iris sketch

Strathmore drawing 200 gsm 14" x 10". 10 minutes.

new paintings, drawings, and partially completed works are swarming around the studio like ants. i have overextended myself and that has been unproductive.

i discovered that i can work or two or more paintings at the same time, but they must be the same model in the same lighting and attire. i have been trying to work on two or more paintings at a time of different models, and this created chaos.

each painting requires its own color scheme, paints, paint mixtures, brushes; they are all done on different papers that require different technique to come out as i want. i clean my table and get everything organized, then each painting pulls out its needed resources and soon the table is so cluttered there is no room to work. i have to stop, organize, and then start over. i did this about three times and then realized it was a problem.

anyway, this is by way of mention that i have three paintings of jonquille in the queue, but haven't gotten to them yet. which is partly the context for this drawing, which i did while waiting for jonqui to arrive ... she'd missed a turn and gotten delayed finding her way.

there is a certain kind of attitude that a painting requires for it to move ahead ... a kind of patient enjoyment in the care, that comes through in this drawing. coping with too many paintings at once is too much like herding cats.