Thursday 7 November-Sunday 21 November


(On extended vacation)



Books read:



Sue Taylor (Ed) Winslow Homer in Gloucester

Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 1980

(A well-illustrated exhibition catalog with a number of critical essays, concentrating on the post-Civil War period during which Homer’s interests changed from illustration to fine art.)



Terry Neff (Ed) Gerhardt Richter

Thames and Hudson, New York, 1988

(A somewhat challenging read about a very challenging artist. There is very little of Richter’s earlier work that I understand, and I fear that this book failed to broaden my understanding.)

Robert Hughes Nothing If Not Critical

Penguin Books, New York, 1992

(A very challenging book to read. The author is erudite, opinionated, and seldom uses a common word when a rare one will do. The essays which make up the book must be read, and often re-read, slowly and carefully. This is not a comprehensive volume, but the subjects with which it deals are dealt with in considerable depth. This is one of the more important books that I have read this year, and one of the few from which I took notes for further inquiry as I read. I was both relieved and saddened to reach the end.)



Sketchbook work: Twenty-three small sketches in my travel sketchbook, execution times ranging from a few seconds to half an hour.

Time for this period: 14 hours 23 minutes

Wednesday 3 November 2010





Course work: Additional work on laying in shadows, using mixes of yellow ochre and burnt umber, with a little pure black.

Reading and theoretical studies:



E. H. Gombrich Art and Illusion (11th Printing)

Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 1969

Pp. 203-241



Victoria Finlay Color

Ballantine Books, New York, 2002

Pp. 223-258





Sketchbook work: Another in my series of color experiments, this one using a triad of lemon yellow, pthalocyanine blue, and alizarin crimson. Mixtures produce a vivid green, a very usable purple, and a slightly neutralized orange. A mixture of all three produces the most convincing black of the test series to date. Pthalocyanine blue is an exceptionally strong color, requiring a considerable amount of caution in mixing.

Time today: Two hours fifty-seven minutes (28h20m)

Tuesday 2 November 2010





Course work: Mixed a fairly neutral yellowish-green with yellow ochre and ultramarine blue and started the process of applying shadowing, working first on the hand. An orange mixed with cadmium red light and cadmium yellow light was applied to roughly represent the bottle.

Reading and theoretical studies:



Victoria Finlay Color

Ballantine Books, New York, 2002

Pp. 169-222



Sketchbook work: A sketch of a child’s plush toy skunk.

Time today: 2 hours 36 minutes

Monday 1 November 2010




Course work: Mixed and applied two more coats of background color to my paper, finally achieving a reasonably uniform and opaque application. I am not as satisfied with the paper as I had hoped; it is supposed to be “ideal for acrylics” but seems less than ideal in actual use, although if it is well-clamped it does return to a fairly flat condition when it dries completely. I sketched in the outlines of the main shapes, then painted them in solidly with a mixture of yellow ochre and white (thus in a sense returning to Project Two of Assignment One).





Reading and theoretical studies:



Victoria Finlay Color

Ballantine Books, New York, 2002

Pp. 135-168



Norbert Wolf Salvador Dali

Parragon, New York, 2008

Pp. 188-219

(A readable book with many high-quality illustrations.)





Sketchbook work: Lacking an immediate subject of interest, I fell back upon my old reliable towel on a hook, which always provides an engrossing sketching problem as well as additional practice in delineating drapery. Also sketched a small detail of a hand towel hanging on a ring.

Time today: Two hours 21 minutes