Today I was using PhotoShop Elements to resize some scanned images of my paintings, to use for my Ebay template. Suddenly I realized that I was wasting time. I needed to use the final titles of the paintings for the lossless .tiff format of the photos. I don't want to rename photos in .jpeg format. Besides, I'd end up renaming four times as many files.
I felt frustrated. But I ended up finding a good way to view each painting so I could really look at it and find its title. My 8x10' "Nest" clean studio has almost no wall space - mostly windows and storage. I do have a Durer drawing grid about 18" wide that stands nicely vertical on any tabletop. I'd been thinking of cutting some plywood to clamp to the front of it, so I could use this as a "portable wall" for viewing my paintings. Today it dawned on me that some photo gray foamboard would be even better.
Sure enough, it works fine. I just pushed a #6 screw through the foamboard at a height good for hanging a stretched canvas. The gray makes a perfect background for really seeing the colors of the painting. And I can place the whole "wall" at varying distances from where I'm sitting.
I hung a painting up, gazed at it a moment, then made some notes about my eye movements. I played Smoke with it a bit, made some notes. A title evolved.
After two or three paintings, I started to write more boldly. It was great fun. I came away with new respect for the paintings, and a cheerful anticipation of writing their descriptions for the Ebay listings.
Just as for the vessel sculptures, a good viewing area is essential. I was trying to skip a step. Does that ever remind me of my teenage years! I think that film, Raising Victor Vargas, helped me be compassionate with my own teenage past - and with that pesky inner teenager. Still, it's that teenage self who once wrote, "I want to really live!" Still true.
11:18:56 PM 
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