Coloring Book, back cover

These are the photos on which the coloring book pages are based. Libby, when she looked through her book said of this page, "That's so we'll know how to color them?" And I said "No! it's so you'll know how NOT to color them." See flickr for the originals.

Coloring Book, page 13

Libby and I went to see the Van Gogh drawing show at the Metropolitan Museum last month. A very large exhibit with breathtaking drawings, the show is a wonder. It's in his drawings that you can see the true genius of Van Gogh's drarftsmanship. The vocabulary of lines, dots and squiggles is awesome. This is a late work and it's one that goes almost completely abstract. I stood in front of it trying to replicate the notation of the marks which read like cell division gone wild. For me this work is a triumph of Van Gogh's mind over matter. It's an exuberant work in which the artist has merged himself with the landscape he loved through his complete almost ego-less mark-making. See flickr for the original.

Coloring Book, page 12

Our friend Martin Bromirski, blogger of anaba fame, met us at the inliquid "art for the cash poor" last summer. We had a table set up to sell some paintings and so did he. We had been in email contact and knew he would be at the event so were on the lookout. When he came round to our table and saw our paintings -- several of which had been on artblog as part of the "so true" series, he got all excited. He went to a cash machine, got out some money (very little -- we weren't asking much for the paintings --it was one of our attempts to get rid of stuff) and bought a painting. Later on, we went by his table and he got us to pose holding one of his paintings and gesturing with two thumbs up. This was part of his ongoing "thumbs up project." Martin, who saw an early draft of the coloring book at my flickr site asked if I'd include a photo of his in the series. He suggested the Libby and Roberta thumbs up photo and I thought that was a perfect choice. See Martin's flickr page for the original.

Coloring Book, page 11

My love for Edward Hicks knows no bounds. The Quaker sign painter from Bucks County was a complete genius -- and a maniac of sorts, painting his "Peaceable Kingdom" paintings over and over again, each time with a slightly different aspect. There was a Hicks retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art a few years ago and I saw it three times. I wanted to move a bed in and live surrounded by the works that told of harmony and beauty, simplicity and enlightenment. I know they're fantasy works based on the bible but for my money, Hicks's lambs with the lions paintings are some of the best ever made. See the orginal here at flickr.

Coloring Book, page 10

Our cat's name is Shadow. She's Shadow because, having been imprinted on me at a very early age, she follows me around everywhere. Well Shadow, like most cats, also has other names. She's honey, pretty girl, and, Steve's favorite, Macarena. Our friend Chuck said he thought she always seemed surprised, like an animal caught with her pants down, "What? What did I do?," written all over her face. See flickr for the original.

Coloring Book, page 9

This sculpture by Micha Laury's was in a group show at Mike Weiss Gallery in Chelsea. I like the way the arms hang limp like something taxidermied. The whole thing plays with your fears of cloning and genetic mutations and eco-devolution. There's a lot of this grotesque and horror show art in vogue today. I think it's an outgrowth of young artists' fears about the future. See flickr for the original.

Coloring Book, page 8

I bought a copy of the tabloid, the Globe, at the grocery store recently. It was so appealing I couldn't resist. Not only is it a great magazine cover (deep black background, large face looking worried, bright yellow headline) but the idea that Bush's drinking is now fodder for tabloid "news" coverage signalled to me that the kid gloves were coming off in the media's treatment of our leader. Can you consider the Globe part of the media? See the orginal here at flickr.

Coloring Book, page 7

This drawing is by Luke Dorman from Evo Gallery's booth at the Affordable Art Fair in New York. The cartoon drawing was dark and well done. See flickr for the original.

Coloring Book, page 6

The Getty Museum, designed by Richard Meier, is the whitest space I've ever been in. The place is a campus with several buildings all nestled into a hillside. We took the garden tour and the combination of the white-clad buildings and the bright Los Angeles midday sun was blinding. They provide free sun unbrellas for people to use when they're strolling between buildings. Inside the museum, the best exhibits were of photography (the museum has a good collection). There was a nice group of late Rembrandt paintings as well but it got a kind of bombastic, P.T. Barnumesque treatment that was a little off-putting. (gargantuan, wall-spanning blow-ups of the paintings so you could see every brush stroke. It was educational but also a little scary for being so digitally altered and plastered on the walls.) See flickr for the original.

Coloring Book, page 5

Last summer we did our semi-regular trip to Pacific Grove, California. Steve went out to do some writing and Stella and I visited for about a week. This time we also went to Los Angeles for a few days. We saw the tar pits and the Getty, kind of the black and white tour. I liked the Santa Monica beach which seems to sprawl for miles. It's hard to remember there's a huge city right behind you when you're looking out at the ocean through the palm trees. I love the idea of the urban beach -- it's oxymoronic. See flickr for the original.

Coloring Book, page 4

Here's a piece of architecture I love, Santiago Calatrava's addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum. The space is cathedral-like with a vaulted ceiling, marble floors and an atmosphere that's imposing and spiritual. The museum went into debt to do it but they've turned the debt around now and the city has embraced the building as its civic symbol and everybody seems happy at the moment. I've been there several times and love it more each time. See flickr for the original.

Coloring Book, page 3

Philadelphia City Hall looks better now than it's ever looked in recent memory. The city has funnelled mind-boggling amounts of dough into the clean-up project, something that hasn't been done ever to the marble-clad 1870s building. And to go it one better, they're now lighting up the building at night with a multi-color projection technique that makes it look like a giant wedding cake for a mad Mummer. See flickr for the original and see MikeWebkist's photo of the multi-colored building at night.

Coloring Book, page 2

Stella, Steve and I went to California last summer. Actually Steve goes just about each summer for a little artist's retreat of one to get some work done on his book(s). Pacific Grove is the mainstay of the trip but we get to San Francisco for a day of art-looking and shopping. Stella and I usually impose ourselves on him for about a week. Here we are at Coit Tower in San Francisco. See flickr for the original.

Coloring Book, page 1

This large oil on canvas painting was tossed out with the trash by a neighbor a couple summers ago. I rescued it and dusted it off a bit. It's got a signature "A.W" in the lower right. Curator Douglas Paschall of Woodmere Art Museum told me the picture was a copy of a famous Dutch work, "The Young Bull" 1647 by Dutch Baroque master Paulus Potter. Here's more on what Paschall said and more of my ruminations about cows in art. See flickr for the original.

Coloring Book Project

Every year since I don't know when I've done a holiday project. Something to give away to friends and family. Something to keep me from going crazy during a time of stress. I used to make calendars that had political caricatures of people like Jimmy Falwell and Arnold Schwartzennegger. This year's project is a coloring book and while there's little politics in it. There is an image of George Bush that's a ready-made caricature -- I just took a picture of it. The book is made possible through the magic of Nikon, iPhoto, Photoshop, Preview and Kinkos, and of course, the family Mac computer, all essential to my happiness and well-being.

Above is the cover. And the next few posts will have the rest. It's 13 pages long, so not too much but it covers my year in pictures. See flickr for the original images.