8pm: in 2005 we travelled to greece to visit my son dimitri on the cycladic island of andros. while we were there i made the preparatory sketches for the painting you see BELOW, which was shown in my 2006 solo show in athens and is now in a private collection. the two women in th composition were friends of dimitri.
pithara, oil on linen, private collection, athens
6:35: today was a prep day. I stretched another 78x26” linen canvas . that size and shape make it very difficult to avoid wrinkles and ripples where the canvas has been stretched somewhat unevenly. A rectangular or square shape is much more conducive to creating an evenly stretched, smooth canvas. and you know how much i love a taut, flat surface to paint on!
that said, i plan on stretching another one tomorrow; the reason being that i want to have more of an option to play. focusing on one painting is ok. focus divided between 2 equal sized canvases, now that feels more like play right off the bat! i learned this on this canvas, now let me try it over here but with a different brush or different colors.
i do have a few ideas about where i’ll be heading next. and having this open ended covid-19 block of time in front of us feels like a huge gift. we do our work, mikela in the house & philip in his studio, then take our walk. and we feel gratitude every day.
BELOW left: cutting the canvas to 78x26” this morning/right: the creek as it looked this afternoon on our stupa walk
