004

apricot

1. prototypical color

When I use the word “apricot” to describe a color, it’s a peachy hue. A safe color that a bold person may paint a room. But now I see that apricot is many shades of orange. If I were to paint this bowl of fruit, I would take my time mixing colors.

Hydra

2. compositional study

This study is for the sketch on the left half of the page. The first note is to soften the distant mountain ridges. Next I make note to sketch the buildings first, lightly and carefully. Then, focus on foliage shapes and tones. All loose and sketchy. Lastly I mention stones, that they should be painted in the same free manner.

wild flower photoguide

3. on the shelves

Thank you for handing me this book. I have not read it cover to cover, but do keep it by my side.

bleeding

4. anatomy of a mark

The mark I am focused on is where the yellow bleeds into the grey along an olive curve. The media is watercolor, which bleeds beautifully, and in this case the substrate has much to do with how this mark occurred. YUPO is a synthetic paper primarily made of polypropylene resin. It is refreshing to not know what will happen on YUPO. Strange marks occur like this one.

view of the Pelopenese

5. curated eye

No exhibitions this week. Simply views of Hydra and beyond.

plein air

6. infj

I’ve never been a fan of plein air painting, but this is the first time I have a watercolor easel. It only weighs 2kg, and the parts fit perfectly in my painting bag. I brought a lot of supplies from Brooklyn, including a cup for water. Brushes, a pan set, gouache, cloth, lead holder and sketchbook are all proving essential, but the watercolor pencils and crayons are not. Glad I am typing this. I will leave them behind from now on.

003

glacial blue

1. prototypical color

This is my shower curtain, and another color I am always excited to see. Glacial blue demands light and a translucent material like ice or glass. There is not a Pantone swatch I would choose for it, or a painting. Instead, I admire the work of Sophia Collier. And my shower curtain.

of a watercolor 80% done

2. compositional study

The two important areas of focus in this study are starred in yellow circles. It is a scene of a baptism, teeming with supporters. In the center I note to “add more definition to head and shoulders between (the) hands’ of the person being baptized and the the baptizer. The next note on the right side of the page says “unresolved”. It splits to two circles where a dark is not dark enough, and a suggestion to add a phthalo blue line to blend into the green water in the bottom right corner.

newly translated to English

3. on the shelves

This book is of his 1981 lectures transcribed, and it reads like it. There are plenty of questions and “I don’t know”s.

University of Minnesota Press

erasure

4. anatomy of a mark

I do plenty of erasure when I paint. This particular mark reminds me of areas in Francis Bacon’s paintings, which thrills me. He did many of portraits of his friend John Edwards, and in a particular study with a deep pink background the feet of his subject are completely wiped away. My mark is the head of a figure with long hair from behind, but I can see a Bacon beast coming forth through the erasure.

Joe Concra “Clown Car”

5. curated eye

Spring Salon

Hawk + Hive

61 Main Street

Andes, NY 13731

always go swimming

6. infj

Beaverkill River. First swim of the year.

002

indigo

1. prototypical color

I’m looking for this color everywhere in life. Indigo. I went out in search of a particular deep blue planter pot last week. For over a year it was on the window ledge in a room I frequent often in Hell’s Kitchen. But last week, it was gone. My only reliable indigo in life, out the window, or taken to another room. I need a new, reliable deep blue. I can’t rely on seeing this car door.

prayer circle mass

2. compositional study

For a painting in early stage. The first note is that there is too much sky and to lift the horizon. The next note is to shift the hillside base in accordance. The people along the quarry’s edge must rise as well and create a greater arc. Next of note is to make the quarry green. With the top of the composition shifted, the bottom has a note to make the figures taller and alter their height line. A box labeled “fog” encapsulates the lower third of the scene. Lastly, there is a note to paint every person as defined as the rest, the further figures the same as those in the foreground.

always on the shelf

3. on the shelves

“This book, the first detailed account of developments centered around the conceptual art movement, highlights the main issues underlying visually disparate works dating from the second half of the 1960s to the end of the 1970s. These works questioned the accepted categories of painting and sculpture by embracing a wealth of alternative media and procedures.”

-Thames & Hudson

dry brush loop

4. anatomy of a mark

A mark of dark red comes from the top center and makes two loops. Loops can look too doodly, but at the beginning of a painting I leave them be. What is great about this looped mark is its relation to the rest of the forms and space, as well as its dry brushed rough edges.

Full Circle, 2026

5. curated eye

Check out:

Heather Horton

Friedrichs Pontone

273 Church St

New York, NY 10013

Fountain House Gallery opening for Encased

6. infj

In front of Dream Pools.

001

flame white

1. prototypical color

I would call this flame white. From a Bic lighter, a blue violet vase gives way to a clear space, then a warm white peak. Intensely bright. A simple mixture in oil paints could be Cremnitz white with a touch of Gamboge, or Titanium white and the slightest touch of Quinacridone/Nickel Azo Gold if acrylic. It may seem ungodly to mix pigments to depict flame white, so to get even more ungoldy - the Pantone could be #FFFAEE.

Mount Fuji

2. the tether

The first image for the tether has to be Mount Fuji. I pulled this image from Google to serve as the primary symbol of axis mundi, a tether between the earth and heavens. This concept has intrigued me and inspired my art for nearly two decades. I will continue to post images reminiscent of tethers, axes and navels in this section, but I hope to photograph the rest from life.

historical novella

3. on the shelves

Ingeborg Bachmann wrote The Honditsch Cross when she was eighteen years old.

New Directions Publishing

overlay

4. anatomy of a mark

This is a detail shot from an underpainting of a work in progress titled Sleepers. The specific area for inspection for this anatomy of a mark is the top left corner where primary red sits upon a bright yellow and appears hot pink. These pink areas are where one of the ‘sleepers’ arms and knees hang over the edge of a cliff of a yet to be painted quarry. Although most of the pink and yellow will be painted over, it would delight me if some of this moment survives.

gallery opening

5. curated eye

Check out:

Leon Berkowitz

ACA Galleries

173 10th Ave

New York, NY 10011

Rainbow Rabbit

6. infj

Is this very INFJ? Owning this VW Rabbit has become quite dreamy. Chiaozza gifted their car, what I consider an artwork of theirs, in the fall of 2025. With the “Rainbow Rabbit” I have been able to transport canvases and supplies to a new studio in Sunset Park. While cruising through Brooklyn on the near-daily, dressed in black, looking depressed and playing the Velvet Underground, sometimes I mutter to gawking passersby, “What are you looking at?” Then I remember.

Thank you Adam, Terri, and Tove.