Bouton de Rose la Nuit

Bouton de Rose la Nuit  - N° 112

oil on gesso board, Italian fabrication

5x7 inches (aprox 13x18cm)

This one says: Mon petit bouton de rose, tu fleuris que la nuit.

Now I'm blushing!

bouton de rose

Bouton de Rose  N°111.

5x7 inches (aprox 13x18cm)

oil on gesso board - Italian fabrication

This paintings says: Mon petit bouton de rose fleuri.

If you don't know what a bouton de rose is ask a Frenchman and watch him blush!

Deux Cerises

Deux Cerises

N° 110

oil on gesso board - Italian fabrication 10x10cm

SOLD

From 1998 to 2006 I painted hundreds of small food paintings, mostly of Italian recipies and wrote in the background.  There are many photos of these on my website, you can see a link on the right.  This little painting has written in the background: deux cerises , due ciliege, zwei kirschen, deux cerises.

I like to use a sharpened soft lead pencil, something like a N° 7 lead, to write on the board.  It engraves the paint and is wonderful for details.

deux cerises dans un coquetier

Deux cerises dans un coquetier - n 109

oil on gesso board - Italian fabrication 10x10 cm

I bought this coquetier at a flea market on Avenue des Goblins last year.  The cherries are all over the markets right now.

This and the future small daily paintings will be on auction starting in after the 18th of June.  I feel terribly out of practise.  EEKs!

Chanel N°5

Chanel N°5 .

n 108

oil on gesso board

5x7 inches

The lights went out

Talk about technical problems.  Last week the two main lights in my studio burned out.  I finished the last painting for the show in the dark after trying to change the fuses.  It was difficult to unscrew the box on the chord to even reach the fuses. Why do they have fuses in France? and why do I have to spend my painting time changing the lights? is what I asked myself.

Yesterday I went to buy new light bulbs, two different kinds for two different lamps and replaced them, they still did not work so I painted again in the dark.  Today I bought new fuses and they still do not work, bizarre.

If it were only the lightbulbs, my SD card on my mac doesn't recognize the card anymore and the web is on and off.  I thought these things happened only in Italy.  When it rains it pours, yes in fact it is raining after three months of drought.  At least I don't need electricity and wavelengths to paint or write.  Ink on paper.  I'll get a painting posted today but to satisfy myself here is a rare photo of my daughter.  Sorry I blocked out her face.

Parisian Pastry n 107 - a painting a day

I'm back painting the Gourmandises Parisiennes.

La Polonaise n 107

oil on gesso board 5x7 inches

100 euro - 

This Parisian pastry has almond nougat, candied fruit and sponge cake,  topped with almond flavored meringue and sprinkled with toasted almonds.  I don't know why they call it the Polish woman - bizarre.  I have to add that I did eat it.  The inside was excellent but the meringue had a funny fish taste to it.

Today I am a fan of Tim Anderson

In 1995 I met Tim Anderson when I was selling oil paintings atop the overlook at Piazzale Michelangelo in Florence.  There was this strange guy staring at my paintings, his cute nose almost touching the canvases.


He was probably smelling them because when Tim looks at an artwork he must experiences with all his six senses.   I had the luck to visit the MOMA with him and see a museum the way Tim does.  A painting is not just a painting, it is hung on the wall a certain distance from the floor, on a tilt and the frame is from whatever period by whoever.  We ran around the museum like we were on magic mushrooms and when we hit the Robert Rauschenberg show were hammered, beaten, torn to pieces then walked out on our knees.


Tim is a walking encyclopedia with a moleskin in his pocket.  His moleskins are filled with drawings and tickets from his travels that writes about, comments on.


I asked the bizarre guy if he was an artist and yes, oh yes. The Beverly branch of the Chicago Public Library hired him and paid him to paint Faces of Chicago, for their walls, a permanent collection.

Tim was raging through Europe in Mercedes Station Wagon and just happened to be staying at Nittardi, the Tuscan villa of one of his German gallerists, a few stones throw down the dirt path from the house I was renting on top of a hill between La Piazza and San Donato in Collina.

We made plans to meet for wine and cheese, he said he'd drive up the hill in the Mercedes. I agreed and wondered what kind of car it was. Later that night, back in the country where the dogs barked all night and mysteriously disappeared, Tim arrived on foot sweating like a wild boar with a bottle of Nittardi in hand. He didn't realize that you needed a 4x4 to scale the road. Tim said he'd been to a wine tasting and when they'd asked him what he thought about the aftertaste he'd said, "It tastes like burnt rubber."

Viva Tim!

My favorite painting for the show

West Village Corner is a 50x50 cm oil on canvas, gallery stretcherbars.  What I like about this image is the movement of the guy and the stark contrast.  Like the Macchiaioli used.  What's that?   There is a lame article on wikipedia: Macchiaioli .  I used a palette-knife to scrape off different colored gobs of semi-dried paint from my palette, added them to smooth chunks of luxurious ivory black then liberally smeared the mess all over.  I love the 3D effect of the colored black background.

my Atelier in 2007

When I moved to Paris in January 2007

I had a commission from Gables Residential 

to create 50 large format paintings 

for the luxurious Villa Rosa, but

I had only seven months to get them done and frame them and send them.

It was freezing cold and terribly grey in January.

Those seven months were filled with tears from missing my buddies in Florence 

and lots of parties with my new friends at the Ateliers of la Fabrique in Ivry sur Seine, the ugliest place in the whole wide world.

I painted, and painted,

and painted.

 Seven months later all the paintings were finished.

I'd been the eye witness of choice and ear-to-bend at the ateliers.  Couples got together, broke up, studio mates punched eachother, others loved eachother. There was a nymphomaniac that loved everyone including a  schizophrenic that followed her like a beaten dog, both wanted to confide in me.  

We drank lots of coffee.

All of the artists that I met disdained my type of painting, considering it commercial, but when they saw me whack out 50 huge ones in  seven months they were impressed.

I rented a truck and drove them all the way to Florence

to have them framed, crated, and shipped.

Now they are in Gables Villa Rosa.