Point Made

One of my latest efforts. Sketch: The Lady Is Blue Gouache 9 X 12 Reporting: I enjoyed a pleasant evening with my friend Michelle Mooney. I took her out for dinner to celebrate her birthday and to thank her for the many first-rate haircuts she's given me. We were surprised at the number of people who dined alfresco in the balmy night air. Whatever we've done to please Mother Nature, she had deemed acceptable by giving us a shot of summer just when late fall weather was wrapping her fingers around our throat. If I have one complaint about the friendly confines of The County Claire, it's the noise level that makes it difficult to converse. The rumble is an acoustical problem with the customers speaking in normal conversational tones. This is without audible TV showing some game or background music selected by a dance DJ.  I know! We should have eaten outside, where the only noise is the occasional 14 bus snorting by.   Maybe It's Me Since my two soccer teams are not doing...

  Still Life, In these flowers. Gouache 9 x 12 Sentinels Gouache 9 x 12 For those of you who may wonder, gouache is a translucent watercolor medium. I became frustrated with watercolor because the process is the reverse of my thinking. Working from light to dark is just hard for me to visualize. I understand I'm not alone. Because of my experience, I have nothing but admiration for people that do it well. I became much more comfortable once I moved to oil painting.  A tried-and-true method of learning to paint is to copy other artists. I became fascinated with the work of Carol Rhode Curly . Now the point of copying other artists is not to reproduce their paintings, but to have their work inspire your version of the subject. Curly is a mixed media artist who incorporated things into her work like found objects and fabric. Essentially, she works with chalk pastels. I was frustrated because of my inability to get the look I wanted to emulate from her work until I tried qouache. ...

There is a difference. I don't know about the rest of you, but for some reason, when I think of a dog, it's male, and if it's a cat, it's female. So maybe that is why this cartoon is not so funny but true. I finished another piece this week. Well, I say finished. I might muck around with it a bit more because I could improve it. Technically, there are some problems with it, but more importantly, the piece is going in the direction I'm trying to get my work to go. The goal is to establish a representative style without trying to reach photorealism. As I've mentioned, as a lifelong photographer, this is a tough standard to re-collaborate. Swinging On A Star Guache 9 x 12 Sadly, I note the passing of a friend. Unfortunately, over the past couple of years, we've parted ways. However, that does not wipe out the more significant number of years Helen Nagler and her husband Len and I were friends.  The group was stitched together. It contained families who had thei...

 Today, I'm having one of those reminders that tell us to enjoy every moment because you never know. When I'm worried about the delivery person from Amazon Fresh dumping my order in the airlock instead of waiting for me to let them in and walking my items up to my apartment, a friend of mine is diagnosed with breast cancer. Yeah, I agree; I don't have a problem. I may have an inconvenience, but my friend has a problem. The doctors found small but not aggressive growth. This means the less invasive lumpectomy is a feasible solution. Further testing will determine the options.  The problem with this kind of thing is waiting. First, there's the discovery of the lump. Then the biopsy is scheduled and completed. A week passes before she gets the diagnosis. Now there is ten-day wait for further testing. In my conversation with her, I sense her genuinely optimistic outlook. I wonder if I could be that brave. It's selfish to profit from other people's suffering, but I c...

This article is a pretty fantastic description of my neighborhood, Yankee Hill. I might have pointed out the Villa Filomena, a former mansion, that is now used for many private activities such as weddings and small musical performances. Across the street from that beautiful piece of architecture is The Lakeside Apartments building. It's home to the writer, photographer, artist, and 2nd chair harmonica player with The Expansion Band, Poppa Jeff. 🙌 https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2022/09/23/milwaukee-walks-yankee-hill-was-height-of-early-milwaukee-society/ Speaking of Art: My most recent effort. A blatant ripoff of a pastel by Carl Rohde Curly. In Motion Oil 9 x 12 Meanwhile, as the official Fall Season is falling on us, and I am referring to the daily temperatures, I attended a parking lot potluck for Common Ground. We got a review of all of our projects that are being worked on. The latest and certainly one of the more non-controversial efforts we've taken is the volunteer tutoring...

 I know. Why does an agnostic invoke God? But then when you think about it, being an agnostic is sitting on the fence. I nonbeliever friend of mine ate only fish on Friday. She claims she did it just in case they were right. Back to the weather. Those of us living on the shores of The Inland Sea are experiencing the extension of a wonderful summer. Now, midway through September, our nighttime temps are in the high fifties, and our daytime temps range from the seventies to the eighties. This is all with low humidity and only seasonal rainfall. I put away my straw hats and Hawaiian shirts only because it's after labor day. There's no doubt, the mere fact that I wrote about this the shorter days and cold north winds will force us to close our windows and begin the traditional hibernation ritual. Sorry! The Punderfull Life Sports The Endless Money Pit. Quite by accident today, I discovered there is an American Football League in Europe. Another article accelerated and enhanced this...

 I thought this until my friend Bill Sell passed away on September 1, 2022. The bad news is that Bill is gone from so many of us that counted on him for periodic grounding in these times of political and social chaos. Yet, his principles and beliefs never overshadowed his empathy and concern for others. His conduct made him the absolute definition of a gentle man. ( Yes, I know the need not be a space between those words, but somehow it means more if there is one.) The good news is his memorial gathering, held in his home in Bayview, brought people from near and far together. It surprised me how many of those people were friends I hadn't seen for long periods. But, COVID notwithstanding, it was almost embarrassing. I only hope the promises of keeping in touch come true. I wrote to his friend Virginia Smalls that his loss made me, an agnostic, think that maybe the concept of heaven, where we all get to be together again, wouldn't be a bad idea. My Latest Painting Afghan Woman Tw...