Frank’s still life vs anaerobic pool sprints

What do they have in common? A lot. Today Frank had class do 15 min painting of each still life and Forms had me do 2000m of all 50m sprints at a specific speed. Both are designed to slow painter/swimmer down at the beginning of the process so that the ends will be more efficient and therefore they can be w themselves as much as possible.

With Abstract Expressionism there are essentially 2 schools one is headed by William de Kooning and one is headed by Hans Hoffman. They are both Giants and Great Artists but with 2 different teaching philosophy William de Kooning doesn't think students need to draw before painting whereas Hans Hoffman wants students to draw ffirst rom Nature like Rembrandt to lay the foundation before painting. Both are Modern in everyway but with different starting points and both should end the same. Frank is from Hans Hoffman school so he is teaching me as such which is fine because I had studied drawing and figurative sculptures w Thom and Jay at Amherst and both are disciples of Rodin lineage So drawing is very essential to my painting process and Frank knows where I am at so I need to slow down to find my forms movement and lights and as always he is absolutely right.

Forms new Coaching module had detected that I am starting too quickly and run out of energy at the end and therefore can't hold my form and speed at the end of the sprints of 50m 100m 200m 300m. So they want me to swim at a particular cadence the entire way. Cedric suggested that I use Finis tempo trainer so I can set my speed and activate my swim stroke per beep that it generates.

With painting I am not copying from Nature but I am abstract from it so I need a sustainable process to build up my form slowly so I can establish where my next painting strokes and colors would go. Out on the Coast it is pretty overwhelming under the sun because it is nothing but endless water land and sky. So slowing down is a good thing.

With swimming I am not training for any race and don't plan to anytime soon. But I do need to swim more efficiently in the ocean. Right now I can do 3 hours for 4K so to go to the next level ie longer time and distance wise my swim strokes would have to be absolutely efficient in order to conserve mind body energy.

At the end of the day it is all about painting and swimming w intention in order to be w oneself as much possible 😉.