7/31(the AM), A morning at the zoo...

...drawing bamboo. 

Sketchbook page, Riverbanks Zoo for long term drawing #24, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

For me nature is not landscape, but the dynamism of visual forces.  -Briget Riley

7/30 & 7/31 (the PM), It always feels good...

...to be in the final stages of a painting.  This one is coming together this week, but I can get a bit anxiously excited, and not wishing to take a wrong turn, I might pace myself by leaving it for another work for the next couple of days.  The "7/22, 723, & 7/24 (the AM)" of this blog is the last comparable post of this painting at its previous stage.

I carry my ideas with me for a long time, rejecting & rewriting until I am satisfied. Since I am conscious of what I want, I never lose sight of the fundamental idea. 
- Beethoven

7/29, Figuring it out

Much of the early sketchbook work featured on this blog has been devoted to the environment and atmosphere of the long term, large scale work.  Now that the work is in the final stretch, the figures need to be finely tuned.

Sketchbook page, for long term drawing #22, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Sketchbook page, for long term drawing #23, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

The artist does not ascribe to the natural form of appearance the same convincing significance as the realists who are his critics. He does not feel so intimately bound to that reality, because he cannot see in the formal products of nature the essence of the creative process.  - Paul Klee

7/26, Sketchbook Friday

Sketchbook page, for long term drawing #20, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Sketchbook page, for long term drawing #21, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it? 

- Pablo Picasso

7/25, Zoo day...

...with the sketchbook.

Sketchbook page, Riverbanks Zoo for long term drawing #19, marker, 

 and pen on paper, 9" x 12"

He who binds to himself a Joy

Doth the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the Joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity's sunrise. 

- William Blake

7/24 the PM, Leaves and trees in the plein air...

...I continued my landscape drawing this afternoon with more exploration of the curves and diagonals at Finaly Park.

...must we not distinguish between 'artiste' & 'artist': the one who enables us to forget what we do not want to remember, & the other who enables us to remember what we do not want to forget?

 - E. Stuart Bates, INSIDE OUT An Introduction to Autobiography

7/22, 7/23 & 7/24(the AM), When a painting is in the final...

...stages of its development, things progress quite a bit...but in ways that are not as dramatically obvious as in the beginning stages.  To prevent blogger redundancy, I am posting the culmination of the past three days today.  For progress comparison, 7/19 would be the previous for this stage.

While science follows the stream of reason & consequence, & with each attainment sees further, & never attains a satisfying goal, art is always at its goal. 

- Schopenhauer

7/19 the PM, Now I think...

...that I am really getting somewhere with this image.  With the sketchbook and the art syncing up, it has been a day's time at work in the studio well spent, with big improvements to the large scale, long term drawing/painting.

We make a living by what we get, but a life by what we give. - Churchill