Little View...Christmas Day

There is a set path that is often repeated, over many days, seasons, and years. At one bend in the road, I look over a deeply forested valley, up towards the highest hill in the area.....the view is quite obscured by brush and overhang....and this little segment often peeks through.

Near the Tree Farm

Collage with a bit of acrylic paint at the end......the fresh feel of winter.

Evening, After the Storm

It was bitter cold as I was drawing the diagram.....ink froze in the pen, so I best change to pencil on the really cold days.

Start, First Storm

Collage on heavy Arches print paper, with acrylic brushed in at the end stages.

....The beginning of the first storm of the season. Large wet snow flakes stalled the pen as I was drawing the little diagram shown here....there was time only for a few lines, but the collage painting was made soon after, so memory served well.

Lost Dog Hill, Christmas Day, Late Afternoon

Toward North Field.....Christmas Day

Christmas Eve Day

Merry Christmas, All!

Roadside.....Christmas Eve Morning.

Collage and India Ink.....looking into the forested ditch....off a steep road.

Watercolor and India Ink...with some collage added right at the end.

Little Hill

Watercolor and India ink.....ll x 15 inches.

July Sky

Watercolour with India ink and opaque white ink.

Overcast

From a small series of new watercolours. This starts with about a 15 minute drawing in 3B pencil....then many layers of watercolour....then pen and India ink, and brush and ink.

10th Line.....December

...a bit of the first snow showing....

Evening by Lake Ontario

Rice Lake, North Shore

6.5 x 6.5 inches. Acrylic collage painting on paper.....perfect summer days....you can't hold on to time, so you revisit, by making a picture. That's one portion of the story.

North Field, Early December

7 x 7 inches, acrylic collage on paper,....little bits of acrylic brushwork added right at the end.

Little Stand

Watercolor, India Ink and nib, ink and brush. A little stand, seen from a little country church yard near Millbrook, Ontario.

A Few Watercolour Portraits

From the last week or so....a few watercolour portraits with pen and ink nib additions.

Overcast, Late November

Back Fields

I walked to the very back of a bean field and sat on a ridge....it's often more interesting to get off the roads and see how the land is laid out.

November Sky

Acrylic collage with acrylic brush work in the final stages. I kept the brush work to a minimum....I sometimes like to do that, just to see how little I can add. I left more of the sky yellow than was there, but there was something of the mood that remained. November can seem like a harsh, dangerous month here, but even though there have been some quite cold days, it hasn't felt very extreme yet. I think I may have tempered the effect here a bit, though....

November Dusk

....collage from acrylic painted papers at the beginning......acrylic paint over that.

Re-grade

....a sizeable hill was leveled to regrade a T-junction.

Cedar at Dusk

....the edge of a big cedar at the start of dusk.....I'm wandering up my usual path.

I scribbled the little diagram never really intending to use it....I thought the composition too odd....I decided to put the colours together last night just to see if I could get a hint of the mood.

Stand

.....late afternoon....from yesterday's walk up Lost Dog Hill....

Grey and Yellow

Driving home from work, I was struck by this contrast of two. Painted it when I got home but by then the light was almost gone so had to use artificial light. It turned out ok regardless. A little unexpected touch that survived was the step from the lime green bush, to the yellow, to the grey.......very often when I'm painting with artificial light, the thing looks dramatically different in the morning.

October Ridge

I walked deep into a harvested bean field...just before the light starts to fade.....getting to be late October.

Hillock

The collages are as important as the paintings. They take a bit longer to make than the paintings and the mood going into the making is different. The collages are more meditative....more playing around with colour combinations and mumbling to myself....the paintings seem to require a faster flow. In some ways the collages can also allow for greater openness to surprise.

Vapour Trails at Dusk, and Early October

Dusk, Lost Dog Hill

Walking in the evenings over the last few days.....weather was perfect and warm....this particular motif has been a favourite for a number of years and I may have painted it over 20 times.

I have some hope that little impressions might in fact be captured, at least in part. Not everything gets made into a painting. I found myself staring through a hedge and wondering about a leaf pattern against a particular sky. And there was a certain purple black that was very appealing against evening turquoise skies with just a touch of warm.....not in this picture, but little collected impressions that maybe get mentally banked.

As small as all these paintings are, just a slight reduction of scale frees up the process a great deal.

Campus Edge

Campus Field

Campus Field,
9.5 x 9.5 inches, acrylic on gessoed single ply matteboard