Still Life With Flowers: Harmony in Yellows and Reds

Still Life With Flowers: Harmony in Yellows and Reds

36" x 36"  -  acrylic on canvas

I haven't painted flowers in a long long time, yet I continue to take photos of them and every once in a while I draw them, and then think about painting them.....but don't.  In the past I tended to paint them in a 'contemporary realist' manner, but my current tendency towards simplification and abstraction in landscape, prevailed in this painting as well. 

I cropped the photo to a square format but did not change the arrangement of the flowers in the composition as I thought it was a good one. I drew the flowers  on the canvas with a brush and black acrylic paint and a brush, then began to 'fill in' in the colour, slowly eradicating the outlines and adding expressive marks with pastel. I maintained the actual colour of the flowers, but simplified the background elements and palette there.  I really like the finished work, it's larger than life scale, overall composition, surprise shapes of colour and marks in the background. It presently hangs in my kitchen dining area, on a wall that receives late afternoon sun, and when it falls on the painting, the warm ochre, yellows, reds and pinks, glow. 

Catching Up

It has been awhile indeed. Life has been busy with travel, socializing, visiting and just stuff.  I finally got back to the studio and painting about 2 weeks ago after a 4 week hiatus - and started some new paintings, and tinkered with some old ones too.

Island Retreat  

(formerly called 'Blue Pines')

24" x 24"  -  acrylic on canvas - SOLD

I first posted this painting last September and called it Blue Pines . At the time I felt it was finished but more recently I began to feel that the palette was not quite right, particularly in the foreground rocks. I experimented with the image and colour in photoshop and decided on the changes that you see here - pushing the blues and yellows towards green, adding complementary reds, and giving the rocks more definition - and I was quite happy with how it turned out. 

Summer's End

Summer's End

24" x 18" - acrylic on canvas - SOLD

Summer is winding down as is painting at my cottage. This one is based on a photo I snapped as we canoed around the big island, and interpreted using a palette of saturated complementary colours. I love the ochre yellow sky - it makes me think of goldenrod and the fall colours to come. But weather is still warm, and we still have another week until labour day! I will be in Atlantic Canada, visiting friends and family and of course gathering imagery for future paintings. I hope you enjoy yourself and the final days of August wherever you are.

Northern Escape "Escapism"

Escapism
24" x 30"  -  acrylic on canvas  - SOLD

This painting is based on the same Haliburton landscape image of rocks and trees I have been

fascinated with all summer, and is the third variation on this theme. What  I really wanted to do (and did) in this version was to have a very light and warm palette, and stylize the tree and rock forms. 

And just for fun I started another version, but it is really in its incubation stage and will be there for a few more weeks. 

Moo Cow - Last week's DailyPaintworks Challenge

Moo Cow
16" x 16" - acrylic on canvas - SOLD

It has been a few weeks since my last post, but that is not for want of trying, or painting. During that time there were starts and stops and wipeouts; then some perseverance prevailed, and I finally have something to show for my efforts. I worked on some landscapes and this one - a cow painting. Who doesn't like a cow painting?  Years ago I painted lots of them (and sheep too) but got away from them - however decided to revisit that theme because last week's DailyPaintworks challenge was just that. Good fun. May paint a few more too.  

Northern Escape Abstract

Northern Escape Abstract
30" x 36"  acrylic on canvas  SOLD

This is the second painting based on a small drawing of a typical Haliburton Highlands/Ontario cottage country landscape - and one that I had a lot of fun painting. When I began the painting I wanted to restrict my usual exuberant palette to one that was more muted and neutral, but because I always try to pay attention to what the painting needs as it proceeds, and not to some pre-conceived plan, that idea was abandoned fairly quickly. I thought about adding 'real' texture, but the decided the paint splatters would have to do. I did a lot of drawing back into the painting with soft pastels, which I then fixed with  Spectra Fix  - a wonderful, non-toxic, very safe and easy to use product that anyone who works with pastels or charcoal should try. I am quite happy with this work - it's big and bold - just like what it represents.  Cheers!

Northern Escape - More Rocks and Trees

Northern Escape
16" x 18"  - acrylic on canvas -  SOLD

I seem to be flipping back and forth between painting Provence landscapes and northern Ontario landscapes these days. Perhaps I am feeling nostalgic about my painting experience in France as I love sifting through those photos, but at the same time I am surrounded by the rugged beauty of mixed forests, dark blue lakes, dramatic skies, and rocky shorelines - what we call cottage country in Ontario.

This painting encapsulates the physical nature of this kind of landscape, and I hope the spirit too. My preliminary drawing was a quick one, and more abstract then I intended the painting to be. As I painted this one I kept thinking about the drawing and so I started a second more abstract version, and worked on both of them at the same time. More on that one in my  next post.