ten days later, we’ve celebrated bastille day in paris.

the fireworks were set to music and silhouetted la tour eiffel, when she wasn’t sparkling along with the fireworks behind her.

we were even treated to an impromptu fire-dancing performance.

the show in paris is something to behold. france may have her shortcomings, but she certainly knows how to choreograph fireworks.

i’d already seen a few - michelangelo’s sistine ceiling and david, brunelleschi’s dome in florence, botticelli’s primavera and birth of venus, and duchamp’s fountain in sfmoma top the culturally influential pieces. i imagine it’ll be hard to top artemisia gentileschi’s judith and holofernes for personally influential paintings, though i stumbled across a couple of pieces in the alte pinakothek that come close.

the old musuem’s galleries were designed to hold ruben’s last judgment (1617), a magnificent piece i’d not spent much time studying, and an artist i’d never developed an appreciation for. seeing the last judgment, dominating the gallery space in both scale and composition, left me in complete awe.

there were other pieces that caused me to take pause. the el greco caught my eye from across the room and i gravitated to it, hardly noticing the other pieces hanging on the walls. the raphael pieces did much the same [i have yet to see the school of athens, a piece that falls both in the culturally and personally influential categories], along with the botticelli. when i studied art on slides, i could hardly comprehend being able to identify pieces by artists without first memorizing them. after seeing such masters’ paintings in real life, it seems impossible that one wouldn’t be able to recognise a michelangelo or a caravaggio or a titian, etc.

da vinci paintings always feel like such a treat, whether they’re finished or not [though i prefer the unfinished as they show more of leonardo’s process], and it was a complete surprise to come across the madonna of the carnation [originally attributed to andrea del verrocchio].

the dürer piece was one whose story i’d heard throughout art school. my own work plays with the same artist-as-god themes so obvious in dürer’s self-portrait. i could easily devote an entire post to ramblings around how this piece has affected my work, my mentality as an artist, etc. needless to say, rounding the corner to be face to face with albrecht dürer circa 1500 was more exhilarating than meeting any of today’s greatest celebrities.

in the small room with the exit from the upper galleries, i found the most breathtaking of all the pieces in the alte pinakothek: a piece of hieronymus bosch’s last judgment. it was a small enough piece to take in from only a few feet away, but contained more than enough of those earthly-delightish figures to leave me with no question as to who exactly had painted the piece.

now it’s off to the art store to find an outlet for all this creative energy.

but there are upsides. paintbrushes can now be cleaned with water instead of turpentine, and the lack of authentic smell also means a lack of the bad-for-my-brain chemicals. this is also a benefit for the cat and the husband who often accompany me in the studio.

my favourite feature is the unbelievably fast dry time. there’s no next-day stickiness, even with sap green and yellow ochre. most of it is even dry enough to work on top of within several hours, and i’m finishing smaller paintings in record time. i have yet to take on any large scale pieces with the acrylics, but imagine that will be the ultimate test. until then, i’m hanging onto my gamblin oils, just in case.

mural painting is, of course, very different from the paintings on canvas i typically do, and i often found myself sore in the mornings from the previous day’s contortions. aside from the difference in scale and mobility, i worked in acrylic housepaint, a much faster drying medium than the oil paints i’m used to.

as far as being finished, i doubt the mural is. i envision myself revising and adding creatures over time, aiming for that ever-elusive perfection.

lastly, i was kind enough to document my work throughout the process, so enjoy the timelapse video:

this has to be the coolest bike helmet ever. hand-painted by danielle baskin of belle helmets.

alberto cerriteño never fails to impress. his latest creations that have me drooling: two paper-cut scenes from where the wild things are. the pieces will be showing at the nucleus gallery september 19th through october 6th.

more wild thing inspired art here.

this is the girl who made my absolutely amazing wedding dress. she too is absolutely amazing.

now it’s my turn to make something fabulous for her: a portfolio site. what’s up now is a placeholder while hans and i are off galavanting about the eastern mediterranean. i’ll post again when the real bit goes live.

micromanagement
just change that one thing.
and that thing. and that thing too.
now it looks so great.

bad ideas
do you make them good
or prove how awful they are?
that is the question.

and then another thought, after getting a new high score of 108k in bejeweled blitz:

accomplishment
i make things pretty
but break for games. new high score!
that’s when i take pride.

this seems doubly true for me now, freshly married with a new home and packing for a 2.5 week cruise in the eastern mediterranean.

poster by anthony burrill available here.