2 paintings in one day

Today 2 paintings from yesterday's diagrams made on the evening walk. There are times when I want to avoid inevitability.....I don't want the picture to look predictable. Rather hard to do entirely when the picture needs this and that....it's a landscape for god's sake. So I tell myself well, maybe it could be all black...no colour at all....as a way to open up the process completely. I didn't make these all black, but that was the pre-thinking for it....and the process did feel very freeing. I try to do lots of mental things to free up the process.....part of the 'set up' for each picture. Slightly different guidelines lead to different series.

Currently I'm looking at some colours pasted to my door where everything was pared down to nothing.....3 colours together....and wondering if it's as good as anything else I do. I think not, but there's something to the question. Everything should be easy, and there are lots of things we tell ourselves pictures need, when in fact they may not. Making the guidelines you choose to follow is more than half of the enterprise.

Coyote Hill, May 20th

I've been trying to capture these bright, cheerful days of early May....cool air, very fresh greens that haven't reached their full tone yet, plenty or both rain and sun...always a time of much hope.

11 x 10.25 inches on heavy gessoed artist's paper. I ran out of Payne's grey and worked with mixtures from black in the sky....haven't done that in years, and it's interesting trying to get black to behave like a colour. Fresh May greens under an overcast sky.

May Bloom #2

I started this collage at school, but I ran out of time....had to go supervise a detention. I thought it would be abandoned because I don't usually interrupt in the middle of a work...but I did come back to it later that evening at home. The initial idea must have been strong enough..............I was walking down a very steep hill....looking into the distance at the fresh bloom of leaves coming out from the dark stand of trees......the effect lasts only for a few days each year.

May Bloom

Interview with Agnes Martin

May Light

Video Interview with Painter Lois Dodd

April Swamp

Old Apple Orchard, Early May

Made from a very brief diagram scribbled on my lunch hour.....I sometimes escape to this peaceful little country road. There is pencil on top of the acrylic in this one.....it's a bit bigger than what I normally make.....10 x 11 inches on gessoed paper.

Recent Collages

I decided to keep these two collages without any painting additions in the end stages. The pencil found its way onto a few shapes.

So far the types of production seems to go as follows:

1) paintings from small diagrams
2) paintings with photo reference
3) collage paintings from both methods above
4) invented collages from memory, with or without painted additions
5) landscape paintings from invention

Easter, The Way Home

Small panel, 8.25 x 7.25. Acrylic on paper, gessoed, laid onto panel.

Easter

It was a very calm and pleasant day to carry on with tree planting. Unfortunately, the Poison Ivy was invisible.....it will still infect you even if you don't see any green. A small price to pay for the glory of trees.

Morning, Good Friday

I was planting trees in the back acres, around 9:00 am on Good Friday, cool but very pleasant.

Acrylic collage painting on paper.

Running the Books, Avi Steinberg

"I thought about how isolated Jessica seemed that night when I saw her standing in line, as the prison commotion swelled around her, the laughing inmates, the shouting guards. Oblivious to her surroundings. She had just told me the story of abandoning her son. Her guilt and shame, her deep regret had sapped her senses. Just by looking at her that night, waiting for the officers to finish their count, waiting to march back to her prison cell, it was clear: Jessica was done. She hadn't been tuning out the noise around her. She wasn't ignoring the others. No, it was that she herself barely existed. Her presence then was papery and insubstantial. No wonder she'd ripped up the portrait. Ghosts cannot give gifts."

Running the Books, The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian, by Avi Steinberg

April, Homestead Hill

Spring is coming very slowly....it's often dreary. But in this piece I wanted some relief, so I made this image of Homestead Hill more appealing than it's seemed lately.....perhaps a small matter of emphasis. Regardless, April remains one of my favourite months....because the most promising months are right ahead.

Pencil Drawings

These 4 pencil drawings were completed in one long sitting. Each took about 40 minutes. I started off with a 7B and 5B drawing pencil, but found after the first one, that the 5B was enough....many sharpenings with a sharp razor. About 7.5 x 11 inches, on heavy archival printing paper.

Long View

......I walked to the back of my favourite field.....looking towards the county road....bits of snow patch remaining under the shade of the tree line.

Lately I've been working the skies first....but I was unhappy with the sky at the very end so went back into it with a bit of collage.

Jane's New Forest

Just finished this...a little collage 7 x 6 inches. As all these pictures are made, I need to make changes to format or style to keep things fresh. In this case, going to a slightly smaller size, on paper that was not previously prepared, was enough. It's like saying "do whatever you want....permission to play".

Monoprint with Watercolour and India Ink

Rice Lake, Monoprint with Watercolor

Monoprint with Watercolor

Produced with waterbased printers ink. A glass plate is rolled with a thin layer of ink, paper is placed on top, a drawing is produced with a pen, the reverse side picks up the ink dependent on pressure applied. Water color was added after the prints had time to dry. Part of a larger series.

Tree Farm

I attend an auction regularly on this large piece of land, now an abandoned tree farm. It was a great government initiative at one point....tree seedlings provided so cheaply.....10 cents per seedling. The program was cut and now all the buildings are falling into disrepair. I wander around the big acreage, waiting for my auction items to come up.

Late March

This is the first of these collages with painted papers on masonite panel laminated with gessoed paper......sounds complicated, I know, but I like the surface. My previous collages were done on paper.

Blonde

March Hope

March 24

Spring is not coming easily....still quite cold, but the snow is steadily disappearing. I paint a lot of pictures based on these snow patches every year.

March Snow Pattern

I like looking at how the diminishing snow cover sets up everchanging patterns in the fields. Things will change again tomorrow.....spring is not quite here yet.....more snow is coming over night!

Near Wendy's Hill

Diagramed yesterday, but painted today. It was very warm yesterday, colder today, but much of the snow cover has already disappeared.

The making of the panels perhaps changes the painting style slightly because there is such an investment in preparation, but there is something about the ritual that is pleasing. There is a whole sequence to making the panels....measure and cut the boards, sand the board edges, gesso one side, wait dry, gesso the other side, laminate the painting paper, trim the painting paper and clip the corners to prevent denting, gesso again. I'm sure I could buy something comparable but it's pleasing to make them myself.

Start of Spring

It's still a few days before the official beginning of spring, but today definitely felt different....lots of snow melt, warm, and blue skies in the earlier part of the day.

March Light

Painted today, late afternoon....the light shining on a little hillock across the road. The days are getting noticeably longer.

On 8.25 x 7.25 Inch panels. The panels are gessoed first, then laminated with heavy artist's paper, then gessoed again.

Into Garden Hill, March 15

A lovely place in any season. Home is not far from here.....a very mysterious and welcoming opening at the top of the hill.

Purgatory Hill, March 14

Purgatory Hill under a clear late winter sky. There will come a time when I won't pass this way so often.

Tom Waits, You Can Never Hold Back Spring

Run Off, March 13

I wanted to paint this because the snow will not last long now that the temperatures might be more consistently above zero. A good time to paint.....the snow patches will create interesting patterns.

Rice Lake, March 12

I went to an auction at Bewdley this morning...got impatient for my lot to come up and went down to the lake front and recorded a few views for painting when I got home....returned to the auction in time to purchase the one lot I wanted.

It's still deep winter, but I'll savour these days that lead into spring.

August 2010, Harvest

It was a very small class on the last day before we were ready to dismiss for March break.....the roads were a mess so the buses didn't come in, and some students were already departed on international flights. It was a good opportunity to demonstrate pace and process in painting, to the few students that were there. My Grade 11 students are currently being asked to do two paintings in this small scale. I had a few watch me as this was painted. I finished the piece after class.

For a while now I've been meaning to learn how to make short videos of art processes....me painting would be one of them. Such videos would be very handy for all manner of things that need to be taught in the studio.