Self Portrait With Close Ups

Collage from acrylic painted papers...just a stroke or two of colour on top. Most of my things are done in less than two hours......but I worked on this for 4-6 hours. It went through a lot of changes and has many pieces. I had to rewet the back and clamp it under a tall stack of books to get it to lay reasonably straight.

....started in the AP class to show them that a work can be built, decision by decision. It is better to make more decisions rather than fewer decisions...complicate, and if that becomes too much, then simplify. One learns by making more and more decisions. Adding is a decision...and so is taking away.

North Field

There was a wonderful 'hum' between the sky and the snow on this afternoon....it's not something I got here, but it was the idea for the picture.....there was something very special about the light and the relationship between those two colour areas.

The last thing I did on this painting was make a few small marks with pencil in the wet white paint of the snow...not even sure you can see that very clearly....but it gave me a little thrill to do those last subtle things.

Little Tree, Deep February

Collage offers a slightly different sensibility. Yesterday I worked for about 6 hours on a self portrait collage....unusual for me because most things take me less than 2 hours.....but I couldn't get it right so I kept going. It finally arrived at a place that seemed of interest....we'll see what it looks like again tomorrow....I purposely didn't bring it back home, only partly because I wanted the AP Drawing students to see how it progressed.

Art Talk in Warkworth, Ontario

I will be giving a talk on my work on Saturday, March 5th, in Warkworth, Ontario.

Mid Winter Thaw

Half the snow cover was gone in one day. Later on in spring, the snow melt always creates unexpected design in the landscape....a very pleasant time to paint for a number of reasons.

Lost Dog Hill, From the North

Approaching Lost Dog Hill from the North.....cold, mid February.

Midday Roadside

....it was the start of a long weekend....driving home early.....the early afternoon light on some roadside evergreens

Upper Trout Pond, February

A very bright warm morning....it was pleasant walking to the upper trout pond.....no human tracks here for quite a while......just raccoon.

February Thaw, Trout Pond

In a day or so much of the snow cover disappeared in a February melt......these never last. It's much colder today. But at least there was a hint of spring.

White Hill

...at the start of a February melt that is most pronounced today. I stopped on one of the backroads on the way home and diagramed this motif.....4 things together...the grey sky, dark trees, orange bushes and white foreground.

I was pleased that the sky ended up looking wet...as it was. In this case, the result, not entirely predicted, of dragging the brush in a certain way.

Blue Hint

....into the latter part of February....winter starts to issue hints of spring. I wish I could climb this hill and explore, but it's private property.

Snow Day

Acrylic on gessoed paper laminated to masonite panel, 6" x 8". The best kind on winter day,....cold, clear, and still. Looking northward.

Garden Hill, February

Today was very windy and cold...but there was a hint of spring in the air.

Small 6" x 8" panel. I laminated heavy artist's paper onto gessoed masonite panel as a way to stop a pink bleed that was happening through the gesso. I love painting on this surface.....it's much more intimate than straight panel and more sturdy than paper....best of both worlds. I'll see if the infatuation holds, but at the moment it's my favourite surface to paint on. This is the 3rd or 4th on this type of surface.

Rail Bridge 1912, Morning Sunshine

I made a little diagram on a short drive during my lunch hour....painted at about 8:00 pm that evening. I like this hidden road with the old rail bridge at a turn....the morning sun was beautiful and encouraging.

Sunday Sun, Lost Dog Hill

A very cold and bright Sunday afternoon. A snowmobile trail cuts right through at right of this. For a portion of my walk I need to be prepared to step into the underbrush at a moment's notice.

January Days

I try to steal some time and put myself in the landscape around lunch.....the little diagrams made on paper always in my breast pocket are produced at times like this. The two little paintings are on gessoed panels....I was lucky to get them done on the same day....about 1.5 hrs painting time in total for both. More and more I sense how important it is to record the days as they pass.

Coyote Hill, Deep Winter

Painted today....we're now into the coldest part of the year. Winter really does deserve a very close study. The range of effects in the short days can be at times dramatic, at other times, subtle.

Stuart Shils, Making a Monotype, Part 2

Stuart Shils, Making a Monotype, Part 1

Donald Baechler, Monday Artist at Noon Lecture, Part 2

There is always great surprise and similtaneously, great design principles and process at play in Baechler's work. He's a fascinating artist on many levels.

Donald Baechler, Monday Artist at Noon Lecture, Part 1

Donald Baechler, Monday Artist at Noon Lecture, Part 3

A Wonderful Home!

A big thank you to Kate Lottridge for sending along a photo showing how she framed and presented two of my paintings in her absolutely gorgeous home! It warms my heart to see how the paintings travel....and these two pieces have landed in paradise.

Halfway Home

Midday....on the backroads.....10 minutes from home...the clean, cold smell of sunshine and snow cover in January.

Lost Dog Hill, Overcast

Lost Dog Hill as it looked a few days ago.....the way the land is arranged, this location and motif are always there as I leave here and return......noticed many times during the day, in all weather, all seasons. Not even 6:00 p.m. yet but it's dark now. Time for a snow walk and I'll go in that direction.....you can actually see a great deal in the dark.

Brushes.....and.....

I had a few questions about brushes and procedures. Perhaps the picture will help. I wear brushes down to nothing....especially the bigger ones for filling areas. I tend to favour a distressed brush perhaps because it can do rough things....I get worried when things start to look too predictable. The stiff bristle round brush that you see...all worn down, was used for the top layer of many of my skies...I liked it for applying thick impasto. Haven't used it lately though...perhaps its time is done.

I AM careful about the smallest rounds that I use to draw fine lines with. I try to hold the brush very easily and make the lines almost accidentally. The paint is often thinned a fair bit for those lines. Small rounds are replaced quite often. I use a few flat synthetic brushes, but favor the rounds.

Almost everything gets underpainted very simply. A blue sky will have a thin wash of perhaps pink, applied in 10 seconds....little bits peek through.

I'm primarily a tonal painter. The Value...the degree of dark/light of the colour is most important. I'm also very conscious of how colours are greyed. I use a simple method of 'approximate complements' to grey. As I instinctively sense that a colour needs to be brought down in intensity, I go to an approximate opposite to grey it in stages. Finding great greys is so important.

I'm more intuitive rather than scientific in the way I find my colours. Red is the complement of green, and small bits of red will grey or reduce the intensity of green, but so will a whole variety of browns, reds that move towards orange, etc....that's why I think of this method as greying with approximate complements....they will all grey your colour, but in different ways.

A little exercise for anyone who feels they haven't exploited greys enough yet:

Grid a 20" x 26" sheet of bristol or any stiff card into one inch squares. Set out a full palette of colour plus white. Fill every square with a greyed colour....no full intensity colours allowed. I have no black in my palette but am a great fan of Paynes Grey. I wouldn't use the Paynes for this exercise though. You'll be surprised by how much exciting variety you'll find just by consciously reducing the brightness of colours.

Windbreak

Made one day prior to winter solstice...later in the day, a bit of snow falling.

First Storm

Snow fell this morning and now it is raining which should last all night. If we can avoid freezing rain I'll be happy. This painting from earlier this afternoon....diagramed quickly...painted in studio.

December 4th

Painted yesterday...the shortest days of the year. This is morning light, but I painted this later in the afternoon when the light was fading. Almost impossible to do these without enough light, but I surrounded myself with standing lamps and it was ok.

Flickr

I'll be posting lots of pictures to Flickr in the next while....please see me there.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/paintbox1/

Last Dance

The painting, just made now, was done from the little diagram. The sky was doing all sorts of interesting things....a certain kind of clean hopefullness sometimes seems to arrive in September. The golden rod in certain light is shockingly yellow.

Evening Sky, August 27

A little subtheme has been these sky paintings, usually from notations made in the evenings

Rain on Home Field

It started raining as I returned home....stopped at the top of lost dog hill to make a little diagram for this and was able to make a few pen lines only, as they were washing away in the rain...but it was enough. This was the first of two paintings made today.

Little Stand

Clearing

A view of a clearing from the highest place in the area. I was very happy to retrieve 3 small paintings from a now defunct bed and breakfast in the area. I'd forgotten all about them....one of the reasons I don't like consigning things to galleries. Keeping track of consignment lists is just plain annoying. I tended not to do it, so I've lost many paintings this way over the years. Anyway, it was very nice to retrieve those 3. The colour system and paint application method of those earlier works influenced this piece which I did yesterday.

County Road North

....an older image, from years ago now, closer to the start of this whole series. There were many done in this small format. I recall the exact size was taken directly from some plein air sketches by James McNeill Whistler.

Evening Sky

Sheds in the Rain

Prairie Boy Walking

Cottage Light

Memories from ages ago....walking towards a cottage in pitch-dark....the way light penetrates a bit, making everything safe, pleasantly mysterious, and warm in the coolness of summer nights.

Lake Swimmer

Another little collage completed yesterday afternoon.....a swimmer....memory of a time at a northern lake.


I'd like to thank JORDAN DELOACH for doing a very nice feature about me on her design blog THE WEEKEND DESIGN....An exploration of design and the world of curiosities.


..... a good place to go for all things related to design and home decor.....Jordan puts interesting and unexpected things together.

Madge Lake Blue

Following on the heels of the other 2 abstractions. Distant summer memories served as the source.

August Haze

...very hot days at the start of August. The colours melt together in these conditions. I tried to do a bit of that here even though some contrast of light and dark was kept to keep excitement. It's always interesting to see how these effects can be pushed...perhaps the thing to do would have been to make another one right after, where dark/light contrast was much less.

August 3

Underlying all my representational work is an impulse to also not be entirely bound by what is seen. The historical roots go back to Matisse and there is also an influence from Abstract Expressionism and related work. Visual reality is very important, but there is also a subjective world, an undercurrent of moods, feelings, chatter... that is always buzzing in the background while the senses deal with anything in the world. I make various things that allow for more of a focus on the subjective and it always seems to be firmly anchored in strong design elements as well.

...made from my ever increasing collection of painted papers covered with my leftover paints. For every little landscape painting I make, perhaps four 8.5 x 11 sheets are covered with colour....

Sky August 1