ocean boy

watercolor on bristol

9" x 11"

last night we were watching seafair festivities on tv over dinner at the tavern. james was reminiscing about his love affair with the hydroplane boat racers, how chip hanouer driving the miss budweiser boat couldn't be beat, but that o'boy! oberto boat was always close behind.  i realized: you can take the boy out of seattle, but you can't take seattle out of the boy.   here is a painting of james at the marina.  today i went for watercolor on paper, i've had decent luck with that in the past.  yesterday's painting didn't do much for me in the way of aesthetic satisfaction, but i was reassured after talking to my artist friend joel brock last night. a student of wayne thiebaud, one of my most favorite artists, joel has an elegant intensity to his painting style that is all his own.  He iterated that the most important thing is to stay in practice: you may not love everything you do as an artist, but you have to keep on doing it to get anywhere.