I haven't finished a new piece in a few days. I won't explain, except to say that I started working on a couple of other ideas and, it turns out, those require quite a bit of planning.  Not sure if I'll get them the way I imagine, but I'm excited to make the attempt.  

In my life, I've been given two pieces of art advice that have stuck.  I'm lying. I've received more that has also stuck, but who cares. Here are two that have stuck:
 -The first was while I was in high school and showed some charcoal sketches to my friend, Kelly.  These were for the only art class I took, and one was of a spider monkey swinging between two branches. While I was showing Kelly the sketch, I said something like, "I should probably fill in some more detail here." He refuted that.  "I love how well you've portrayed this monkey with minimal detail. Look how scarce that hand is." He pointed to one of the monkey's hands, gripping the next branch on its way. "You've barely drawn it, yet the shape is great I recognize it."  I guess his observation goes to what is necessary and how our imaginations work. Gaps give people a place to invent.
-The second piece of advice is from Tom. We both took photography classes around the same time and we'd discuss things.  One bit of advice he gave was, "Oversaturate! Go beyond the point of where you want it, then pull back to the sweet spot."  This advice has stuck. Galaxies of other wisdom from Tom has also taken root. But that's another conversation. 

This is my nod to those two pieces of advice. And the monkey. This one isn't a spider monkey. I won't say what kind of monkey it is. Maybe it's not a monkey at all. I'll leave you to invent between the gaps. I did enjoy fiddling with this one and bringing it into existence. The key was to form an acceptable pair of eyes, then we were off to the races... 

"Leafy Green"
Fresco Learning
Sketch #6