Color Studies

Charcoal dominates downstairs in the studio while up here at the computer I layer blocks of color, watching how they interact with each other. And how color can move forward and backwards on the surface. I have never paid to much attention to this and I like seeing how it can change everything. These are very structured studies [I've been thinking a lot about the Josef Albers catalogue, Painting on Paper], and it's so lovely to be surrounded in color again.

Blue forward

Blue backward 2, 

Same blue in #2 and I enjoy how different it feels, solid yet somehow mysterious. It certainly has more presence. #1 feels expansive, a breath, the exhale; while #2 feels contained, the in breath. 

Reading

I have spent the last 4 days in sloth and torpor; and I love it. After Christmas and before New Years has to be one of my favourite times; with luck I spend it reading, on the sofa, in front of the fire. This year was a feast and some lovely coincidences. I started with a lovely and charming book by Donia Bijan, "Maman's Homesick Pie" followed by a short typescript by my mother in law, "A Trip To Persia" [1971].  My mother in law happens to be an amazing woman who turned 100 years old last fall and so it was great fun to then read "The 100 Year Old Man, who climbed out the window and disappeared", [Jonas Jonasson] one of the funniest murder mysteries I have read. And I keep dipping in and out of "Paintings on Paper, Josef Albers in America". So many friends have talked about this book and it is gorgeous. Then I might do an essay from "Madness, Rack, and Honey" [Mary Ruffle], then a few more liquorice allsorts,[ discretely hidden behind the stack of books].

A lovely stack of christmas reading