Indian Yellow

I covered several large canvases with base colors today. Check out the yellow ones; I painted them with Indian Yellow. It is a vibrant transparent hue, more expensive than a lot of paint colors. Legend says that Indian Yellow used to be made from the urine of cows fed only on mango leaves in rural India. I learned a lot of interesting things about paint pigments (the true histories and legends) from a fascinating book, Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay.

The Artist's Gaze

We spent the beautiful day gallery hopping through Atlanta. It was our first time to two galleries: Tanner Hill Gallery and Austin Hill Art. On to other galleries, Chris Verenes‘s photographs at Marcia Wood gave me twinge of nostalgia for my early childhood in rural upstate NY in the early 1970s, before a lot of the old people died. At Alan Avery, I loved the mix of realism, expressionism, surrealism in Michele Mikesell‘s paintings. Avery instantly pegged us as artists. It’s more than how we were dressed (or not dressed) We are always looking at the art really close up. He said artists look at the work “as is you’re trying to get up into the painting.” Timothy Tew had also identified us artists before for the same reason. I have to do more people watching at galleries! Other galleries we stopped at: Mason Murer, Kiang, Matre, Jennifer Schwartz, Sandler Hudson, Atlanta Photography Group, Pryor Fine Art, Thomas Deans Fine Art. We topped the night off at the opening at The Seen Gallery in Decatur and eats at The Brick Store Pub.

Chicken Dish by Michele Mikesell