One more time: GROSS!

I neglected to mention earlier that Sadie and I made it to the Philadelphia Museum of Art a couple of weekends ago while she was in town to see the newly-restored, deliciously dark Eakins painting "The Gross Clinic". In the name of laziness, I will forward you on to this link for a greater and more in-depth story of the painting... but first, let me just say that I am proud of Philly for pulling the funds together to keep the painting in the city, instead of selling it off to some far-flung place... YAY. So, without further ado: Gross!

Eakins' painting The Gross Clinic, photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Shanking.

Last week I checked out a live portrait painting demonstration by Nelson Shanks at Studio Incamminati here in Philadelphia. Two fellow painters from North Carolina, Kiki Farish and Jill Eberle, had the good fortune of taking a full intensive two-week course at the school, and they were kind enough to save me a front-row seat for the demo. It was great! Much better than the one I went to a couple of months ago at the Union League here in Philadelphia, where we were in a HUGE room and people in the audience/standing around schmoozing on the periphery were super-chatty and distracting. This was a more intimate setting with serious students, and was a delightful and informative session. Here are some photos of Mr. Shanks' painting of his son Alexander, in progress through the evening:

The painting in-progress

This photo courtesy of Jill Eberle

Just beachy.

More posts to come soon, including one about the Nelson Shanks painting demo I went to last week. But I'm just coming off some time at the beach, so please give my brain some time to re-focus.

Metropolis!

Just saw the re-released, extended version of Metropolis. Now these are some great dance moves, folks:

Lancaster.

Here are some more photos from the weekend's road trip to the wolf sanctuary and Amish country out in Lancaster County, PA:

I looove black-eyed susans

even Amish get the blues

little Amish piglets

EXTREME chocolate milk. EXTREME.

Dibs on this for a band name.

No matter how many times I see the Amish riding in their horse-driven buggies on the modern streets, it will never fail to look really weird - and kind of awesome.

Disapproving Amish rabbit

L'anniversaire.

Today = 8 years since I became a Feissel!!
These have been the best 8 years of my life - actually, the last 11 since I've been with the amazing Mr. John Feissel have been super-great.
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Here's the first painting I ever did of him, back in '99:

jf1, 1999, oil on board

Here's another one I did a couple of years later, a personal favorite:

nap8, 2003, oil and alkyd on linen, 11"x14"

Happy anniversary, baby!

Los lobos.

If you're a fellow northern hemisphere inhabitant, you may have noticed that it is summertime. As such, it has been hot, and under such conditions I find it difficult to focus on much other than having fun and taking one's mind off the heat. Now, I definitely have fun while painting – don't get me wrong – but keeping a tight working schedule with my painting has just not been happening in this weather. The mind wanders, the body moves with great slowness. The mind moves with great slowness. The body moves toward the nearest cold beverage (or the nearest purveyor of fine ice creams). All this to say, painting is going very, very slowly. Yet, there is inspiration a-plenty here in Philly and beyond... most recently, I have found some splendid nature-based inspiration, found at the Wolf Sanctuary of Pennsylvania. Wolves! Definitely expect to see some in my paintings in the future:

Also of interest: the Amish! Endlessly fascinating, and perplexing. Especially perplexing are the Amish dolls for sale at The Amish Village: spooky.