It's not easy

No, it's  not easy to haul in a heavy net's load of fish, like this larger-than-life sized fisherman at VanDusen Gardens.  Nor is it easy to land a good catch from recurrent images and fleeting ideas, to get down in paint what's swimming around in my head.

A few months ago, I mentioned a work-in-progress called "Art Students at the Sculpture Park."   In the interest of keeping the records straight, I'll show it here -- finished in June -- but I think it must be considered one of the ones that got away.

What can I say, except that I still like the colours....?   It started with an imaginary world - imaginary students, imaginary sculpture, a little world in my head, not even as fully evolved as this little world along the seawall in Stanley Park.

I made a preliminary sketch, which later morphed quite a bit, and somewhere along the way, it lost its initial oomph.

Not at all as convincing as someone else's imaginary world of two lovers, seated not far from the fisherman at VanDusen.

My students and bird-in-hand sculpture reminded me of my own "Flash Mob" series -- but far less successful than what is still one of my favourites in that group, "Sit Tight."

Ah, well.   As Winston Churchill said, "Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."

There are other gardens, other students, other sculptures....all floating around in my head... and I will be back another day.