The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
(This will all look and work better if you click on the actual post and do not remain on the main page.)
Thursday evening we attended The Artist's Direct Painting demonstration at the Bolton (Massachusetts) Public Library (his exhibit will be there through this week if you are in the area!).
The whole time I was watching him do this, I was thinking, “This needs to be on YouTube!” John gives a talk about color and light in painting while simultaneously producing a work of art right before your eyes!
How do these blobs of paint, without benefit of sketching or studies, become a finished still life such as you see on the walls there in the show? (Granted the lighting in that room is not super conducive to viewing or producing art — yet the paintings glow, and the one under construction seems exactly right.)
I don't know!
But it happened!
The technique of direct painting was taught at the Boston Museum School with great masters. Of course it involves a tremendous amount of study and painstaking technique. Blobs of paint don't organize themselves into beauty!
Subsequently this method was all but lost when the modernist ideology took over the academy. You can read more about this on John's blog in the coming weeks.
The evening wore on and the work was left in this incomplete (yet still already beautiful!) state. I'm looking forward to seeing it finished, aren't you?
On to our links!
- Of course, predatory sex has been in the news, and our minds turn naturally to our own children and how to protect them. Among other things, I recommend The Jim Foley Option. The question arises, what about children who don't have fathers around to protect them? I don't know — all I know is that a good father has an effect on society beyond what he sees and deals with directly. Many a lost little boy has been saved by even remote proximity to a good man.
- People can know things without necessarily being able to analyze them. Sometimes it's good to trust that until we're sure we have a better way. Remembering the ‘Spooky Wisdom’ of Our Agrarian Past.
- To be able to judge beauty, we must train our eye — there's no substitute! Look and look! Above all, look at as many old forms of art as you can, because modernism isn't just a loss of beauty, it's an attack on beauty. So we have to know how things were before — which is not to say that everything old is beautiful; it's not even to say that everything new is not beautiful! I have been enjoying this blog — here's an informative article about sculpture made in a traditional way, yet new.
- A description of the Lindisfarne Gospels. I didn't know that Khan Academy had articles like this one!
From the archives:
- Starting to think about the upcoming year in the home school? I have lots of disorganized thoughts, including about teaching reading.
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Renee says
I would love to watch a YouTube video of your son-in-law’s course. 🙂
Emily says
Me too! I love watching artists and am always game to learn something new to help my sketching! 🙂
Aliyah Burton says
The Jim Foley story reminds me of this article: https://nogreaterjoy.org/articles/full-bear-treatment/
Thank God for good fathers!
Valerie
Joy says
Kahn Academy has a great (free) course in art history. I did it along with my 10th grade daughter and learned heaps!