Part of being an artist is experimenting with new things--new media, new subject matter, new ways of looking at things. My recent experimentations were with a new blogging site. I thought maybe I would start a fancier looking blog, something I could customize more, and the results are that I wasted a lot of time that could have been better spend painting. The new site was achingly slow to use, and I finally decided to stick to the familiar, and use my time on more painting.
I'm also signed up to teach a beginning drawing class, and in preparing for the class and thinking a lot about the process of drawing, I was inspired to get out some charcoal pencils and render some chickens. The dramatic contrast gives a whole new look to the chicken portraits.
And my third latest experiment is music. I had taken a few years of piano lessons as a kid, and though I never really had much talent for it, I enjoyed the ability to make some form of music, and I missed having a piano. The classic spinet piano that I slaved away at for many hours had been given away to another family--as I had no space for it in my home. So it occured to me that I could purchase an electronic keyboard--small, portable, but it would serve the purpose. So for a mere seventy dollars, I finally acquired a "piano". I set it up in my studio, and while photos are downloading or images are printing, I can exercise my brain by trying to play the piano. I had to dig deep to remember how to read music, and lo and behold, my fingers still have some memory of playing "The Entertainer". I will never be anything but a lousy piano player, but I think the brain exercise is probably a good thing. Maybe in some way, it will even make me a better painter.
