Foozle: [ foo-zuhl ] verb (used with or without object) – to bungle; play clumsily.

Trying to come up with a way to start this blog post, I was looking at the various dictionary/thesaurus sites and came across this word in a prior “word of the day” entry. Not only is it a good word, fun to say, I think it’s an apt description of this weekend.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have every other Friday off; this was my three-day weekend. I had plans:

• Clean the studio
• Fix my chair
• Paint
• Redo the gallery pages on my website
• Dig out a couple of plants
• Vacuum
• Laundry
• Food prep
• Pay bills

And other goals of similar, momentous import. My life is just one big party. In spite of having nothing on the calendar, it’s the end of the weekend and I can’t claim even half of those items have been checked off. Nevertheless, Monday is coming and I need to face my progress (or lack thereof.)

I did most of the week’s painting on Friday when I had hopes of making big progress. I started by cleaning off the studio tables, which really means just shifting things around into other piles.) I shifted this start several times, which made me realize that I hadn’t showed it off because I started it over the last week.

AAEA is putting out a call about polo art, so I went through some materials to see if I could fine something. I’m a little stuck, though, because I’m not sure the legs are big enough for the body. Insecurity is a killer. Then, I worked on finishing (or at least doing SOMETHING) to these two starts.

While these two exact images aren’t show worthy, I had a lot of fun playing with techniques on them. The rubbing technique for OTH has potential for additional work.

Another item I stumbled across while cleaning off the table was a reference photo I had printed on the spur of the moment a few weeks ago of Chitza. I decided to give it a go, and enjoyed the colors a lot. This particular piece of paper had a flaw in the center which I’m unsure what to do about. I think I’ve got it mostly under control, but I can still see it in a few places.

“Would You Sit On Her Throne?” – 14″ x 20″ watercolor – $100

I seemed to be reasonably productive, but as the weekend progressed I leaned more into cleaning tasks (didn’t lean that hard…) By Sunday, a nap seemed in order. Then my keyboard quit working and I was forced to go out into the world, which was basically the death knell of any hope of productivity.

I’m hoping to write a “big” blog post soon about some things that are going on, but I keep running out of steam. In the meantime, I wanted to recommend a documentary that came out on Netflix called “Made You Look“. It’s about art fraud around the works of Abstract Expressionism artists Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Robert Motherwell, at a New York Gallery. It really made me thinking about value, enjoyment, and branding.