When I'm not making or writing about art, I'm making conservational clamshell boxes for rare books. It's actually a lot more interesting than it sounds. I must say that you haven't lived until you've handled a first edition english printing of Kafka's Metamophosis, or papers from the first session of congress. Of course the downside is you refuse to buy books that are not first edition, or at least in mint condition. On the bright side anytime you screw up measuring a book resulting in a box too big or small, you can always slap a painting in it. As a long time fan of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, I thought it would be fun to update Alice's mirror to a laptop computer. The computer screen becoming our mirror is something I've been researching for months and will be writing about soon. 

What a Difference Hot Press Makes

For the past three years I have been using watercolors to make sketches for oil and casein paintings. Over that time my practice with the medium has paid off.  Gradually, the dependence of pencil and ink lines to convey the details in portraits and figures has decreased and been replaced by smaller brush strokes, and patience. The latest addition to improvements in my watercolors has been an upgrade in the paper. Previously, I had exclusively used Canson cold press blocks of paper.  The texture is a little rough, but nothing that bothered me for the years I used it. This past August I wanted to try something different, so I picked up a block of Arches 140lb hot press paper. Words escape me in trying to describe the difference between the two. You could say it's like having years of ache and waking up with a complexion as smooth as a baby's butt. The image on top is painted on cold press, and the one on the bottom is painted on hot press.

Parallel Lives

I have presently taken on painting everyone I know. This may take a while, but using watercolors will make it a lot easier. This is Chris Hall. I've known him for most of my adult life. Funny thing about Chris is the course his life and mine share.  We went to the same high school, the same undergrad, and come December, both of us will have MFA's in painting from schools in Philadelphia.  The only bad part is, when his luck is bad, so is mine. And no, we are not related, nor do we ever talk about shrimp.