Saturday 23 December 2017

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!


Season's Greetings!
It was a winter wonderland in Guelph Ontario this morning, with freshly fallen snow clinging to branches and trees. Always a magical sight.

I will be travelling in south East Asia in January and February, and though I will be missing my studio and acrylics, I hope to do some drawing and watercolour painting on my travels. I hope you will stop by and have a look from time to time. 

Many thanks for reading this blog, and your generous comments 
along the way.

Happy New Year and all the best in 2018
Pat




Thursday 21 December 2017

Night Falls

Night Falls
17.5" x 14" - acrylic on paper - $50
If you saw my previous post you might notice a relation between that recent painting called Day Breaks and this one. Night Falls grew out of the other but is much darker, smaller and was done using a palette knife. I wanted to try to suggest the idea of 'night falling on land', using a dark sky with some mysterious lighter areas. In the beginning I worked with a brush, and added more inktense coloured pencils, but eventually used a palette knife to stop myself from making it all too tight. I think it worked and though it is dark, I quite like the overall effect. 


Wednesday 20 December 2017

Day Breaks

Day Breaks
36" x 48" - acrylic on canvas - $700
This was one of those paintings that starts out (as most do) as one thing, going in one direction, and then over a week evolves in a good and creatively satisfying way. I did start with an idea for a large, wide 'landscape', with a high horizon line and small sky that was loosely based on a photo, but quickly put aside.

'
I knew that I would not be comfortable with a lot of undefined foreground space, and that became the challenge. Once the colour palette and general value pattern was in place I decided to abstract the foreground or 'land' space into various sized shapes, suggesting landscape elements. I have been experimenting with this in the last few months and wanted to try it on a larger scale.


However, at some stage it seemed a bit boring - so I got out my Derwent inktense coloured pencils and scribbled- drew all over the painting, then with the canvas on the easel, and in a very controlled way sprayed a light mist of water on those lines and watched the intense colours come alive and drip downwards, mopping up the unwanted bits. That was fun! In the photo below you can see some of the smudged lines, that are more visible and interesting in reality.

detail
The finishing was slow and a challenge because at that point I liked so much of the painting and didn't want to loose the great bits. It has been finished for a few weeks and I have to say I am really happy with this one!
Cheerio! 






Sunday 17 December 2017

Tree Line

Tree Line
10" x 13" - acrylic on paper - SOLD
This painting was inspired (once again) by one of my photos taken in France last May, specifically the one below, taken near Paimpol in Brittany

I love the trees and the coloured division of the landscape in this photo, and it's potential for interpretation.