Starting a new job this month has completely destroyed my art schedule. My goal has been to practice drawing every day and to complete one finished drawing and one finished painting each week – not necessarily large pieces, but ‘finished’ – as in I actually persevere even though I sometimes am very dissatisfied with them and I finish them. Because that’s the whole idea of practice. I have fallen far short of that goal so far. Tomorrow another week begins and I will keep going.

I did get a chance to do a little painting again. And since I have been very frustrated withe my most recent work, I decided to eliminate one variable and paint in monotone. I had thought that I’d add a number of coloured glazes to bring colour back in, but when I started doing that, I didn’t feel the need to take if very far. My drawing of the support under the pear is horribly distorted (thus the need for more drawing practice) but I kind of like the way the fruit turned out. I had paint left on my palette and a little ATC sized bit of canvas paper handy, so I did another quick little pear to end the evening. Painting with my monotone palette reminded of another painting I did in about 1995 in a class setting. It was on masonite and I threw it away, keeping only a (poor) photo of it. Her skin tone may suggest she was cold, but there were at least two space heaters directed towards her. No models were hurt or placed in discomfort for the purpose of this artwork…