Saturday, November 23, 2013

Rain coming over the lake

Another experiment in painting watercolours while a) getting rained on, and b) travelling with friends. Neither condition exactly encourages lengthy or detailed studies.

So here is a view of the Lago di Garda, from the peninsula of Sirmione, looking towards the Alps:


It was a beautiful day in May; three times the rain came in and soaked us; three times the sun came out and dried us out again.

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Giambologna and students

An old sketchbook page, from when I was living in Florence. I was taking a course on renaissance art history, naturally, and made notes both of the lesson and my fellow students. The armour and the eagle sculpture indicate I was in the Bargello Museum that day.


Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Guy Fawkes Balloons


I missed Halloween, so this can be my Guy Fawkes day contribution.

Because the harvest was coming to an end they thought it would be symbolic to burn him alive in a giant pumpkin. This picture has four mini pumpkins with one mini Guy Fawkes in each. In the end they couldn't find a pumpkin humongous enough in which to put him so the idea came to nothing.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Daughter of a Memorialist

A recent drawing by Tarragon:



One can find this image in a poem, or perhaps the poem finds the image:

In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
Will commit that indiscretion.

It's by Ezra Pound, from his earlier period that was still imbued with the self-aware and cautionary dissatisfaction characteristic of artists in the Edwardian period. Soon enough Pound would shift from warnings to denunciations.

As for Tarragon, he too is concerned with the problems of inheritance. It must be very wearing to grow up in the shadow of the great artist; everyone would prefer to be spoken to for him or herself, not their breeding. It is, however, a problem that is nobody's fault.