Breakfast day 1

Advice to young artists: Think twice before taking something from the kitchen to put in your still life. I thought we didn't use the toaster very much, so if it was gone for a few days it wouldn't be a big deal and it would free up some kitchen counter space. Not long after I got my still life set up and started painting Elizabeth came to the studio to ask if she could borrow the toaster for a few minutes, she wanted to have toast with her sardines for lunch. "Of course" I replied and the toaster went back to the house and then returned to the studio after she had finished with it. The next morning I wanted toast with my eggs so the toaster made the same trip as the day before. As I worked that day, a rather chilly, gloomy day it was, it occurred to me that a pot of tea and cinnamon toast would be quite comforting. This time I brought a loaf of bread, an extention cord and a serving tray out to the studio.....

The renaissance and baroque periods, Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velasquez, are generally considered to be the height of oil painting. Later periods, in attempts to paint better, made rules and formulas, and became more and more rigid. By the 19th century these rules became dogma, inflexible and inviolable. Manet and Van Gogh didn't fit the mold, their paintings were unacceptable. The reaction against this, of course, was the modern era. Now there is a reaction against the modern era and a return to the ways of the 19th century. But why do contemporary artists want to go back to the rigid ways that brought on the modern period in the first place? Yes, Ingres and Bouguereau did magnificent work in the academic tradition, but Monet and Whistler did extraordinary paintings as well. But why stop there, why not look back farther, before formulas and correctness, loosen the screws, allow artists to draw and paint freely? How about Carravagio, Tintoretto and Pontormo, Hals, Leyster and Brouwer.....

Yellow Nasturtiums

24 x 20 Oil on Linen

Some artists paint in prose, some paint in poetry. Some artists paint facts, some paint metaphor. Some artists paint light and shade, some paint luminosity. Some artists paint space, some paint atmosphere. Some artists design, some compose. Some artists paint tones, some paint color. Some artists paint what they see, some paint what they perceive. Some paintings speak, some sing. Some artists paint to live, some artists live to paint.....