Slackin'

After having turned in the painting for the Des Moines Art Festival Mural Project I decided it was time for a break. I took the week off from pretty much everything except for housework and parenting duties... and the occasional game. I went to bed early every night (read as "before 1am"). I didn't paint. I didn't blog. I didn't Tweet (much). I didn't FB or MySpace much either. I few odd updates here and there, but far below my normal level of social networking activity. I just seemed like time to unplug a bit. As a result I look less like a crak monkey and have some fresh enthusiasm. I'm ready to go again. I think this is the longest I've been away from the easel in 3 years. The longest prior to that was the 3 months immediately following the move into my current home 3 years ago. I think I was getting withdrawal symptoms across the board.

As of last night I'm back at it. Going to try to get more intimate with the characters in my compositions. I've also been thinking about trying out some abstract pieces. I've never had the talent for abstraction/abstract thought. Probably why I nearly failed Algebra I and dropped out of Algebra II. I have always considered it a possibility that my evolution as an artist would lead me down the path to creating Abstract Art much like Piet Mondrian's did. Look at the progression of his work sometime and you'll see what I mean.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway here are some shots of the compositions I've started playing with. They're done in one of my favorite drawing tools, the Sharpie. Also I've included the beginning stages of a painting based on one of those drawings. It's a small section from a photo I snapped in NYC last December.

Enjoy. I'll write again very soon now that I'm back on track.


Cheers,

R