June 2, 2009
I'm working on a sunrise sequence. I was taken with a David Stoeklein photograph of a windmill at sunrise:

Great color scheme of blue and orange. It's on a poster for a photo show in Alpine, Texas next September. Jay Dusard sent the poster to me.

Went home last night and did these three studies from memory:

Got up this morning and whipped out a more specific study before yoga class at eight:

Then went home for lunch and worked on it some more:

Might have pushed it too far. Read a passage by the French master Degas where he noted that at dusk and sunrise, everything is dark except the foreground. Very true, at least to the eye. You'll notice that in the photograph it's all black in the foreground, but that's not how the eye sees it in nature. Enjoyed backing in the color in the foreground, blending back and forth until it simulates a bit of dusky dawn.

In my sketchbook I did six quick splash impressions of the same scene, adding a lone figure. Is he running out of a sunrise? Into a sunset? Is he starting a fire? Is he not starting a fire? Is it Billy Joel? All of these questions bounced around in my head as I worked back and forth, until I had my usual glorious mud:

Actually, it's the Apache Kid and he's blowing past every sentry, every patrol sent out to stop him from kidnapping Beauty, her face having been scarred by the brute Curly.

You can call me the Mud Man. Man, I hate it that I can't get what I want out of my head and on paper. Gee, I wonder what "Low-ass" (as his friends called him) has to say about this?

"I'm not in the process of regenerating French art at all, and I'm struggling with a hapless piece of paper that hasn't done a thing to me and on which, believe me, I'm not doing anything worthwhile."
—Toulouse-Lautrec