Day One-Ninety-Something...7?...8?

Study: Tangerines with Clementine
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Linen over Panel

No excuses here - just some good old jubilation at having reached the top of my climb back into the light. This is not really the format or avenue for dissecting behind-the-scenes issues, but let it be sufficient to say that some matters of circumspect self-efficacy have been duly ruminated. Sometimes the passages leading out are both steep and slick, but they are part of my adventure for better or worse and they've taken me, yet again, at long last to the end of another study (and long sentence). I'm expecting any day now to be contacted by ArtNews to discuss just what goes through my mind in the days, nights and weeks that pass between swathes of paint being laid down towards the finishing of an alla prima study. I jest. But I do feel like my process (as it relates to my subject matter) and I need to have a serious come-clean about what sort of naughty preoccupations I've been having on the side centered around the human form. Between impending childbirth, parenthood and the figurative life drawing study - as much as I've tried to let it be - these have all collided to severely disrupt my enthusiastic still life arrangements of Nature's more plump and colourful, as was my creative wont. I'll have some time to work through this between now and when the figure sessions resume in a few weeks. As for this study, I haven't been more pleased to get to the better side of a shakey patch in some time. This image will likely need updating as the usual camera settings seem again outdone by the yellows, oranges and blues within the same format. In spite of much of the above, this study remains but one more segment in the forward push towards general progress. [N.B. And we are still on and excited for our big appointment with Universal Wonder in April.]