The last time I posted anything to this site was before Thanksgiving – I have been a bad blogger. Besides the usual excuse of being too busy during the holidays, I haven’t produced any paintings worth releasing. The last couple of paintings have not been worthy of publication – not that I produce great quality work, but I try to only release work that is the best I can do at my current skill level. This seems better to me than waiting until my inner critic deems my work to be “good enough” to publish, which might never happen. I would probably end up doing no work at all.
Anyway, I think I’m close to releasing the next “Hearts on Fire” piece. In the meantime, just to show I’m not dead yet, here are a few morning sketches. I try to spend a half hour or so every morning sketching, after my quiet time and before getting ready for work. I am hoping this will improve my skill at draftsmanship. The first sketch is from a travel brochure.
The next sketch is a detail of a photo taken at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond, Virginia. My wife and I are both plant fanatics and love visiting gardens. I highly recommend visiting the Lewis Ginter gardens.
The girl with the umbrella is my wife, whose ankles are really much cuter than depicted. I have promised her that I will improve my skills and render a truer representation, although such cuteness can never be fully captured with mere pen and ink.
This is a detail from Hokusai’s Aoigaoka Waterfall in the Eastern Capital. Katsushika Hokusai was arguably the greatest of the Japanese woodblock artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Most everyone has seen derivations of his Mount Fuji Seen Below a Wave at Kanagawa, popularly known as “The Great Wave.” I was fortunate to be able to view a collection of his woodblock prints on tour at the Freer Gallery a couple of years ago.
My pen-and-ink copy took several half-hour morning sessions, and if you compare this to the original work, you will see that I was not confident enough to attempt the human figures.
Thank you for viewing and reading. I hope to have the next “Hearts on Fire” piece up here soon.
-Terry
Terry Hall Arts 
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