6.5" X 8", oil on masoniteThere's a huge difference between being outside and working with beautiful plants and throwing the tennis ball around with the dogs and always eating al fresco and building like a shed or what have you- and sitting in your studio in wintertime, looking at yourself in the mirror and you've got it tilted so you can really see up your own nose, which for some reason you don't really realize, as you're painting it, that that's what the painting is becoming about. (which you hadn't intended) What you were thinking, is that it might be nice to clean your gross brushes, sit down with some nice music and warm it up, Chris. It's been awhile, and that familiar feeling is creeping in, and speaking of creep-y, who cares if you do a self-portrait that's kind of creepy to look at? The idea is to loosen it up after not having worked for a while, and like Geoff Barnes was talking about, it's not really talent- it's practice. And not being an idiot.
So anyways, it's good to look up your own nostrils for a couple of hours, and it's good to get your gear all laid out and ready for a nice winter of painting. (And on a little side note- Whenever I write "anyways," as a joke, it becomes harder and harder for me to spot the difference between the joke and the real way, which is like giving yourself brain damage on purpose, in order to be funny. Which reminds me: I was talking to a woman I had just met last week and I tried to use the word "ebullient" in a sentence, and, I don't know, maybe I had never even said that word out loud before; maybe I've only ever read it, but I sounded so ridiculous, and my mispronunciation was so hideous that I think she thought I was drunk, which was humiliating. I should have just used the word "happy.")
So anyways, it's good to look up your own nostrils for a couple of hours, and it's good to get your gear all laid out and ready for a nice winter of painting. (And on a little side note- Whenever I write "anyways," as a joke, it becomes harder and harder for me to spot the difference between the joke and the real way, which is like giving yourself brain damage on purpose, in order to be funny. Which reminds me: I was talking to a woman I had just met last week and I tried to use the word "ebullient" in a sentence, and, I don't know, maybe I had never even said that word out loud before; maybe I've only ever read it, but I sounded so ridiculous, and my mispronunciation was so hideous that I think she thought I was drunk, which was humiliating. I should have just used the word "happy.")
