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August 23, 2004

No model

It takes longer to paint a picture without a model.

With a model I feel a need to paint, I feel there is a requirement to paint. After all that’s why we’re both here.

Without a model I wander about aimlessly [updating the Unstuck Diaries] and generally spending a long time not painting.

I can not paint a still life for days on end. But then why would I want to paint a still life? The French call it nature morte and that’s a better description. I want to paint life, the living, breathing, heart-beating stuff.

But sometimes I have to paint without a model, using photographs and drawings, and it takes longer. Plus there is no heartbeat so it’s much more of a struggle to get life into the painting.

Let alone
the lack of light
bouncing off the skin.

Posted by john at August 23, 2004 03:32 PM

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