Wild Garden & Escarpment

Wild Garden

24" x 30" - acrylic on canvas - $400

    This painting is about abstracting forms and using a more muted

(for me) palette.  In this painting I wanted to portray a garden-like field by breaking up the foreground area into abstracted shapes reminiscent of plants and behind that - trees, a lake and distant hills. I was really happy with the composition as it developed and eventually the palette and the overall dominant muted green hue. 

I actually started this work in 2017, however, it languished until this week for a number of reasons, both technical/artistic and timing. I have been on a bit of a 'studio cleaning up binge' lately, finishing a number of works in a similar 'almost done' situation and after an hour at the easel resolved some minor issues in this painting. It's done -  yeah! - and I am really happy with it.  

I have to say it looks fabulous next to another painting I did, started and completed two years ago, called Escarpment.

I now realize/see that I never posted it on this blog, so here it is...

Escarpment

30" x 40" - acrylic on canvas -$600

Again I abstracted the vegetation and trees, and used a palette with an overall dominant muted colour - blue-violet.

More finished works to come soon.

Inner Garden

Inner Garden

24" x 24" - acrylic on canvas - $375

This painting was inspired by the photo below, which apparently I took on June 4th 2017, while in France - though the view could certainly be anywhere in Canada, in June! I liked the arrangement of lights and darks in the photo and wanted to paint a really abstracted view of the scene. 

A couple of process shots follow. By the last photo I decided the light/white area at the right had to go, in spite of the photo. So it did, and I finished the painting. I loved working on this painting and the ultimate freedom it allowed me to move away from reality. Can't wait to start another and see what happens!

detail from finished painting

Listen to the Trees

Listen to the Trees

24" x 30" - acrylic on canvas - SOLD

    This painting was inspired by an earlier one in which the individual brush strokes played a major role in the suggestion of form. Painting using this kind of brush work is a process of layering separate strokes of colour, and hoping that something emerges! 

    Two of the process photos are below and give you some idea of the way in which the painting evolved. The final colour scheme was a bit unusual for me (so much green) but what I really like are the 'neutral greys' or the light grey-greens. Unfortunately some of the subtlety and richness of the colours and palette (even the greys) are lost in the photo.   

Going Up

 

Going Up   $125

16" x 12" - mixed media: acrylic and collage papers on canvas 

Another imagined landscape, created through layers of paint and beautiful washi textured collage papers.  I love the rich warm palette in this one and the varied surface texture suggested by the papers that seem to be woven in and out of the paint.  

Tropical Vibe on the South Shore

Tropical Vibe on the South Shore

24" x 36" - acrylic on canvas - $450

Like most painters,  I constantly use a variety of brushes -  small and large ones, square shaped and round ones, all in various sizes. In some recent paintings I have been experimenting with building up layers of colour and form with squarish brush strokes using a 'bright' brush. I like the overall chunky look of these strokes and the way they contribute to abstract quality of the composition. 

This composition is a riff on an earlier one, but using a very different, colourful, high key palette. Lots of intense colour, colour galore in fact!

Lotus Land - another diptych

Lotus Land

Diptych 12" x 24" - acrylic & collage papers on canvas - $125

I think the title and the highly expressive 'candy colour' palette together suggest an imagined place "where people need only think about enjoying themselves, not about work or achieving anything". 

I admit that I did not start out with this title or visual idea. As with the previous diptychs I had no photo or specific place but simply began by drawing horizontal abstract shapes and lines across the two canvases with the highest line becoming the defacto horizon. I then added some beautiful mottled turquoise blue collage paper, and the blue-green-yellow analogous colour palette was then established, to which I eventually added pink. 

The landform shapes and planes resolved themselves slowly, and for a time I worried that there was not enough value contrast, but decided that was fine in view of the varied textural painting surface. There is lots to look at in these two little canvases, and from a distance the colour palette is not one that can be ignored.

Uphill Climb

Uphill Climb

12" x 16" - acrylic and collage on canvas - $100

An abstracted landscape with Asian 'washi' papers.