An American in Paris

In an early scene from Gene Kelly's An American in Paris his character, Jerry Mulligan, is seen setting up his stall of paintings in Montmartre. A well-to-lady, Milo Roberts, comes by and asks him how much his paintings are. "Gee, I don't know!" he cries.

"You don't know?"

"Well, " explains Jerry, "I never thought I'd come to the point where that would be an issue."

Recently a real-life Milo asked this Jerry the same question, and I'm afraid I had to give much the same answer. To set this right I have now re-edited my previous posts with an asking price included for those paintings that are for sale. Please send me an e-mail if you're interested; they make great Christmas presents.

As for the market scene that I was working on, the fear that I felt before starting it proved justified. I have put it aside for a while and will return once my hair has grown back. In the meantime I have been painting a roast pig that I saw in Cuenca. It's perhaps a bit morbid, and reminiscent of my earlier cow-heads picture, but should turn out well nevertheless. I hope to post the result before too long.

Dead Wasp on Pencil Markings

OK, just one more....

Dead Wasp on Pencil Markings is the last picture in the series, painted on another 6x6 inch canvas.

I now realise that the saying about never working with children or animals includes dead insects too. Whenever I thought I had found another interesting angle, the wasp moved. I would coax it back into position with a pair of tweezers and a scalpel blade, but it didn't last; the model had lost its nerve.

After playing around like this for a while it was starting to lose other things too; a leg here, a leg there, part of an antenna. Fortunately it wasn't much longer before we came to an agreement.

Back to the marketplace tomorrow I promise!

Asking Price: SOLD!

Dead Wasp with Two Shadows

Painting the wasp was so much fun that I had to try it again, and I am particularly pleased how this one turned out. Natural light came through my studio window from behind, and my work lamp shone on the wasp from the front, giving it two shadows and adding interest and dynamism to the composition.

Asking price: SOLD!

Work on the market scene continues...