Messy

In Santa Barbara this morning to meet with Mitchell and Lukas the technical director who is responsible for building the tree. We had a good meeting discussing how the tree would work with the play, establishing some ideas for different scenes including a table with flourescent lights in it, Kabuki confetti and streamers, magic tricks and some clever lighting. I still have to figure out how the heart of the tree is going to work.

I seem to have had two left hands today, everything I tried to do in the studio this afternoon was a wreck. I dropped a gallon of gesso onto the shelf of my big (and very expensive) easel, pouring paint all over it and the floor, with lots of it finding its way into the drawers full of a hundred paintbrushes which all then needed to be cleaned. Paint everywhere! Yike. Fortunately no paintings were hit, and the floor’s already covered in paint, so no major harm was done, but I lost time. I managed to put a coat of gesso onto the globes beneath the feet of  Justice and Temperance, and to do some long put off work on the head of the Geomantic Man. I’ve never really loved the head, and I’m going to turn it into the sun instead – far more appropriate for this painting.

Stuff it. I’m going fishing.