How the frail human heart manages to contain the rapturous power of this will forever be one of my life’s true wonders. Simply unbloggable. Neither agitated nor real.

day 3/ ii

Study: Grapes with Red Plum
57.5 x 35.5 cm
Oil on Board

It's now the middle of the night. And not just any night but the eve of the day the experts - using formulas I still can't grasp - reckon the little one will bop on down the bunny trail and say "howdy!" It's certainly because of this that I was able to take another running start at the grapes and plum and before they shrink so wrinkly small that time and dimension invert in some way that made more sense when the sentence began than it does now. Also found that there was time to post an interim entry about what happened between the last session and now. It's fair to say that getting this one study behind me will help in ways I can't quite articulate right now as drowsiness jumps me. Although I won't do any more to this study, there are elements about a new putty formula I should mention. So if things are calmer than the experts predict tomorrow, I might add to or edit this. I've already been given the all-clear by my beloved that I can paint tomorrow if I'm not otherwise engaged.

day 2/ ii

Study: Grapes with Red Plum
57.5 x 35.5 cm
(In progress)

The grand plans to maybe see this study through "tomorrow" wound up amounting to it being completely scraped back to a faceless, placeless plane of broken line and colour. In the recent weeks and months as a spectator reviewing the efforts of so many actual working painters, I've come across so many who inspire me with this scraped back, create-and-destroy approach yielding the lush surfaces of a Lascaux bison-scape. Thing about getting into working like that myself is, now that I've got reading glasses (yes I know) with a 2.0 magnification - I get to see all of that goodness r-i-i-ight up close requiring not so much as a squint or stoop. This, for me personally, makes for an ever unfolding whimsical spiral of unproductive texture mapping comparable to cloudgazing - also a personal favourite. And as much as I love it, not only can't I get anything done - it's pretty challenging to know when something has even started. Perhaps this approach will find me another time when, well, the time is right. So anyway. I mixed up a pile of paint similar to those in the pile I scraped off. And then it set-up before I could get back to it. I'm reading Berger's Shape of a Pocket at the moment on the wonderful Bev Byrnes' recommendation. This makes me feel better in the meantime when I'm contemplating mixing up another pile and then leaping into birthing partner mode as the waters go. A-ah-ooo-gah!