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7th. Tiger study.
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Posted
Good self-discipline: I always mean to - rarely do. An unusual take on the tiger: you really wouldn't want to get this close, unless staying alive were one of those things to which you were more or less indifferent..Yes, a telephoto lens would be a better option. I'd love to take credit for the eyedear but I'm copying a video off YouTube. I'm using different source material but the idea wasn't mine.
Posted
Tempted to say 'always take credit for an idea (or eyedear, if you will!) whether yours or not'. Because there are very, very, and - did I say? - very few original ideas in art; we've all been slapping the paint on for around 1,000 years and longer (actually, much longer) and if anyone thinks their idea is original, there'll have been someone who got there before us.
Which I find quite comforting, really - it gives us a link with many generations past, all of which tried to do what we're trying to do, each with their own frustrations and moments of triumph, rather more moments of failure, and general periods of just getting on and recording, in various ways and means, what we see. So I can't compete with van Gogh, but I can enter into his life and experience and respect his struggle. Among many others' struggles. You don't have to be brilliant, you don't need to be coining it, that doesn't matter - it's a fellowship across the centuries.
OK, I'm on the second gin and tonic now, perhaps a holiday from further comment, tonight at least, would be appropriate. But still - I do believe there's a theme there, and that it helps to remember it now and then. It may be hard to believe that Rembrandt struggled with his paint just as much as we do (this is SO reductive, but bear with me...) but I'm quite sure he did: the difference of course is that he was a genius, had learned far, far more than most painters today ever learn about their materials - he made his own paint, created his own mediums, supervised every element of his studio's practice - but, we are still at the same game as he was, centuries ago; and that is a thought I find both humbling, and at the same time collegiate. If I have nothing else in common with Rembrandt, van Gogh, Turner, Constable, I do have this - I too have looked at a canvas and asked "Why are you doing this to me?"; and sometimes, "thank you, God, paint-maker, my years of study, authors of books, and more" - it's all worth it; good and bad - it's still all worth it.
Right, cork back in the bottle: no more painting for ME tonight.
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