Water Liches - A Chronicle
In this column, I cover issues that come up during the process of painting Water Liches. Some are specific design issues, while others are somewhat more esoteric. I hope you find them all informative and interesting, answering a lot of the questions you have about the series, the kinds of things artists think about, and about the whole painting process. My Artiste's Diary will be updated sometimes every week, sometimes every other week. -- Monet

Why A Series?
So, a lot of people ask me why I paint the same thing over and over. "Doesn't that get boring?" they say. Well the truth is: yes. Frankly I can barely go out back and look at my pond anymore. It's just so tedious. For a while there I added some goldfish to it, just so I didn't have to keep painting the same three shades of green over and over. Then I accidentally knocked a jar of turpentine in the pond and the next morning all the goldfish were floating belly up.

That was pretty cool.

So I painted dead goldfish for about a week. But, then one Tuesday I woke up and they were all gone. I don't know if the cat ate them or Cezanne got fed up with the smell, all I know is it was back to staring at that boring old pond.

So why bother, eh? Well, the problem is, it's my signature style. When I first came up with the idea, I thought it was just brilliant, you know? You take one idea -- it doesn't even have to be that good, eh -- and just paint it over and over and over and people will be impressed. They don't care how good of a painter you are, they're just amazed that you had the willpower to crank out thirty-five paintings of some boring government building in England.

So the answer is: it's easy money. You get a grant, spend a couple of years painting the same thing over and over, and then you cash out at your big gallery show. In fact, I already have the next six years after Water Liches booked out: I'm going to do a series about mailboxes, one about the driveway, and then one on the dishwasher. (You know - Dishwasher Open, Dishwasher Closed, Dishwasher in the Morning with Coffee Cups -- see how it writes itself?)

Somewhere in there Cezanne wants me to paint the garage, but I don't know that I'll get around to that. Who's gonna give a guy a grant to paint his garage?