"There are trees in the desert since you moved out."

December 21,2002 @ 7:31 AM

I've thrust back the shears on my living room window to let the full blaze of the East's morning light stream in to my living room casting rich powerful beams of illumination upon my painting, 'Stifled Creation'

I'm sorry, but that picture in no way does that painting justice, and i'm quiet simply still in love with it. Absolutely struck down by the complexity of it only revealed in the morning light.

anyway

I'm going to paint grandma today.

The vision I had of the way to paint her steeping for just over a month now, I'm going to capture her, or at least attempt to. She was originally going to be on a 3' by 3' canvas but I opted for a 30" by 4' one when I got to my fav art store. Let me clue you in to what I saw when she died.

Taken from the paper diary, November 20, 2002

I've seen in my minds eye how I will remember Grandma. It's shades of magenta, pink and shell, with overlays of ivory, butter cream, and even a tiny bit of pistachio.

In my minds eye Grandma stepped up to me, a specter of the vaporous sorts, letting her gaze and then her physical presence glide over to the painting. Grandma always has to think of things in the concrete, and my luminous impression of her was anything but that. She was standing there in front of it, my as yet unstarted painting, on a wall, not turning around to ask her question of me or to hear my answer, only looking at the painting.

She asked, in a halting, hesitant way "James, what is it of?"

"Grandma." I intoned, "It's an idea. It is an idea I have of what all that is you looks like."

She stopped looking turned her head toward me, her body still facing the painting, and said "I've always liked your ideas." A loving and approving smile on her dewy radiant face.

With that my little visitation in my brain was gone, and now I am only left with the charge to complete an impression of the work I saw in my brain. The impression of the idea of what I think all that grandma was.

Love to you.

oy vey, someone told me that is how it is spelled. (I actually just typed spelt, and corrected myself) But I still prefer my original Oih Vieh.

December 22, 2002

My impression of grandma is coming along nicely, but I've experienced a hick up. Or rather I've come face to face with the tinting power of titanium white.

I mixed a glaze with a giant glop of gloss medium and the tiniest split pea sized spec of titanium pigment and brushed it evenly over the surface of the canvas, aiming to tone down the colors that were just a bit to bold in the middle left sections and obscure some white areas further back into the background.

What I've inadvertently brought about though is a sheer layer as if a delicate cloth of white has been draped over the piece in entirety. Not the effect I was aiming for. I'm hoping that what a great deal of what i'm seeing is actually the gel medium that has not yet dried to clear.

The piece has become more complex then I originally intended, but it is still grandma.

There is this white area, a puddling stream of a shape leading up, up, up, ascending even. But I realized the great masters they did not use pure white to describe white. It looks dull and lifeless, so they introduce the palest icyest blues, and greens to make the true white in the white areas vibrate. Tomorrow this will have to be reworked. I can't have grandma's path being dull. It must be a vibrant, alive white.

The gauze of white I've applied? well, i'm refusing to admit that i've overworked it. It WAS to bright before, i'm just going to have to creatively make it pop again. Now that it's had some more drying time it has become more transparent, but still the colors are more obscured then I intended.

December 22, 2002 lateThe white has been reworked and the veil of gauze thinned a bit to reveal a bit of vibrantcy. Grandma is complete and will shortly be hanging in my parents house. Love to you.