3:36 PM: end of my painting day. i made a few adjustments, pushing back that intrusive alizarin box surrounding the image & consequently allowing it to breathe. there was also a light scrumble. softening the harshness characteristic of acrylic paints. by the way, the reason for all the parallel lines in the original is because these fayum portraits were painted in encaustic which, like acrylic dries very fast and can't easily be blended in the way oils can. the same is true with egg tempera, which was used by byzantine icon painters. so the parallel lines in transitional spaces of light to dark give the illusion of a smoother transition than is possible with these three mediums.
and one more interesting detail: that bit of green on the right falls into the category of the fortuitous accident i mention earlier in the afternoon. it's part of a painting the two kids made on the floor of my studio last week and, right now in this painting's journey, it's critical. without that bit of greeenish blue the painting would greatly suffer. thanks kids!
gaze 33, 38x36" as it looked around 2:15 PM/
2:41 PM: a different image has emerged; male instead of female and moving closer to discovering his identity in the picture plane and in my internal picture plane. the search goes on and making the most of fortuitous accidents plays a major role. this capacity was nurtured for us by our early 20th c. predecessors. how did they do it? the time was right. deconstruction was in the air, as it is now.
the fortuitous accident is only valuable when seen by the discerning eye. and this is, i believe true in all the arts; perhaps even more so in the sciences.
12:50 PM: i was in a very good mood this morning. woke up that way. got to to work around 11:30, and began just fooling around, as i often do. but today was more FOOLING AROUND, if you know what i mean. letting my body move about the studio as it wished, grabbing a piece of paper & collaging it; cutting up one of the paintings the kids made last week here in the studio on big sheets of paper and collaging them; finding a very small image i liked in my fayum book and blowing it way up, then using it as a basis for some sweeping marks on the surface....FOOLING AROUND! and that's where the juice often is; just FOOLING AROUND!
1:04 PM: still working/playing, got another couple of hours in me. more pics as available...
BELOW: gaze 33 at the end of the day yesterday on the left, and just now, on the right:
