Bagatelle Story-frame 7

...and finally the culmination of what we'd been hoping for.
What had been hinted at, which is what prophets do in a vague sort of way...
Merry Christmas.

Bagatelle Story-frame 6

...which becomes something surreal. This is what is called the transformation scene in the world of pantomime...

Bagatelle Story-frame 5

...a tree becomes a fountain surrounded by figures...

Bagatelle Story-frame 4

...A man becomes a beast, a vase becomes a tree...

Bagatelle Story-frame 3

...a curved line becomes a world, a puppet theatre, a bearded face becomes a boot and a boot becomes a peninsula in the Mediterranean.

Bagatelle Story-frame 2

It's interesting how the shapes grow out of the painted line, almost like flowers growing out of the stem growing out of the ground, and how similar in silhouette a figure is to a flower or a leaf or a gondola to a continent.

Bagatelle Story-frame 1

I like to paint these small silhouetted stories during December, which is a time of stories. I've been doing a few this week. These are from a few years ago and comprise a story, a kind of ballet, no dialogue, just shadows. This is frame one.

An Overused Word

A couple of years ago I did a lot of drawing for a retail client in New York. As usual it was more than they could ever use. Most never got past the pencil stage. Luckily I hang onto pencils. I ran across a few of them in a folder the other day and got to playing with them. How do you make a cliché like "SALE" fresh and new? How do you make it eye-catching? You play with it. Like a jazz artist playing variations on a familiar tune.

Winter Sports

I remember my dad taking us to a park years ago when I was four or five. I skated and my brother took his sled to the top of the enormous hill. Rink ice was hard if you fell, but you only fell from a couple of feet. Hills were for bigger kids and much scarier. It was a windy day and I remember later on my dad took the sled out on the rink. Standing on it with us at his feet he acted like a sail and we moved gracefully down the ice among the skaters, like some kind of strange buffalo among the flamingos. I may have been remembering that day when I painted this. There was a company in the town my dad grew up in that made ice boats. I don't know if he ever tried one out. I think the umbrella adaptation shown here would be worth experimenting with.