Today's Highlight: Tim's Pastels from the Last Few Weeks

Tim is the kind of buddy who comes along just once in a lifetime. I've known him for over 33 years. We've become the kind of friends that you can call on a moment’s notice and we guarantee we'll drop what we are doin’ and show up to help. So you can see why we paint together. Or maybe you can't. We both like 'Rise and Shine' breakfasts with plenty of grease and hash browns super crisp. We both are artists and went to school in art education. We both would rather be in our 'nothing box' than about anything else and we both don't mind getting dirt or working hard. We both think naps are essential to good health. Oh yeah, the most important we like to laugh and get crazy. Crazy like the day we stopped to get dipped cones at a small ice cream place after painting. We asked for extra dip chocolate. When we got them the chocolate was like 'wax lips' and really chewy and we got started laughing, coughing, and complaining 'sort of' since we asked for a extra helpings of dip chocolate. We couldn't let them go to waste so it just got funnier by the moment trying to eat these chocolate tops and chewing rawhide and laugin' until we thought we were going to get thrown out of the sitting area picnic tables.That gives you a little idea of our painting session’s background.

So what I want to do is talk about Tim's work. The portrait was done near the end of winter. We stayed indoors and were doin' self portraits. I had done a few more by that time so he decided to try one also. He has this big wall mirror which he took down and set it up about fourteen inches from his chair and started sketchin' and starting his pastel's work and there it was that damn incessant clickin' noise. Finally, I had to laugh because I couldn't concentrate and when looked at the picture he had drawn it as if the picture plane had flattened out and elongated his head. Now it does look like him if you've known him as long as I have. But it has such a strange 'cubist flattening'. I love the piece because it makes me laugh and it's him to a 't' psychologically. The other four pieces were done locally. The one real bright one is the local electric light plant, ....huh?. The main structure is day-glo but the kind of lighting for that day makes it work somehow. The pastel piece of the waves is done at Mississsississinewa ( where do you stop with the 'sis's)in the Reservoir. The day was chill and windy but still spring. He sat almost at the water's edge. He has to do this because otherwise he'll draw the whole damn place...One time he drew a country farm scene as an aerial view and he was sitting on the ground not in a plane but I'd swear he tele-transported himself right out of that chair and drew it from a 1000' in the air. The other two water pieces are from his pond at his home and the Eel River near my home. He does great water. Once in awhile I'll watch 'im create a pastel painting and it's like a flurry of arm motions pickin'- up, dabbing, droppin again and again and again, like a  DQ blizzard- maker. All of his work has a fresh spontaneity that puts the viewer right where it was done. You can almost hear the water and get your feet wet. Well that's enough. Can't paint today Tim. I got to get a haircut...startin' to look like Ringo Star.

Hey,

See you next time,
Phil and Tim painting outdoors