it... she's like controlled liquid on stage, it's incredible.

ALL of the dancers are really, really good... but a few have an extra edge...and Daya has it.

It was so good to be back at a live in-person performance!!!!

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After the show Daya came upstairs looking shocked and trying not to cry.

She was approached by Clifton Brown and Earl Mosley, who were at the show. (Mr. Mosley choreographed the finale number). These two men are quite famous in the dance world.

They have noticed her, they said they noticed her back in December in the Knickerbocker Nutcracker performance. She has been invited to attend Earl Mosley's summer intensive which she did not audition for.... and immediately the word "scholarship" was thrown out with this offer.

I don't know details about anything but Daya is being noticed by people who matter.
That combined with LaGuardia, Manhattan Youth Ballet, and Move|NYC... she's positioned to have a really amazing professional dance career.  We're on a whole other level here beyond "my kid dances"....

Daya's non-LaGuardia teachers include Daniel Ulbricht, Ashley Bouder,  Shay Bland, and......she's on frequent-conversation-and-hugs-terms with the legendary Deborah Wingert.

My mind is blown at how everything has worked out and continues to, it's so.....strange. Daya is not one of those wealthy ballet girls who grew up with pre-professional training, yet here she is in these crazy circles.

Proud is not the right word, it's inadequate.

It's all mind-blowingly astonishing, to be honest, and I'm extremely grateful and humbled.

Email Subscriptions Going Away

I have been using Feedburner for email subscriptions, and it is going away.

Nothing I have read gives a good alternative.

Unless I can find an alternative before July.
I will keep looking.

I did some reading this morning about maybe migrating over to Wordpress, but it will cost me money no matter what and I don't feel like doubling my website expenses right now. Even my very simple art website costs me a couple hundred $$ a year. And I don't want to add this blog to my art website.

Google says they have no plans to discontinue Blogger, although it is old and no one really uses it.
It is perfect for my needs though. And I think it is a very good platform that has un-utilized potential.

My options are to spend time and money migrating this site or do nothing.

I can migrate all 16 years of blog but I determined that if I don't have to I'm not going to.

So for all three (?) of you who visit (THANK YOU!) I'm really sorry but those auto-emails are going away sometime this month.

Frisbee Plein Air- Literally :(

Today I did a volunteer shift and a kayak class down at the boathouse.

Some pictures:

Afterwards my friend and i went over to the park by the water to paint the last light of the day.

I did not use my tripod today!
The light fades quickly so this painting took an hour.

After it got dark, some teens were still playing frisbee and their frisbee hit my box.  

I got pissed off at them.
I know it wasn't intentional but it was still pretty unfortunate.

Wednesday Drawing

This month we are listening to The Mists of Avalon.

I still have my old copy from 20 years ago.

I have read it twice... but a looong time ago!

Here is my drawing from the 45 minute pose.
Graphite.

Kittens!

This weekend Daya and I visited Cathy.
She is fostering 2 litters of kittens and they are RIDICULOUS.

I taught them how to use the ipad.

They did very well and got to something like level 39 of the catch-the-fish game.

I didn't bring any paint because it rained ALL WEEKEND.
This is Cathy's yard on fire in the rain.
(It's a reflection from the fireplace!)

Here are some pictures from our walk in the woods:

Garbage Plein Air

I met up with Thor today and did 2 paintings in Thompkins Square Park.
My goal was to not get too insane over all the detail and chaos, and keep it pretty loose.

8x10 oil 2 hours

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When I had barely started this second painting, an old lady came over to say hi.
It was the best conversation ever, extremely NYC:

Lady: What viewpoint are you painting?
Me: I'm painting the garbage.
Lady: Oh, that's wonderful! 

6x8 oil, about an hour and a half.
It was pretty fun painting garbage.
I'll have to do it again.

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It was fun painting with Thor and real nice of him to let me tag along.
He knocked out three or 4 loose paintings in the time I took doing these two.

I was in two of them! I don't know if he'll finish them or not.
I got a picture of one of them.
(In the second he depicted me walking a cat which was pretty funny.)

Thor's palette:

Thor's painting of me:

Thor Wickstrom's painting 

Work from Home Issues

Working from home has been difficult today.

Cannot use the mouse now.

More Kayak Views

I woke up very early to get down to the boathouse on Pier 26 for volunteer orientation.

Here is Tribeca in the morning.

Orientation was cool.

We found this fish on the pier.

I swept it back into the Hudson.

Isn't it gross?

A bird ate it, but it looks like a cartoon fish with head, tail and spine!

(How do they eat them and leave it looking like this?)

Then we went out on the water.

The water is not open yet until next weekend, so it was just three of us and it was nice. The water was very choppy but I don't mind.

I made use of my new waterproof phone case which has a neck strap, so my phone doesn't get claimed by the river gods.

These weird ominous twin-facing buildings (NY and NJ) are how the exhaust gets removed from the Holland Tunnel.

It's a military zone and they freak out if boats get too close.  

It is on Pier 34 (where I painted yesterday) and you can go to the end of pier 34 until the security fence.

Lower Manhattan Skyline Plein Air

Today I wanted to go paint by the water, so I decided to take on a new challenge- the lower Manhattan skyline.

On an 8x10.

This view is from Pier 34.

I had a technical issue which made things a bit difficult.... I primed and toned some panels on Friday, but the tone wasn't quite dry. This was a problem because it mixed into my sky color.
Burnt Sienna plus turquoise does not look good.

Usually my panels are dry enough the next day so I don't know what happened there.

To get proper coverage I had to cover the sky with a very thick coat of paint, much more than I normally use. This was troublesome with my edges against the buildings and I had to work in small sections. It was a bit frustrating but thankfully something I don't normally have to deal with.

Otherwise this was a pretty difficult painting.
While I always analyze all my paintings and I can see issues with this one, there is still a lot I am happy with. It really was a difficult painting and would have been without technical issues, so I'm proud of myself for attempting it to begin with.

8x10 oil
Three hours

                              

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Sometimes if I talk to people about my painting self-analysis they think I am looking for suggestions from them. Especially if they have something of an arts background.

I am not.

I am not currently at a place in my plein airs where I want critique or "suggestions" of any kind.

Especially from people who are not plein air painters.

Well if they are a really accomplished plein air painter- then I'll take it.

Being out there painting is just a completely different perspective and experience.

And the truth is that I'm painting from my perspective and learning journey, and another person cannot know that from the inside.  I'm experienced enough to know what I did well with, what I missed and WHY.

I almost never go out painting randomly to "see what happens". Almost always, I have something I'm working on, a problem I'm looking to resolve, something I am looking to improve on. Sometimes I add a new color to my palette- recently, viridian. Or sometimes it's literally just trying new subject matter.

This is why VOLUME matters so much- because trying to focus on too many things to improve in one painting is too much. It is a cumulative journey.

(That being said, I desperately want Simon to run a plein air workshop again because I really want to learn from him and have him pick apart my paintings. I would LOVE that.)

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Outside of a teaching context, I actually don't think plein air in general should be critiqued, not really, and absolutely cannot be evaluated the same as a studio painting. It just can't. It's too different.

The above painting is about a thousand times more difficult on-location than it would be in-studio.  This is why even experienced studio painters almost universally feel like they have no idea how to paint at all when they start plein airing. This is normal. 

Plein air can be evaluated in the sense of "what elements are you looking to improve.... values? drawing? composition? paint handling? foliage edges? variation in greens? sky holes? painting windows in buildings? Clouds? Brushwork? Simplification?" And about a million other things- it never ends. 

I think it's better to evaluate plein airs as a group of work to see trends.

Every single experienced and accomplished artist I have spoken to about this says the same thing.  We are always self-evaluating.  I have never met someone who thinks they are "there".