Snow Shadows, Easement Hill

Snow Shadows, Easement Hill
I walked deep into the forest and came to this hydro easement corridor, which one can follow for miles. It's interesting to walk these, because the elevations change quickly and dramatically, offering a variety of views. Acrylic on Canson painting paper 5.5 x 8 inches.

Visit me here:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/paintbox
www.harrystooshinoff.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuHuLWsq7LQVYbd616Wzz2Q

Old Prison Grounds

 

Old Prison Grounds, Millbrook, Ontario....on location...

...the prettiest 100 acres in Millbrook, Ontario. All evidence of the old maximum security prison has been removed...a good place to walk. Made on location from the front seat of my car. Acrylic on cradled birch panel 8 x 10 x 1 inches, wired at back and ready to hang. (Sold)

 ...still a few degrees above freezing...a quiet overcast day. People pull into this space at the entrance to the old prison grounds, and walk far up the hills with their dogs. The 'no trespassing' sign is still there, but the gate is open and many people walk these grounds...

 

Recent Pieces.....Late November

...a fairly gloomy time in this part of the world, but I enjoy painting these times. There is still time to do plein air work also, and more of those will be happening, although perhaps not with the same frequency as in the summer.

 

www.harrystooshinoff.com

Recent Pieces

A painting is made every day, and they all relate back to this place. I have to keep the process as fresh as possible, so the processes are constantly mixed....a piece done on location, a collage with paint on top in studio, a piece from memory and/or imagination, a piece from on site diagrams. I go out every day; sometimes it's to find a location to paint...but sometimes it's just to go out.....the painting comes after...

www.harrystooshinoff.com 

Forest Road, Plein Air

I am enjoying these plein air sessions...they continue alongside in-studio work. On the very edge of a Ganaraska Forest entrance here.....

www.harrystooshinoff.com   

August Haze

Every time I change the paper I use, the work changes slightly as well. I'm enjoying this Arches paper. Many of my paintings start with an undercoat wash, usually a light red. The image is then drawn and painted over that. This paper buckled a fair bit initially, sometimes making it distracting to produce the painting, and some of the buckle remained afterward. There is a simple and very effective fix for this, at least for work of this small scale. I let the work fully dry, place it upside down on a clean, flat surface, and spray the back gently with water and let the paper fully saturate. I brush the excess water with a larger house painting brush so that all parts of the paper have equal access to the water. I place this wet sheet in between sheets of Masonite, and many sheets of blotting paper. This is then all placed under a very tall stack of heavy art books. I remove the painting after a day or more, and the piece is perfectly flat. Sometimes a bit of buckle in the work is fine, and even preferable.

www.harrystooshinoff.com   

Sling

Visit me here:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/paintbox
www.harrystooshinoff.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuHuLWsq7LQVYbd616Wzz2Q

Sling (Sold)
....calm, beautiful evenings.....big sky over harvested wheat. Acrylic collage painting on heavy archival paper 9.5 x 13 inches, image size 8.75 x 11 inches.

The method here is bit different from some of my others. I stand in front of the scene with full intention of making a picture of this specific view, and I commit a few things to memory....the few important things that I feel create the impact in the first place. THEN...no further reference is used to make the picture. The REASON for doing it this way is so that, in the process of painting, ONLY the paint, shape, colour, line, etc...are considered. The reference is internal, so the making of the painting is a bit more seamless. When I employ these different methods, the paintings work out somewhat differently in each case....

Evening Front

Evening Front (Sold)
...I purposely search out locations that offer big skies. Acrylic collage painting on heavy, unprimed Somerset paper 11 x 15 inches, image size 10 x 10.25 inches. The drawing used as reference is included here. I make quite a few of these....only some of them get used for paintings.

Visit me here:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/paintbox
www.harrystooshinoff.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuHuLWsq7LQVYbd616Wzz2Q

Companion piece.....

 

This is perhaps a companion piece to the forest view with red ground.....the paintings do link up on strange informal ways.

 

www.harrystooshinoff.com

Evening Walkout

 

In case anyone is wondering why sometimes these works start looking partly abstract, or even fully abstract without representatioal format evident....here's a brief explanation: Sometimes I'm perfectly happy being primarily an 'eye'. There is plenty of mystery in what is seen. But sometimes I'm walking, and thinking, and looking, and responding emotionally to what I'm seeing and also what I'm thinking about...the whole world gets mixed into an experience that is not only about the eye. Sometimes I'm addressing some of that internal 'mixing'.

While the whole business of making a picture rests upon formal means, the picture is never a type of pure abstraction. The picture is always about something in my world.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/paintbox

www.harrystooshinoff.com

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuHuLWsq7LQVYbd616Wzz2Q

Late May Collage Paintings

Fishing Rod (Sold)
...a hot, still, late May evening on Rice Lake. Acrylic collage painting on heavy archival paper 11 x 15 inches, image size 9.5 x 10 inches.

Evening, Chickabiddy Hill (Sold)
....the welcome coolness that comes at the end of hot May day. Acrylic collage painting on heavy archival paper, 11 x 14 inches, image size 10 x 11 inches.

 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/paintbox

www.harrystooshinoff.com

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuHuLWsq7LQVYbd616Wzz2Q

 

...there is a late May heatwave on at the moment. It's much hotter than it normally is at this time of year. Hopefully I'll have more energy to make a painting later this evening....

 

 

Eastern Fields

Eastern Fields
 .....a high view of May fields awaiting planting.......Acrylic collage painting on heavy archival paper 11 x 15 inches, image size 9 x 10.25 inches.

www.harrystooshinoff.com

Over Wendy's Hill

Over Wendy's Hill (Sold)
 ...beautiful, cool May afternoons. Acrylic collage painting on heavy archival paper 11 x 15 inches, image size 9.5 x 9.75 inches.

www.harrystooshinoff.com   

May Rain

May Rain
........a very wet Saturday morning. It's a very pleasant thing, to stop, and look at the rain. Acrylic on unprimed Whatman paper 10 x 13.5 inches, image size 9 x 12 inches.

www.harrystooshinoff.com  

April Morning

It's unusual for me to do morning pictures, but it was very pleasant being out on the roads at that hour. Rainy, overcast and cool....past greening pastures and into the forest, noisy with birdsong.  The video recording the last stage of this piece is in the link below. This piece is (Sold).

https://youtu.be/HLSzup7uxLI

www.harrystooshinoff.com  

At a Distance

At a Distance
......in the forest, looking toward the distant meadow. Sometimes looking 'far' brings to mind 'long ago', in a bittersweet way. Acrylic collage painting on heavy archival paper 11 x 15 inches, image size 9.75 x 10.25 inches.

 

 

The video documenting the last stage of making this work is here    https://youtu.be/l9jnQRfBQQs   or type in Harry Stooshinoff into the YouTube search bar to find all my process videos.

 

www.harrystooshinoff.com

First Greening

https://youtu.be/lb7BOG3GZHQ
......click on this link to see a video of  the final part of the painting.....

 

......cool, gentle, spring days are greening up the fields of winter wheat..... (Sold)

www.harrystooshinoff.com  

From Hermit Lane

www.harrystooshinoff.com

From Hermit's Lane
....from a hidden lane.....on a warm, April mid afternoon....a vista looking east. Acrylic and pencil on unprimed Whatman paper 10 x 13.75 inches, image size 8.5 x 12 inches.

April Breeze

April Breeze (Sold)
...April is moody and erratic, but I love her anyway. Acrylic collage painting on heavy archival paper, 11 x 15 inches, image size 9.25 x 11 inches.

 

In these collages I prefer to use old papers. I saved some papers from my teaching years. I'd often ask my students to prepare idea lists and preparatory drawings at the start of projects. These idea pages would be stapled together and kept on shelves in the studio for their reference the next class. Few students ever claimed these prep things at the end of the year, and in June there would be piles of things to throw out. When I started making these collages I'd sometimes save the used 8.5 x 11 inch papers in stacks. I still have a bit of this left. I'm often very charmed by the things I see on these pages.....little bits of history that are both insignificant and endearing when put into a different context. Our days are fleeting...and it's sweet if some little hint of our time here can survive. In this piece, at extreme left by the horizon, you see a star/asterisk entered in ballpoint pen. That was where a Grade 9 student wrote her name, and a punctuating symbol afterward. I don't know why that charms me....but it does to no end. Little hints that we were here....left behind...but largely invisible....

You'd be surprised how the stacks of old paper mount up after years of teaching....piles of old photocopied project sheets, assignment sheets....I left a lot of that behind and have used up much of what I've saved for collage papers....

www.harrystooshinoff.com

....2 days....2 paintings.....

Video documenting 'Ending'....hopefully the last snow painting of 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXq4cV0eHQQ&feature=player_detailpage

www.harrystooshinoff.com