Dance Party

Dance Party

20" x 20" - acrylic on canvas - $400

Once this landscape began to take shape and I found the 'right' palette of colours - pinks, oranges, yellows and dark blue for oomph - the composition came alive with the rhythmic arrangement of brush marks (using my square tip flat paint brush). I love the finished painting and it just looks and feels like a dance party to me. 

Below are a couple of details. Enjoy!

detail

detail

Summer Haze

Summer Haze

9" x 11" - acrylic on heavy wc paper - $45
Another of the quick painting series. All of these subjects are ones I have wanted to paint, and it has been great to 'try them out' on paper before committing to canvas and a larger scale.  
Cheers!

Small paintings continued.....Key West

Key West

8" x 10" - acrylic on canvas - SOLD

I had such fun painting the previous small non-objective (i.e. no discernible subject matter intended) paintings I thought that I would try to keep that groove going.

Always one to push myself, I decided to work on 3 canvases arranged as a triptych, drawing the first lines and shapes over all to connect them, and then began to paint that way too. At stage 1 I loved them....

1

However, I quickly realized that I had created an abstract aerial-styled landscape and then I began to see all sorts of (stylized and abstracted symbolic) objects, which then began to interfere with painting in a more intuitive way. As more paint went on, I felt more restricted by the subject and my initial excitement disappeared. Ho hum

2

3

By stage 3, I only liked the far right panel and put the others aside. This one I called 'Key West' because that's what it makes me think of. More abstract than non-objective, but that's ok. It might be my favourite so far. Really love the arrangement of elements (colour, texture, shape and line) in this one and I hope you do too.  Have a good one!

Nova Scotia South Shore

Nova Scotia South Shore

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

Trees, water, shoreline are the quintessential Canadian landscape elements that continue to inspire painters, myself included. This work is based on a detail from a photo I took last summer while driving along the South Shore of Nova Scotia. I was in the province visiting good friends and family and enjoying the sights of Canada's Ocean Playground. It's always a challenge to work from a photo reference as they never provide as much clear detail as you can see when in front of the scene. But that also allows for a level of freedom to create, and I guess that's what I like. 

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Another Theme - Another Variation - Provence Meadow II

                                            3                                              1                                                 2

In May I was plein-air painting here (1) and back in the studio later that day, I painted 2 and 3 based on this particular scene. What had intrigued me about the location was the dappled light through the trees, and the light and dark value pattern on the ground leading back to the dark tree verticals with the light behind. It was a view full of artistic possibilities, and I knew that I would return to it as a subject for further exploration.
After working on several larger canvases this fall I decided to try a larger interpretation of the scene. I began by drawing lines denoting tree shapes and areas to suggest shade and foreground on the white canvas with the intense pencil crayons, then applied water with a brush to soften and obliterate the lines and created a watery effect.  Then I a started to add some acrylic and basically kept painting.

              

As I painted and at the end added more intense pencil lines where I wanted some graphic emphasis - which you may be able to see in the details below.

The finished painting looks like this - and I was pretty happy with it - having achieved a painterly, abstract, loose version of the field. And I love the colour too.

Provence Meadow II

40" x 30"  acrylic on canvas