blue ladder

The Santa Ana winds are howling through the foothills and the acrid smell of the smoke of a distant fire has infiltrated the house. My 'studio', which consists of an old wooden table and some newspapers stashed out on the patio, is a-blowin' in the wind. I'd been looking forward to painting, but c'est la vie; now it's a good excuse to cozy up in here.

Yesterday I finished a small (11 x 14) oil on canvas sketch taken from a picture snapped on a lazy afternoon at the Reel Inn in Malibu.

I felt reasonably good about it, although it is not really what I started out to do. I was trying to free up my brush and a tendency toward some sort of vague, pseudo-impressionistic style, so it's not exactly a success on that point. I'm somewhat color blind as well, and often have trouble distinguishing between various shades of blue, green and yellow, so I was playing around a little with that.

But this afternoon I started wandering through some art blogs and suddenly feel less comfortable in posting it. Feelings of inadequacy are tiresome to endure and even more tedious to read about so I will refrain, and remain positive by sharing a link I found on Danny Gregory's site to these amazing journals by Kathrin Jebsen-Marwedel. They are full of vibrant color and originality, and make me wish I hadn't just wasted half my day staring at a computer screen getting all lumpish. I have no doubt Kathrin never lets a little weather get in her way.

On the plus side, I consider myself to have fufilled my New Year's resolution to complete something from last year, and can now move forward cheerfully unencumbered by unreasonable expectation. There's still some light out there. I think I'll draw the wind.