My Winter Needs Colour, What About Yours?

My Winter Needs Colour, What About Yours?

Triptych 24" x 10" (each panel 8"x10")          

 acrylic on canvas -  SOLD

I have made several attempts recently, to paint across three small canvases, with each canvas working as a single composition and when put together as a triptych, forming a larger work.  I worked both non-objectively and representationally though fairly abstracted. While I felt that many of these small paintings worked individually, it was a challenge to have all 3 canvases work together successfully.  However, the triptych above does work in this regard and I am very happy with the result. The landscape composition is 'imagined' and the intense palette is in reaction to the white of a northern winter. There is lots of variety in the treatment of the surface with flat opaque colour areas, transparent colour areas, scumbling, scraping, and ink marks. 

left

centre

right

Lakeside, mixed media fun.

Lakeside

8'." x 9" - mixed media (acrylic & marker) on paper - $25

Trees near water, is a favourite subject matter. Experimenting with different application methods (brush vs knife etc) and then adding media, acrylic markers ....all good fun and I liked the result.

BTW....I paint on archival quality heavy paper designed for acrylic paint.

left handed drawing and painting

It has been almost 3 months since my last post in mid April. A long time I know, but, I was working on several canvases through May and June, and then almost 5 weeks ago sh*&#*&% happened. I fell in a stupid accident and broke both of my arms!!!! I am past the worst of it now, casts have been replaced with braces and I have started physiotherapy. I am able to move my wrists, and arms in limited ways. For a number of reasons my left arm is healing faster than my right (dominant) one, but I am optimistic and expect a full recovery in the future.

                                        

Last week, I needed some art therapy, so I finally started drawing, using my left/non-dominant hand and then added some water color paint. It felt so good to do both after what seemed like an eternity. The results are above.

The three sketchbook paintings below are ones I did before the accident, using a similar technique. 
.

Tropical Vibe

Tropical Vibe

16" x 16" - acrylic on canvas - $150

Rockwood - Another Variation on a Landscape Theme

Rockwood Variation

10" x 20" - acrylic on canvas  - $175

This post is about finding on-going inspiration in one photo reference. I took the original photo (below) last fall and have returned to it several times over the last year, each time considering how to re-create the landscape using a different 'format' (i.e. canvas dimensions), knowing that I would also play with colour and the other elements. Each time I started by cropping the original photo, looking for compelling compositions. 

One particular compositional format that I wanted to try was a 'very wide horizontal' as seen in Rockwood Variation. The challenge in painting on a relatively small canvas was to not go crazy on detail but try and keep the brush marks distinct and chunky, which also meant not over-working it. And I think I did that - yeah!  

The first painting inspired by this photo/composition was Arcadia Abstract (below). I am also working on another variation using a a much larger, vertically oriented canvas, and hope to post that one very soon.  

Arcadia Abstract 

High Waters

High Waters

30" x 24"  - acrylic on canvas -SOLD

I have been living with this landscape for a few weeks now, and continue to really like it. It evolved in much the same way as my other landscapes: initially inspired by a photo reference, or a combination of visual ideas, and then just more painting, with thinking time between working sessions. 

The photos below will give you an idea of that progression.

I started with a very high horizon line, and broke down the "space" below into a variety of abstract shapes, essentially thinking it was 'land', but it felt very static and had very little value contrast. 

I decided to organize all the small land shapes into more distinct areas, so added some big curving lines that descended down from the right hand trees, and across the picture plane. I also began to experiment with colour and value. 

At this stage I really liked the overall patterning and palette, but it needed some pizzazz. I had already drawn into the painting with a dark acrylic marker which disappeared as I painted. To add emphasis, a greater level of abstraction and hopefully pizzazz, I  drew back into the composition with a white acrylic marker, but only in some areas. And once that happened, so did the magic. It moved from being a 'scape of descending hills to a 'scape of waves on water with trees reflections!   

Night Fall

Nightfall
8" x 6.5" - watercolour on paper - $25
SOLD

Another of the abstract experimental landscapes I painted last weekend.  I began each painting with almost no idea of what exactly I wanted to paint beyond using lots of colour and allowing them to mingle on the paper. Once the first few colours were laid down then landscape ideas suggested themselves and I went from there. Here I painted broad bands of blue and then yellow which became sky. Once it was dry I then loaded my brush with lots of juicy wet paint to form the tree tops and then used the end of the brush to drag some of the paint down to form the trunks (I did go back in later when the canopy was dry and add some gouache). I really like how the trees are backlit and how the 'light' seems to shine through foreground hills. All quite serendipitous, but seems to work.

Another Landscape (#2) On the Easel

I mentioned in my last post that I have been working on several landscapes;  this is the second one. It is based on a photo I took last summer at a friend's cottage, and then painted later  in my studio. I really liked this first painting but it was much tighter and more abstract than I had originally imagined and so I wanted to try another version that had a 'lighter' palette and was looser and more painterly.

I was quite pleased with my 'start', the palette and loose brushstrokes. Then I kept painting, trying to define the foliage in the trees in a loose way and trying not to re-create what I did in the first version. It was a back and forth 'dance' with the brush, over several hours and days.....and this is what it looks like now.

                                              

Looking at it critically I think the painting looks too symmetrical, appearing to be divided down the middle by a light area, and bounded by dark trees on either side. I always prefer compositions that are more asymmetrical as they seem to be less static visually. My earlier loose vertical brush strokes have been overtaken by a web of horizontal strokes intended to suggest tree branches, but they are too regular and contrived. The curved horizon line separating the ground from the background, also looks too extreme. I do like the foreground pink and yellow colours and the background yellow sky and the way the foliage lightens up in the background. 

Lots to think about and eventually work on - but at this point I am going to take a break, enjoy Christmas with my family and friends and hope that the 'aha' moment strikes when I return to my studio in the new year. 

In the meantime I wish you Season's Greetings and the very best in 2015!

Imagining Ventoux

Imagining Ventoux 

10" x 8"  - acrylic on wood panel - $95

I painted this as a demo in a recent day-long workshop I held in my studio, teaching Acrylic Techniques. I was quite pleased with the finished painting and added some pastel marks as a finishing touch. It reminds me of Mont Ventoux, the mountain in Provence with the distinctive white face - which is not snow, but white stone. 

It's a New Day

A New Day  

8" x 8"  SOLD

I always feel optimistic in the morning. It's the start of a new day and anything can happen. Time seems abundant. 

Carpe Diem!

More Reflections on Water

This is the second abstract painting inspired by reflections on water. I started with a detail from a photo (posted yesterday) I took at a park in Berlin two years ago and then played. As you can see (if comparing) different palette and different brushwork - but the same compositional concern for balance, rhythm, variety and dominance is there.
I quite like this one too and find it visually intriguing the more I look at it - like look at water.

Water Reflection Abstract Two

16" x 16" acrylic in canvas

This is for sale - contact me for price if interested.

Abstracting from Nature - Reflections on Water

Water Reflection Abstract One

16" x 16" acrylic on canvas

SOLD

I am all jumping all over the place these days in terms of what I am painting - including dogs, people, flowers, landscapes and now abstract works. I have never really been a very linear-minded person, so working exclusively in one mode on one subject over a period of time is not, despite good intentions, really me. What I have found is that after some time (months, years) I have a body of work that can be divided into subsets or series that show a similar painting focus and aesthetic interest. I make no apologies as I enjoy the creative freedom to switch and play with new motifs and ways of interpretation. 

Over the last few days I have been working on two paintings - both of which were inspired by the patterns, shapes and colours of reflections in water. My starting point for each was a small detail from a photo that provided the initial composition structure, and after that it was all about colour, shape, line, value, rhythm, balance, and the pleasure of moving paint around. I am really happy with this first one. As I look at it on my wall, I find it quite  visually satisfying. Unfortunately the photo does not do it full justice, as it's difficult to see the layers of colours, and the yellow, while intense, is more buttery than it may appear here - but you get the idea.

Here is the photo from which the detail came - can you find it?

Fauvist Tendencies

Fauve Trees at les Bassacs
24" x 20"  - acrylic on canvas  - SOLD

This painting is based on a photo I took last summer when I stayed at les Bassacs in Provence. At the time I spent one hot afternoon behind the house, in the shade, listening to the buzzing cicadas and painting this view - so I have very happy visceral memories of the time and place.

This is the second painting inspired by this photo reference, and probably not the last. As I was trying to come up with a title for the painting I recalled that Andre Derain, one of the early 20th century fauves, painted red trees. That's how I decided on the title.

Reflections on a Summer Day

Reflections on a Summer Day
diptych - each panel 30" x 10"
acrylic on canvas
This is for sale - contact me for price if interested.

In the middle of winter I always like to look at my photos from the previous summer. This painting, done as a diptych, is based on a detail from a photo I took in Head Lake Park in the Village of Haliburton. Unfortunately it was a dull day with flat light.

What else could I do but play with colour and form. I really like painting and the abstract quality of the shapes of the trees and their reflection in the water - and the expressive colourful palette.