Lost Dog Hill...Spring

I'm standing on the summit of a hill in the field next door. Just at the point in spring when some new green is ready to emerge...

Hurt, Johnny Cash

Click on the title, for a moving rendition.

Blue Hills

Small acrylic on paper, soon to be listed on Etsy. Looking south, Lake Ontario is far in the distance.

Diagrams

I'm not sure why I feel compelled to save these little diagrams, but yesterday I took some time to cut and paste a drawer full into this book. Maybe I think they should be saved because each little drawing represents a very concentrated moment.....first a motif gets recognized....then a decision is made to stop everything to record it....then the diagram is made on paper I carry in my breast pocket, taking maybe 30 seconds or a minute. I make these diagrams every day. Many are turned into paintings, and I always feel a tinge of regret if I don't have time to make the paintings. If a day goes by without the painting being made, the drawing won't be remembered and used.

Kim Frohsin

Lemon Slices: Black Stripe, 9 1/4 " x 14 1/8", acrylic, ink, gouache, paper, by Kim Frohsin

The artists I am constantly drawn to, like Kim Frohsin, are able to do a great deal with what are really ordinary things in the world. If you visit Kim's site you will see a series of wonderful compositions on lemons, paper airplanes, studio models, human heads, horses, dogs, slices of wonder bread, fortune cookies, and other things. She has highly advanced observational drawing skills born of long practice, an ability to balance shapes in an always beautiful way, and deep understanding of colour theory....her colours always sing, creating both surprise and a sense of visual rightness fitting with the observed world. She looks very closely....the light always seems right. Her forms have weight but are not modelled; rather the whole work is built primarily of colour shapes that lock together wonderfully. There is complete ease with materials and again, you can be sure this comes from years of practice. I appreciate the small scale...it seems to let ideas flow even more easily. One sees both the reality of the objects she depicts, and her rich expressiveness of line and colour, welded perfectly together. This is a beautiful simplicityy born of much study.

So what is new, important, or appealing about this? Through this steady encounter with the world right at our fingertips, everything seems continually reborn. Nothing is set in stone....there is still so much to find. I always enjoy seeing what Kim Frohsin produces.

Home Field

9" x 7" acrylic on gessoed heavy artist's paper. After doing the little magnet images, this felt large! Home field from the county road.

Wealth

I am wealthy in fridge magnets.....and cats....the cats just keep showing up here.

The magnets are all listed on Etsy. I expect the collection to keep growing (magnets...not cats!).

Prime

Today I am very rich in little panels. Tomorrow I might show you what a fridge door full of painted ones looks like.

I took a break (sort of) from making these today, and made a larger painting instead. But I still couldn't resist making 2 small ones after the bigger painting was done.

Totally SHAMELESS Artist

I missed the class at art school when we were told that great artists aren't supposed to do cheapazoid things like putting your art on fridge magnets. These are little paintings that have in fact been turned into fridge magnets....so shoot me!

I won't be making a million of them...but maybe 100?....200? My theory is that fridge owners don't have nearly enough fridge magnets.

A Few More....Tiny Paintings

Very Small Paintings

From a recent series. I like these odd tiny things...they are all 2.75 inches square, acrylic on masonite panel. I like making and priming the panels....it's pleasant precision work. These are a few examples from the many made so far. Most are landscapes with some portraits and still-life thrown in as well.

Tom Waits, "You Can Never Hold Back Spring"

Ravine, February 14th/2010, 2:40 p.m.

I walked to the very back of a favourite field and around the rim that led down into this gully....the perspective and views change radically in this hilled country, over very short distances. The land is full of surprises....a bit further up, one could see for miles over various elevations going northward.

Acrylic on gessoed paper, listed on Etsy.

Blue Hill, February 13/2010, 1:10 p.m.

Acrylic on gessoed heavy artist's paper, 7.25" x 6.5". Listed on Etsy.

Lost Dog Hill, February 12/2010, 2:10 p.m.

Acrylic on gessoed artist's paper, 7.25" x 6.5". Listed on Etsy later today.

Lake Ontario, February 8

5.75" x 7.25", acrylic collage on paper.

Made as a demonstration piece for some AP students. I took my lunch hour to drive along the lake, made a very brief pencil diagram of this composition, and completed the collage and painting stage in the studio.

The time lag between making the collage papers and actually using them in paintings continues to fascinate me. Here, I notice the slight resist in the sky caused by the blue over an existing dry layer of glue. All studio papers are kept for reuse....there is no telling what will be useful. Spoken like a true packrat, I know, but in this piece you can actually see how so called rubbish is transformed.

Little Forest

A cold day, late afternoon......the little forest at the back seems to be surviving.....the die-off resulting from a dry spring planting was not very severe. These little trees are into their third year now.

Things have been very busy in general and I look forward to getting back to more painting very soon.

I LIKE small

I love this shot from Nahcotta Gallery.....plenty of small art neatly arranged, ready to hang....mine are in there. I'd like to see how they hang all this....I'll bet they do a great job. Check out the show if you're in the area.

The Enormous Tiny Art Show 7, opening Friday February 4th, 5-8 pm.

Nahcotta Gallery

Home Way, January

Almost home....snow fell and stayed....but today rain changed things a fair bit. This was painted yesterday....listed on Etsy today.

January Blue

The perfect type of January day....very clear and still...not too cold, the sun warming everything at mid afternoon. I picked this motif for the convergence of shadows.

Acrylic on gessoed paper, listed on Etsy.

Lost Dog Hill, January

I've painted this hill so many times, under many conditions. There seems something noteworthy about the little evergreen clinging so visibly to the slope....all alone. Lost Dog Hill on January 9th, 2:50 p.m. 7.25" x 6.5", acrylic on gessoed heavy paper, listed on Etsy.

Sumac Line

I don't generally do pictures this close to home but it does happen....the view out the front window. Interestingly, it was a view similar to this that started this whole small series more than a decade ago.

Although they are first growth scrub trees, I like sumacs and so do the birds, and the dense growth of them on this property line was useful in blocking road traffic in summer. But many were leaning dangerously into the power lines. I used a come-along to pull the trees, as they were cut, away from the power lines. The trees that are still leaning at extreme angles are in no danger of falling on the lines, so they were left.

This was painted on January 4th and I wanted a record of this little project...the stack of cut wood under fresh snow.

Acrylic on gessoed paper, listed on Etsy.

Memory Work

My preferred method of working for the last week or so, has been from these little 1 minute diagrams pictured here. It's been very pleasant working these out. The advantage of this method is the reliance on memory. All that is diagrammed is the shock of the impression created by 4 or 5 elements in combination....Coyote Hill in snow shown here....the little diagram for it is on the page.

You can see that the sketches have a bit of an 'abused' look....the paper is folded up and lives in my breast pocket. When I see something that I'll paint, a little sketch gets made. This particular page started during a staff meeting....bit of a doodle of a head there, and a few notes deemed important at the time.

Works on small panels for Nahcotta Gallery

These are the last of the paintings that will be sent off to Nahcotta...but as always, everything else will enter my Etsy shop almost the moment it is completed.

Little Tree Hill

9" x 7" acrylic on gessoed heavy artist's paper, listed on Etsy.

I'll always stop and look closely at little trees claiming a hillside...something very hopeful about that. The last 4 or 5 paintings have this combination of the dry yellowish grass with the strong white of snowcover....

Snow Hills

9" x 7" acrylic on gessoed, acid-free paper, listed on Etsy.

A quiet, snowbound time. I like how the work changes almost without my intention.....seems to have something to do with these being a form of daily ritual. If the work goes this way or that, it's really not such a large issue....much more important that the work simply gets done and there remains a document of the time here, and what I noticed.

I see my favourite savage brush is getting rather decrepit looking....it's a stiff brush that I like to torture the paint with...suitable for certain large areas like the sky.

Merry Christmas, Everybody!

Affordable Artwork

Thanks to the folks at Apartment Therapy. for including one of my paintings in their piece about gifting affordable artwork. I made this comment:

"Thank you very much for including my work, and thank you for recognizing that in today's market there are [some] like me....highly trained artists who are selling ORIGINAL artwork at low prices because they wish to completely avoid the overhead and rather large headache of dealing with commercial galleries. All of my work in my Etsy shop is original...and inexpensive. I have for many years laughed out loud every time I've heard the sage advice "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is". True perhaps if you are trying to buy a plasma tv for $50.00. Not true if you are clever enough to look in out-of-the-way corners, and you have the discriminating knowledge and taste to know when you are in front of a really good deal! Thank you for noticing and enjoy!"

How is this possible? I don't have to make the majority of my living from my paintings. And while I am very prolific it still is fairly ridiculous for me to sell my things at the price I do (my old art professors would be shaking their heads). My prices are almost comparable to what people charge for open edition archival Epson prints of their work, ordered on demand.....and mine are originals....once they're gone, they're gone. I am able to do this because I can. I have always been a producing artist and moving artwork quickly out the door is a great impetus for making more. I'll simply document my place in the world as long as I can.

Property Line

7.25" x 6.5" acrylic collage painting on pine panel. I was very pleased to discover this little size...there is a whole series of works on panels this size and I'll make many works on paper this size also. I need to frame these up soon, but a very nice black tom cat has moved into my basement and I don't want to freak him out with miter saw noise before he feels perfectly at home. The tom that lives upstairs still wants to murder him so I don't want them together.

In the continuing saga of little pleasures, I was happy to find a use for the orange collage paper on the bottom. Perfect for this November scene. Orange is an uncomfortable colour for me and I don't do much with it. One of the advantages of collage is that you are very likely to find surprises in colour outside your comfort zone....it's very easy to move colours in and out to assess effect.

Aspen Stand, Late Autumn

One more for Nahcotta Gallery. 8" x 10" cradled birch, gessoed panel, acrylic.

It feels great to have some time off at Christmas. I'm trying to stick to my usual rate of a painting a day....so far so good....today I painted a moody stand with a grey sky and a snowbound field in the foreground.

To Collage....or Not

The 2nd image is 8" x 10" acrylic collage painting on cradled birch panel, and the first is a straight acrylic painting on smaller pine panel. The decisions work something like this. I know when I will paint....I know if it will be tomorrow or not for example. To some degree it depends on how busy I am with other things, but I know the next painting will be within a day or so. I don't know what will be painted. I might stop the car on a back road on the way to school and make a 30 second sketch from a motif I see, or I might try to make an encapsulation of the overall mood of the whole day, but using a specific motif to accomplish this. Just as I start the work session...setting up the lights and the materials....I decide there and then how the piece will be made. I know then but not before, if it should be a straight painting or a collage painting...and I usually feel that with great certainty. The approach of the collage paintings is way different...making them feels different....the pace of making is different. I also usually know how long it will take. I might know before hand that the work should be done in an hour...or perhaps three, if I expect to meander around.

These 2 will also go to Nahcotta Gallery

Some New Paintings

I've been working on 10 or 12 works that will be sent to the
Nahcotta Gallery tiny art group show in the new year. I won't be able to go, but I think it'll be fun to check out...send me a photo if you're there. I've always liked tiny art shows....little treasures all jammed together. I'll post the series here over the next few days. These are acrylic collage paintings on pine panels 7.25" x 6.5". These 2 show that dry, quiet November period...an odd time really...rather hard to live through, but quite beautiful in its way.

Oil Monoprints

Exploring the top shelves in the studio I found this oil monoprint that was made a number of years back. It's a refreshing technique and I look forward to using it again once our etching press is rescued out of storage and placed in a new building. The image is painted on metal plate and then run through an etching press onto damp paper.

I usually made a number of images from the same original image....take a print and then work back into the image in some manner....what results is a series that goes through sometimes subtle, and sometimes dramatic transformations. I only found this image from the series on the shelves, but that doesn't mean the 5 more aren't lurking beneath a few more layers of paper.

Listed today on Etsy.

Thanksgiving Day

October 12th...Thanksgiving Day in Canada....chilly and cloudy but the fall colours are intense. Here just a bit of red peeks through into the coniferous line. Small acrylic on gessoed paper, 7" x 6", listed on Etsy.

Most recently I've been painting a series of small 8" x 10" panels for the next Enormous Tiny Art Show at Nahcotta Gallery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Nahcotta Gallery

My fascination with tiny art goes back a long way. I started making small things as a way to continue producing while teaching. I've always needed to finish the work in one sitting and it was possible to produce regularly even with an often demanding schedule. Beyond that, I also found that the small works were more open, contained more surprises, were more intuitive and free, and in many ways more intriguing overall. There is also something secretive about small work which is appealing...more can be said because it is whispered.

There is also something more democratic about tiny works. They are cheaper and really, anyone can afford a piece if they are interested. This opens up the market to those who are younger and just starting out, giving them more time to develop a strong sense of connoisseurship. Larger pieces need larger walls, putting restrictions both upon those who might buy and the artist who makes. Believe me it is easier to warehouse 400 tiny paintings than that number of larger canvases! You hold a tiny piece closer to your body and feel a sense of intimacy, and there are any number of places and ways it can be exhibited in any and all home environments.

I'll hold back the works for the Nahcotta until it is time to ship, but everything else goes directly into my shop. It has been my practice to avoid galleries for the past number of years because I enjoy the online selling experience a great deal. But I liked how Nahcotta was doing things and wish them great luck with their tiny art ventures....they are worth a look!