Leroy's Art Blog

It has felt like I needed some continuing interest or objective around which to build or continue my blog.  My Peace Corps service was just such an obvious topic, and indeed was why I began this blog in the first place.  But then, my Peace Corps experience was cut short by lymphoma (to be more accurate, Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemia - or more generally, lymphoplasmactyic lymphoma, a type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma).  I really had no interest in recording a personal version of "Tuesdays with Maury" if things did not go well, nor in a recitation of joyful lab reports if things did go well - as indeed they have.  Thankfully.

Beyond dealing with that rather overwhelming medical issue, my personal concerns have involved resettling in the

 city I love, Philadelphia, and in discovering new sets of activities and interests that challenge and surprise and go beyond mere pleasure and entertainment.  To be sure, I have found a number of these.  But there is one activity/challenge that has really grabbed me, and whose development may provide a new focus for the blog:  Painting, with oils.

Back in January I signed on for a course in Drawing and Oil Painting at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art (PAFA) taught by Doug Martensen, largely out of curiosity.  Mostly, I produced truly awful stuff, but also a few things that weren't so very bad and I felt as though I was making progress.  Even though I did feel intimidated by comparison to some paintings hanging on my wall that my Mother had done, and with Ellen producing awesome work out in Seattle.  That course with Doug led to another with him, and then to the course in portrait painting that I am taking now

 with Ted Xaras.  Ted is a superb artist and instructor, with an encyclopedic knowledge and love of the Great Masters.  In addition, Ted's course is held during the day, and that has brought me in touch with the wealth of other activities, functions, lectures, and students at PFA.  It is an exciting ferment, and I love it.  I actually like the portraits that I have been creating lately, and find that when I wake up in the middle of the night, I am thinking of painting, or how to correct some problem in the last painting that I did, or what was special about some master painting that I had been looking at.  I find that creating a portrait on a flat surface

 that contains personality as well as just likeness is pure magic.

Well.  OK.  Now with all that said, here's what's going on now.  A watercolor that I painted in Italy this summer will be used in the 1st Unitarian Church's 2009 calendar, which is fun.  And just today, I submitted photos of three paintings and a charcoal sketch for a juried exhibition of works for sale at less than $100, at Dirty Frank's bar.  Unfortunately the photos were not good (slightly out of focus).  At least that will give me an excuse when they refuse my submissions, without having to admit that their rejection reflects on the Quality of my Work.  Heaven forbid!

Anyway, I've included copies of those photos here, which maybe gives you an idea of what I am coming up with.  The black guy was done in one class (about 2.5 hrs working time), so that explains some of the resulting distortions.