It’s amazing how stressful the start of winter always is. And then buy this time it is just the normal way of life. But days are getting longer… I was reading Arnold’s “Pump” newsletter the other day… In the midst of all the pushing of properly vetted, (meaning more expensive), products and the Pump app … Read more
We watched a movie the other night called “Flow”. It is wonderful, many layered and probably as metaphorical as you want it to be, seemingly about the passage of time or at least the inevitability of it, and the futility of trying to think about the why. It is one that sits with you a … Read more
Studio Pintura Small Works show Winter came this week in Minnesota. Just in time for thanksgiving travel. After an extended and pleasant fall season now moving snow and boots and coats will be a big part of our lives for the next few months. You don’t really think about it after that first good … Read more
You can already feel the light shifting. Days shortening. Especiall when I am up north…winter’s already waiting in the wings. I was reading The Art Spirit again the other night and this line grabbed me: “You will never get form till you WANT it.And wanting to want it is not wanting it.” That feels about … Read more
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about learning, what it means to improve at something, even late in life. Drawing, especially. I’ve been doing more studies of the same image, experimenting with different approaches. Color has been tricky for me. I tend to overdo it and end up with mud. So I’ve been going back … Read more
So I cheated a little this past month.That’s how I’m starting June. I had planned to share an oil painting I’ve been working on, but things aren’t going well there. It may need a complete reworking, so I’m putting it aside for a while. Instead, I’m cheating a bit and using a small charcoal drawing … Read more
On a plane ride back from visiting my daughter’s family, I was sketching from a photo on my phone of our six-month-old granddaughter. During that quiet, awkward period while waiting to “deplane” (what a strange word), a woman across the aisle commented on my sketch. I hadn’t realized she could see what I was doing, … Read more
Back to working with basic values and lines, I recently created this small drawing that I will put in my “finished works” gallery. For this piece, I went back to just the pencil and lines creating the values I needed. Keeping it small, (roughly 8″x10″), it didn’t take the many hours that some of my … Read more
I have been playing around with this idea for some time in the sketchbooks. I finally figured it is done. It is an oil painting on a plywood panel measuring 16″ by 20″. It seems the young people I have around me have become the smarter ones. They remind me of the important things in … Read more
Going through the second half of the year or so, looking at some of the sketches I have done… most of these have been posted on my instagram page close to the date they were completed. I have added the better ones to my webpage https://www.john-huisman.com/sketches/ I will work on adding them to my pinterest … Read more