Dear Studio,

I'm sorry that I've only been poking my head in lately. The thing about you Studio is, you never make me feel bad when I come back. You're so cool that way. Still, I want to thank you, and if it is any consolation, I want you to know that I always carry my iPhone with me and it has a powerfully acceptable lens so I can flag some moments to bring back to you.

In fact, three days ago I went to a party/send-off for Kevin Christman (Kevin will be competing in the Grand Central Academy of Art Figurative Sculpting Competition on Saturday (June 4)) and I had to climb over some parked trains to get to it.

So I took a picture.

When I got there, one of Kevin's models was serving my favorite sort of beverage.

I walked around. Kevin had some cool paintings but the one piece that got my wheels turning was this Kissinger bust.

Conceptually (which means: good idea, but I wouldn't want to be the one who carries it through) I was marveling at the notion that there are some humans who have been photographed from enough points-of-view that one could make a really interesting suite of hyper-realistic sculptures.

But the piece that just killed me was something more open-ended.


So you can see dear Studio, it isn't that I haven't been paying attention.
I'll be back.
Don't you worry.
That's another good thing about you Studio: I don't think you worry about me.

I don't worry about my daughter. She wore a shower-cap to school today.

One of her friends (who happens to be a boy), dressed up Miso the other day.


Zaida has an amazing support group for a ten year old. They are all defining themselves. Some with more attention than others. I'm just happy that my kid can see what it is like to pull off wearing a shower cap to school.

Oh. . . sorry Studio, I got off track with photographs trying to prove my point. See, here's the thing, tonight I'm hosting a drawing session (which I do every Tuesday), so I don't think I'll be seeing you again.

Sorry.

Augmented Twenty Minute Gestures by Twenty Years of Experience

Steven LaRose, (Extended Gesture 1, 2, and 3), 2011
Mixed Media (too irrelevant to list) on Newsprint, 18 x 24 inches

The other month I found John Ruskin's The Elements of Drawing in a FREE pile.


I hadn't even gotten past the Introduction and Preface before I found myself Googling: "all great schools enforce delicacy"

The lens on my iPhone 3G is not bad enough to be cool, so now I find myself spending more time with composition.

ExGest

The following images are extended gestures from the past two Get Sketchy at Tease nights that I co-host on Tuesdays.

I will be there tonight. You should show up too.
(click on images for larger views)

Contemporary Figurative Painters

Contemporary Figurative Painters

View more presentations from Jacques de Beaufort

A slide show by Jacques de Beaufort for his life drawing class.

Another product of puttering last night.

7 x 10 inches

An Extended Gesture or "As he who seeking asses, found a kingdom"

(click on image for larger view)
Milton

Painter's Blogs Are Boring

I am so far behind.
Life just caterwauls along.

I thought I might hook you with some dog porn:

. . . and then the money shot =

Maybe you are a food junky?
I married a lady who serves this for an after-school snack:

And she somehow made salmon taste good inside this pastry:

That is the bon vivant in question on the right.

On the left is our daughter.
I am so far behind.
Life just caterwauls along.
The first sunscreen of the year.


The first pit of fire has happened.

Shoot. . .
'member Easter?

I mean, dang. . . Spring has sprung.
I saw this moment this weekend from my Tai chi chuan lesson.

(detail)

I am trading Supreme Ultimate Fist lessons for a painting.
How cool is that?

Where were we?
Oh yes.
Painter's Blogs Are Boring.
Dog Porn.
Dog's nose jizz.

Dog's obviously have their parameters within which they work.

I beg you to send me pictures of your Sunday morning eye-openers.

I am so far behind.
It only seems like yesterday when Whiting Tennis took me on a John Watersian tromp through Portland.

That was before Spring.

or visit Mary Addison's new picks:
http://www.undercoverpainter.blogspot.com
http://painters-table.com
http://www.abstraktion.org/
http://structureandimagery.blogspot.com/
http://studiocritical.blogspot.com
http://progress-report.org/
http://fundamentalpainting.blogspot.com/
http://www.gorkysgranddaughter.com/
http://standardinterview.blogspot.com

An expression of connubial tenderness.

Steven LaRose, When Charlie Parker Fluttered Least, 2011

Oil on acrylic on wood, 7 x 6 inches
(click on image for a larger view)

Hammered and bunched up

Steven LaRose, Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby, 2011

Oil on acrylic on wood, 7 x 6 inches
(click on image for a larger view)

The protagonist is Tom, a young chimney sweep, who falls into a river after encountering an upper-class girl named Ellie and being chased out of her house. There he dies and is transformed into a "water baby", as he is told by a caddis fly—an insect that sheds its skin—and begins his moral education. The story is thematically concerned with Christian redemption, though Kingsley also uses the book to argue that England treats its poor badly, and to question child labour, among other themes.

Tom embarks on a series of adventures and lessons, and enjoys the community of other water babies once he proves himself a moral creature. The major spiritual leaders in his new world are the fairies Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, and Mother Carey. Weekly, Tom is allowed the company of Ellie, who had fallen into the river after he did.

Grimes, his old master, drowns as well, and in his final adventure, Tom travels to the end of the world to attempt to help the man where he is being punished for his misdeeds. Tom helps Grimes to find repentance, and Grimes will be given a second chance if he can successfully perform a final penance. By proving his willingness to do things he does not like, if they are the right things to do, Tom earns himself a return to human form, and becomes "a great man of science" who "can plan railways, and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth". He and Ellie are united, although the book makes clear that they never marry. - The Water-Babies

I am trading

This for That

Even though I get depressed when painting becomes my source of income; when I get depressed I like to paint.

Steven LaRose, Falls Like Church Bells, 2011
Oil on acrylic on wood, 7 x 6 inches
(click on image for a larger view)

"The story dates back to January 6, 1482 in Paris, France, the day of the 'Festival of Fools' in Paris. Quasimodo, the deformed bell-ringer of Notre Dame, is introduced by his crowning as Pope of Fools.

Esmeralda, a beautiful Gypsy with a kind and generous heart, captures the hearts of many men, including that of a Captain Phoebus, but especially those of Quasimodo and his adoptive father, Claude Frollo, the Archdeacon of Notre Dame. Frollo is torn between his lust and the rules of the church. He orders Quasimodo to kidnap her, but the hunchback is suddenly captured by Phoebus and his guards who save Esmeralda. Quasimodo is sentenced to be whipped and tied down in the heat. Esmeralda, seeing his thirst, offers him water. It saves him, and she captures his heart.

Esmeralda is later charged with the attempted murder of Phoebus, whom Frollo attempted to kill in jealousy, and is sentenced to death by hanging. As she is being led to the gallows, Quasimodo swings down by the bell rope of Notre Dame and carries her off to the cathedral under the law of sanctuary. Clopin, a street performer, rallies the Truands (criminals of Paris) to charge the cathedral and rescue Esmeralda. The King, seeing the chaos, vetoes the law of sanctuary and commands his troops to take Esmeralda out and kill her. When Quasimodo sees the Truands, he assumes they are there to hurt Esmeralda, so he drives them off. Frollo betrays Esmeralda by handing her to the troops and watches while she is hanged. Quasimodo pushes him from the heights of Notre Dame to his death. Quasimodo then goes to a mass grave, lies next to her corpse, crawls off to Esmeralda's tomb with his arms around her body and eventually dies of starvation. Two years later, when their grave is excavated, Quasimodo is found embracing Esmeralda, whose neck is broken. As someone tries to separate the two, Quasimodo's bones turn to dust."

Repercussions

Steven LaRose, The Wise Men of Gotham, 2011

Oil on acrylic on wood, 6 x 7 inches
(click on image for a larger view)

So there I am.
It took me some time.
Less than a month.
This painting is the first of a new suite.
It is the same size as the last suite.
Cluster, group, constellation or suite. . . whatever.
The jpg is lacking in saturation, but who cares? It will look that much better in real life.
I added another complexity to my shtick.
Hello Madam Light Source.
I suppose that that is the threshold or tipping point, isn't it?
Once there is a light source, there no longer is abstraction.
Kinda cool to think about.
That painting is about me.
It is also then about uncontrolled growth, invasion and spreading destruction.
The title of the painting comes from the old legend:

The story is that King John intended to live in the neighbourhood, but that the villagers, foreseeing ruin as the cost of supporting the court, feigned imbecility when the royal messengers arrived. Wherever the latter went, they saw the rustics engaged in some absurd task. John, on this report, determined to have his hunting lodge elsewhere, and the wise men boasted, "we ween there are more fools pass through Gotham than remain in it".^[1]

According to the 1874 edition of Blount's Tenures of Land, King John's messengers "found some of the inhabitants engaged in endeavouring to drown an eel in a pool of water; some were employed in dragging carts upon a large barn, to shade the wood from the sun; others were tumbling their cheeses down a bill, that they might find their way to Nottingham for sale; and some were employed in hedging in a cuckoo which had perched upon an old bush which stood where the present one now stands; ^[2] in short, they were all employed in some foolish way or other which convinced the king's servants that it was a village of fools, whence arose the old adage, "The wise men," or "The fools of Gotham."^[3]

So there I am.
It took me some time.