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Pushing the Composition Envelope, Melissa Hefferlin Still Lifes

It is interesting to contrast Hefferlin with Picasso (he is one of my favorite artists). He created some of the best compositions of all time, but he frequently distorted the subjects – like the woman's face, body, and other objects – to make very clever compositional arrangements. But in distorting reality so much he threw the baby out with the bathwater. He was visually saying that reality is a chaos of distorted perspectives that are not true to real life. What is exceptional about Melissa is her ability to tweak these pattern motifs while keeping a realistic perspective, a feat of integration that Picasso doesn't match up to.

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Lessons From France

Our first morning was a bright windy day as we drove to St. Remy guided by Mathieu to visit and draw at the St. Paul Asylum where Van Gogh was a patient around 1888-9. It was also the period when he did many wonderful works. Incidentally, I did my final art history paper on Van Gogh's painting of the asylum. We saw the VG bedroom and then we started with our first pastel drawing lesson directly underneath its window.

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France! April-May 2019

Beziers Residence of Bonnie and Robin Priest

People say paintings are like the artist’s children, but that is hyperbole. Perhaps a better analogy is that an artist is like the head of a dog shelter and the pups are under his care until he finds loving homes for them.