A Year of Making Art: Day 6
4/25/07 Day 6
Facing the blank drawing paper again, I decided to use a smaller piece of paper, downsizing from 9" x 12" to 6" x 8".
I just started reading a book Blixy gave me: The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander, the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. A few of the great ideas I found in it so far:
Rule #6, which is, "Don't take yourself so d***ed seriously!" This is my favorite, because I am always taking myself too seriously.
Another good one is: Contribute, as in "make a contribution." The point of this one is that instead of pressure concepts like "winning" and "being first," making a contribution is a lot less stressful. I don't need to paint a masterpiece, all I need to do is to make a contribution.
Well, I have a long way to go in changing my basic attitude about life and what I'm doing with my work. But I think this book might help nudge me in a better direction.
Here's the drawing I made today:
Drawing #5
This morning I got an email from my New York gallery, Monkdogz Urban Art, where I'll be in a group show this June. They want me to send Night at the Improv, a painting that I've already sold. However, that's the image they put in their Gallery Guide announcement, and in a new marketing brochure they're having printed. I had told Bob Hogge, the gallery director, that this painting was sold a couple months ago, but I guess he forgot.
I wrote and told them the painting was no longer available, but then I got the idea that I should paint another one like it. I often do that on a commission basis when someone wants a painting that is already sold. I use the same style and colors to create the new one, which will not be a duplicate, but in the same family.
So that's what I did next. I printed out a photo of Night at the Improv and used it as a guide to start painting. It won't be easy to imitate because it is extremely improvisational, airy and light, and the things I did in it should not necessarily have worked except that they all came together in the right way. There's no guarantee the new one will work the same way, but I am doing two canvasses in order to double the chances.
The other problem is that the original was 60" x 60" and I'm working on 44" x 44" canvasses. There is no way I'm going to pay to ship a 60" x 60" canvas to New York. In fact, I'm not even painting that size any more. I ordered stretchers 30" x 60" and will paint diptyches in order to get the 60" x 60" overall dimensions.
I used to be able to ship these large paintings via DHL Express, but they stopped taking them. Now I either have to pack them as freight (expensive wooden boxing) or ship them via Fedex freight as an oversized box. This costs several hundred dollars either way.
(Note: There is a gap between the dates I'm writing and posting because I had to give myself time to get ahead in case we travel and I'm not able to post.)
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