10:32 PM: great dinner. one of our guests, who has a very cultured eye, gave me excellent feedback on my grey series. at the end of the evening, i felt more committed than ever to showing the grey series in germany; ideally in hanover.
i realized as well that neither grey 12 nor grey 21, which i've been working on the past few days, are resolved. so i'll continue tomorrow.
3:31 PM: stopping for the day. we have 3 dinner guests & i'm going back to the house to help with prep. the current state is a familiar one; where i come in the next morning & execute a big scrumble. it's an opportunity though to test it out on our guests, particularly one who has a very cultured eye.
goya's womenn are far more overtly sensual than vermeer's. you can almost feel their breath.
11:54 AM: i'm in full on work mode, painting a goya inspired face on top of yesterday's collaged abstraction. this is, as i predicted, providing an ideal surface for introducing the ambiguity i desire. watch ads; a map of canada; a page from an art forum book supplement all provide a counterpoint for the image of goya sensually beautiful female visage.
detail of grey 21, which wil remain as is for now...
10:42 AM: after my first glance, i'm going to begin work on grey 12 and leave grey 21 as is....for now.
8:47 AM: i'm thinking of leaving the new grey 21 as is for a few days to see how i feel about this sparser, but no less complex and interesting picture surface. is there the same emotional punch the rest of the series packs?
as for the many layered, revised grey 12, which was formerly based on vermeer's girl with the red hat, my inclination, before heading to the studio to see what my all important first glance reveals, is to work back into it, basing it this time on a detail from a goya painting i have in mind. the collaged surface would prove to be a fertile ground for a large face i have in mind.
BELOW: some of the stages of grey 12, from the earliest, upper left, to today's version, on the bottom.
