06 September 2007

nespresso


Arches CP block 300 gsm, 9" x 6". 1 hour.

last month i did a quick painting of my pipe and wine glass, and here is a new addition to the relaxation menu.

labor day weekend jan and i went to the sausalito art festival, and we saw tons of extremely well crafted and generally uninspiring art works. then stopped at the corte madera mall for some holiday shopping.

two hours later i had bought a nespresso machine, a pretty pricey gadget, because my wife thought the coffee was really good and because i thought it would be a convenient replacement for the studio coffee maker, which was so rarely used it usually hid moldy coffee filters. the nespresso machine works on capsules of coffee grounds and brews very tasty espresso or coffee in less than 30 seconds.

i eliminated drawing entirely and just built up the image with the brush. this caused backruns and brushmarks at the areas i had to edit, which induces a texture suggestive of the table. (this could have been avoided by prewetting the paper; but i chose not to.) the pencil is an unpainted all cedar #2 sold by the ny moma store: a fabulous tool for drawing.

i painted the crema with nickel dioxine yellow and perylene maroon, because they were at hand from other paintings; the mix came really close to the espresso golden brown.

by the way, this post was actually made on sep. 4 ... i'm finding that it is most convenient to post the paintings in three day installments, rather than hassle with the connection and uploads and so on every day. (i still have to connect on country copper.)

5 comments:

William K. Moore said...

You captured on paper my drug of choice.. the sight of the golden foam quickens the pulse a degree or two. I want to make a comment about your profile picture - it echoes some of my efforts to not present an Olan Mills image to the public, but something with a little more substance and imagination.

Bruce said...

i had to google the "olan mills" reference: a source of saccharine photo portraits that harmonize with their church directory and religious fundraising services.

William K. Moore said...

I did not know that.. I remember as a kid having to sit uncomfortably still while one of these Mills agents posed my family into a 1960s style waspish pose. I noticed the Olan Mills insignia after the portrait arrived and was placed in the family room. Thanks for the investigation.

Nick said...

Got a friend with one of these machines, works great. Has to get the capsules mail order.
Olan Mills...oh no...the fake bookcase, the beyond-awful iridescent background that makes the whole family look as though they live in an abalone shell. Thankfully we never had to submit to that.
Would like to see some drips and runs on this one!

Anonymous said...

i like this painting