Love The Later Lucian Freud Paintings

‘85 to close to when he died.
He lives on because of his pictures
…in books…on museum walls…and online.
My love for what paint can do on a surface is renewed
after again gazing over his technique
…seemingly connected to his soul
…delivered to my soul.
Confident performance actions of hog hair bristles
…crumbling…texturizing…facial flesh
and selected details of a portrait scene.
He must use other brushes for the wispy straighter long
…earth darks browns…medium grayish tans
…and light grays.

Lucian F. felt his living-in-the-moment painting process
and it comes across raw and honest.
Rare thing to see.
His close-ups of female models (for an example a painting titled
Girl in a Striped Nightshirt) seems like there’s real volume
…yet there’s also no question that they are paintings.
The perfect balance of quiet-expressive-reality
and getting lost in the beauty of the subdued painted strokes
is a sort of meditative miracle…magic.
I am picturing L.F. standing at the middle of a teeter totter
wearing boxer shorts and a robe…balancing it.

This week my projects in the studio involve sculpting
and altering sound for an animation.
Looking through this book of Lucian Freud paintings
has me wanting to leap from what I’m doing right now
…to squeezing out a half dozen tubes of oil paint
and apply stripes to a canvas
just to experience again what paint can do.
Not getting immersed into a complex room with a figure
…but just applying long close value paint strokes that
soothingly and intuitively flow in this confident manner.
Thank you Lucian Freud for your visual conversations.