June 11, 2009
Finished another sketchbook last night. Ended with a big, full page, loose wash of, well, I think you know who it is:

Which reminds me, I was at a book signing for the Phoenix Art Museum in conjunction with a street fair activity known as Party On Central, where they blocked off Central Ave from about McDowell to Thomas in downtown Phoenix and had arts and crafts, music, etc. for a weekend. I was on the steps of the museum, sitting at a table with my books spread out. Unfortunately, I was back from the street about 25 yards and out of the flow on Central so I wasn't getting much traffic. This weird guy with big head phones on and wearing inline skates came careening up to the table and asked, "What is this?" And I said, "A book on Wyatt Earp." He said, "Wider herd?" I said it again, louder, but he just shrugged and skated off.

Wider herd. Funny.

Meanwhile, as I close in on the final 1,000 bad drawings (I'm at 9,050, or about 100 days from the goal) I started a new sketchbook:

I realized recently, that so many of these sketches are built on the color Burnt Sienna, which I have always thought was a cool name. A travel story in the latest Newsweek, ("Color My World Burnt Sienna") seems to agree, and goes on to say that "creating burnt sienna requires heating a particular iron-oxide pigment: from terra di Siena, or land of Siena (Italy)". The baked clay of the region gives Siena its consistent hue. Supposedly, Charles Dickens once described "two burnt sienna natives. . ." which added to the allure of the color, the region and the name. I have to agree with the writer Louisa Thomas: "I was particularly taken with burnt sienna. It was neither brown nor red, but seemed taken from the earth, and it had the most beautiful name." But, to me, the color seems very Southwestern with its earthy tone, perhaps even a direct descendant of the sepia photograph.

Regarding yesterday's post, I am still mildly shocked that some of the paintings I had directed towards the trash actually had some decent aspects. Gee, I wonder what Henri has to say about this?

"Don't be ashamed to keep your bad stuff. After all you did it. It is your history and worth studying."
—Robert Henri