Kings Blue & Water

This evening I decided to explore the other side of Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.
It's a little more isolated over there, and I wanted to check it out.

There is a nice bench with a nice water view.

8x10 oil

There are a lot of painting possibilities here:

I love my new Vasari kings Blue!
It is very glowy and I used it for about half of tonight's painting.

Conservatory Water, Empty

First thing this grey morning I went back to Conservatory Water to see if I could stand in it and paint.

As it turns out, I cannot, but the always-closed snack stand is Close Enough and is a great place to set up for painting.

This is a 2 hour painting, 8x10 oil, mostly with leftover paint from last night.

Painting the bottom was a very interesting and unique challenge.

Evening Light in Central Park

The spring forward time change means it's time to go painting after work, weather permitting.

Right now the sunset is right around 7pm.

Factoring in travel time and keeping that under an hour (hopefully) gives me enough time to log off work around 4 and head out. I can be set up and starting to paint around 5:30 if I time it right.

Tonight I brought my new Vasari paints to Central Park to give them a test run.

I stood on a rock by the east side of Trefoil Arch and painted this tree.
It's just a quick sketch and took a little over an hour.

I love... LOVE these new colors!

8x10 oil

Here are some squirrel friends who live by the rock:

Trefoil Arch has a cool-looking orange glow in the evening:

I entered and exited the park at E 72nd and passed by Conservatory Water.
It is still empty; they drain it for the cold season.

Despite it being empty, and probably 3 1/2 feet deep with a concrete bottom, there are FOUR ice rescue ladders there!!

I think the bottom would make a cool painting... I wonder if I can stand in the basin and paint??

Pebbles Lost Half a Pound

Vet Day......

Pebbles lost half a pound.

This is alarming.

She's down to 6 1/2 lbs.

Acts normal, eats... she's going on an appetite stimulant (mertazapine) and i have to measure her intake.

It will make her eat more and also yell at me even more than she already does.

Fun times.

Vasari Paint

It is that time of year when I plan for upcoming expenses for Daya (tuition) and also when I can do something nice for myself.

I am in good balance and everything is taken care of that needs to be, so I decided why not get some Vasari paint? I have been on their website all week deciding what I am getting.

Lately I have been pulling out all my Very Nice Paint for studio work, and I think I might also start incorporating it into plein air.

I'm not a beginner anymore and would like to allow myself to bring the Fancy Paint outside.

I was in the office today, and so was Kedrin.

We are work neighbors and I asked her if she can leave early by chance and come to Vasari with me.

And she said yes!

Kedrin has never been to Vasari before, but I have spoken about it with her often.

She only uses Old Holland, which is excellent top-tier paint but the consistency is very different, it is much stiffer. I think they partially hydrogenate their oil, someone told me that years ago.

Vasari is insanely pigmented but has a very loose consistency, it is a very long paint. 

It is handmade.

Old Holland is insanely pigmented but is a shorter paint.

Kedrin got her first tube of Vasari, Titanium White.

A solid choice!

We played on the mixing table.

I knew I wanted that genuine Naples Yellow, a lead white, and the impressionist set... which I want to bring out for spring plein air.

This is the impressionist set... I actually have three of these tubes already... they are old and half-used up and will prob end up in my permanent plein air pack.

This set is also on sale right now.

And I decided to fill up another box and add to my turquoise problem.

The 2 phthalo tints in there are variations of a tint I have been using a lot in plein air lately, Gamblin's Radiant Green... they are convenience mixes and I know I will use them.

That naples yellow GLOWS and is amazing!

I also picked up a titanium white, a true ivory black (it's charred bone pigment) and a natural French grey earth which is gritty and makes gorgeous grey tints.

And that cobalt turquoise (PB28) is unlike any cobalt turquoise I have ever seen!

Vasari does not have my favorite pigment PG50  (no one's perfect) but this one is pretty gorgeous and is also very close to PG 50.

Everyone needs their thing I guess.... Vasari is my favorite paint and it's expensive but worth it.

More Fur & I Hate AI

 Doug gave me an old huge wonderful tempered glass palette because he made new ones and we have an "overabundance" of palettes for class.

(Actually he gave me two, one is smaller)

So I decided to use this nice huge palette as my main oils palette, and wow is it a nice space to work on.

Last night I did another fur study.

I took the reference from Adobe stock, which I have a license to use as part of my creative cloud subscription.

I'm also still working with linseed oil only and getting used to that, and I brought out a bunch of Williamsburgs and Vasaris to play with because after all, why not use them?

Oh they are soooooo so nice.

So here is a cat fur study that took me exactly three hours.

That's just how long it took; I didn't have a set time or anything.

I painted it straight through and when I was done, I was done.

9x12 oil on arches paper

Here is the drawing, it's not too complicated:

I also pulled out the Vasari set of earth color tints I got in Jan 2020.

I'm going to start using them more and might even take them plein airing.

My nice comfy palette:

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Yesterday I got stuff done, including getting my hair chopped off.

I already knew I was overdue (I am always overdue) but those pictures from the ASL show on Monday had me saying oh my god... I look awful.

So my hair is all short now and it feels much better.

It's so easy to get lazy about stuff like this when mostly working from home.

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I got a comment on Facebook on the cat fur study:

"So AI."

From someone who owns three of my paintings and is my friend and I'm so upset someone would say that about my work.

I do not and have never used AI in any part of my artistic process, and I never will.

My reference is from Adobe, and I have a licensing right as part of my creative cloud subscription.

Adobe requires AI content to be labeled as such, and my reference is NOT AI.

I HATE AI.

It steals from artists, and humanity is losing the belief in it's own imagination and ability.

It's horrendous and heartbreaking to see.

Also, for as long as I can remember and still to this day, when someone who has never seen my work sees it for the first time, the reaction is always "YOU did that?"

Yeah, I just fucking told you I paint and you asked to see a painting.

Is it so unbelievable that I did something skilled?

So now I guess when I use my real actual imagination (Topiary Cats for example) which I have been doing my whole life and making up shit in my head and painting it is just a thing I can do, everyone is just going to think it's AI.

Well, fuck everyone.

I'm just going to keep painting even if it all just amounts to a big nothing because what else can I do?

It's AWFUL.

ASL Show

Tonight was the egg tempera class show at the League.
It was a nice time.

Daya came for a few minutes, and so did Grace, Hannah, and Janae.

Me and Doug, who is one of the best teachers and also one of the most amazing humans I have ever known.

Doug said some really nice things to me at the show, which ... coming from someone like him... really mean the world to me.

He says I have a ton of ability and also vision.

He says he can the teach technical stuff but not vision.

That actually is true; I can do that.

I can just pull images into my head out of nowhere, but one also needs the technical ability to do it properly. I do feel I fall a bit short technically, or I look too much at others' technical work and feel lacking.

But it was really good to hear that from Doug as I value his perspective so highly.

He's one of those ultra-evolved humans and I feel so fortunate to have his influence in my life.

Aside from the fact that I do keep up with my art and learning and practice, I feel like it mostly amounts to nothing other than I do it. 

And that is hard. 

I would like it to spread farther than it does, to be out in the world more than it is.  There are a lot of technically proficient painters out there who also have somehow managed to figure out the professional business of it.

My life has just never been set up for that to happen, and I don't have all that behind-the-scenes support that people have. 

I don't have the supportive family that seems to make everything possible for so many others.

I need my full time corporate job. 

There is so much that goes into people who actually make something of themselves other than being good (and sometimes not even that) at something.

Central Park Reservoir & My Pigment Library & Irrational Processing

I have had a very difficult week but I forced myself to go out and paint this morning.

It's been a while since I went up to the reservoir in Central Park to paint, so I did that.

8x10 oil

Then I took the bus down 5th Ave and got James Gurney's new book at Barnes and Noble.

(It's wonderful)

Then I went home for a little while, and went out again to the League to drop off paintings for our show which opens on Monday.

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I have had a terrible week.

Actually, all of 2025 has been kind of awful.

I really have had a particularly intense 6 weeks or so (including almost dying TWICE), even though everything is ok.

Last Sunday I must have been trying to feel a little better, and I went on a bit of a spontaneous decluttering frenzy.

And I threw out something that (probably should have been thrown out to be honest) I regretted....too late and after putting the trash out.

I had no idea it would hit me so hard.

I didn't know..... I'm just as surprised as anyone would be!

I think it was just a small thing that can tip an already-wobbly person over the edge.

AND ALSO as I realized... it all happened in those few days leading up to starting my cycle, which definitely makes everything worse.

I threw out a 25-year old garment that I literally haven't seen or thought about for YEARS- it was hiding in the bottom of a drawer. And I clearly remember what went through my mind..."wow I remember this!" you know that flash of old familiarity? and then "I do NOT need this 25-year old thing that I will never wear and haven't even thought about for more than 5 years..." and out it went.

AND I didn't take the trash out until the next day and I still didn't have a reaction.

And then it hit. 

And it hit HARD.

Of course it's impossible to not turn to the internets for processing advice, and it actually did help.

The most important thing I read from decluttering regrets is that usually when something like this happens, it's something about ourselves we need to grieve.

And that absolutely hits home and makes sense.

And while it is true that the garment probably needed to go, it's also true if I could go back in time and keep it I would.  For the sole reason that the timing of it was wrong.  I just didn't need yet something else to have to process. It's highly likely that if I discarded it at a time when I was doing a little better mentally, I wouldn't have cared.

And I didn't care about anything else I threw out.  Just this one small stupid thing.

And if I kept it I would have just forgotten about it again, guaranteed!

The mind is very irrational and it's so important to be gentle internally, and remember that what might seem small and stupid is actually something much larger and deeper.

It's actually a form of dissociation, which I am excellent at. (I'm a fawn-freeze trauma reaction person)

I do have a lot of trauma, and I dissociate.  This is something I have known about myself for a long time.

I just wish the timing of this was better.

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This week I cleaned out my bookcases, which I have been meaning to do for YEARS.

I knew I would find some interesting stuff in them, and I did, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I really only found one thing (from forever ago) that was very intense.... it was something I wrote (probably also about 25 years ago) about my mother and the time she put her hands around my throat and tried to choke me.

So yeah, I have some stuff coming up.

In addition to the current stuff with my mother, which I do not have an update for since I last wrote about it.

And maybe throwing that garment out was necessary in order for me to bring this stuff up and grieve for a certain part of my life and just get this stuff out. So I'm looking at it from many angles.

It's really hard to go through, but I do think I have good internal-processing skills & self care, and I know this, too, shall pass. It just hurts.

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I made a pigment library in my library with the extra space!

Here is the mess I made.... books for the trash, and books for The Strand!

I am not upset about any of this stuff-clearing, which is odd as I have always loved my books but I don't love any of these or it is time for them to move on.

I will be going to The Strand a lot; I think they'll likely take about 60-70 % of these books.

Fur Study

A few weeks ago I got a Jennifer Gennari course on Drawing America. 

She is a fantastic painter, specializing in animal portraits.

For a while I have been interested in seeing her workflow.

And since I went through the course, I have been wanting to try her workflow.

Interestingly it's very similar to how I have been working lately- oil only, no solvent.

She works in a VERY similar way to Patrick Okrasinski!

Here is Isis sleeping in the bathroom with her head upside-down, a big lump of fur.

This painting only took an hour and a half... I was surprised; I thought it would take longer.

The painting in the course was also done alla prima and took about the same amount of time.

9x12 oil

Her palette is also interesting and I approximated a few colors, which I definitely think are Good Enough.

Ivory Black

Venetian Red**

Fake Vermillion**

Alizarin

Cobalt Blue

Emerald Green**

Yellow Ochre

Cadmium yellow Light **

and Cremnitz White (lead)

Now, I'm all for fancy high-end oil paint but Ms Gennari beats me (and most people) with that.

If her system was my system and I was famous like she is, OR I was her student and only worked exactly how she works I would also use her exact palette.

Venetian Red **
She uses English Red which is the same thing.

I do have an actual "English Red" around somewhere but my Vasari Venetian Red is already out and it's the same pigment anyhow. They are interchangeable.

Fake Vermillion**

Oh my gosh she uses real Vermillion.... Michael Harding...

If you can find it, a great price is about $85 on Blick... Jerrys has it for $95 and the store at the League has it for $110 AND THEY ARE OUT OF STOCK. I think Rublev also makes genuine Vermillion.

Real Vermillion is also extremely poisonous and me myself personally...well, I don't think it is necessary.  I don't see the advantage. I'm gonna stick to my fake Lukas 1862 vermillion or Cadmium Red Light.

Emerald Green**

She uses a Michael Harding which is just a 3-pigment phthalo-based mix.

I have an old Utrecht tube that is exactly the same thing, same 3 pigments.

Cadmium Yellow Light **

Oh my gosh she uses ONLY Vasari Naples Yellow which is different (and better) than all other Naples Yellows in the whole entire world. It's about $71/tube and will last forever.

I kinda want one, to be honest.

...I could see myself getting it one of these days............

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I did pull out my Michael Harding Cremnitz. (pure lead)

It's been a couple of years since I used lead and it takes some getting used to from Titanium White.

I feel like I used way more white than Jennifer did in her video.

I had to refill my palette 3-4 times; she never had to.

Now I have to watch that course again and see what else I can get from it.