I've felt like I've been in a kind of artistic hole lately. I started trying to sculpt clay and found that, while the idea of the shapes is easy in my mind, doing the actual sculpting is not. Nor should it be as I've never really done it before. That and being sick has made me feel like I'm not capable of making anything of worth, beauty or quality. Looking at other people's successes online wasn't helping either. Tonight, I had a chunk of time in front of me, a want to do something creative and quite a few things I could be working on. Indecision often leads to video games and then later, more guilt. Instead, I pulled out the iPad and the Rembrandt I'd copied recently (which I suddenly realize I haven't posted) and re-interpreted it in the style of one of my favorite Japanese woodblock artists, Natori Shunsen. His is a very minimalistic style leaning towards realism. I thought it might be a fun exercise to take something complex like a Rembrandt painting, which is all about light, shadow and texture and make it something almost exactly opposite. I think it worked pretty well. It's almost TOO simple in a way and looks, in some ways, 'easy.' Nagel had that problem and I think his stuff very quickly went from fine art to shopping bag. It's a really fine line because you want the work to show but not for the work to look anything but elegant. Don't know if I achieved that, but I like what I did. The pencil sketch I inked over is below. Made me feel good to do this.