i went to the art institute yesterday. seeing a work in person is so much better than a digital reproduction, when a great artist is able to properly describe value and color, the color penetrates in a way an lcd can't replicate. i made a study of victor higgin's spring rains. see the original here.
i loved the fantastical, imaginative interpretation of the real and familiar. taking a picture of the original with my phone after, i see how much is lost. the depth of the values, the blueness of the mountain.
i've got to invest more hours into understanding value and color. i miss painting. how many hours i've put into drawing alone was really a matter of convience for me the last few years. (much easier and less risky to pack a sketchbook and pencil, than a whole thing of paints!) luckily, learning how to draw countours takes precendent before learning to depict light.
anyway, that was yesterday. today, i dedicated all my time to trying to provide citations for the definitions of abstract and concrete labor in my obsidian. reading marx is very difficult, but i'm reminded of the brick wall feeling.
the same one that emerged when i was trying learn the cone of vision in perspective, to understand the knight's tour problem in cs.
i'm less afraid now of that feeling because i know if i'm patient, i'll overcome the barrier that lies betweeen grasping loosely associated, atomized ideas and the synthesis of them that makes up a cohesive definition. in connecting those atomized ideas into a synthesis, careful lines have to be drawn, each line belonging to it's specific context, you must be weary in paraphrasing. exhausting!
if i'm slower at it than other people, doesn't matter: it's important to me, so i'll take as much time as i need to to understand.