#6 red

#6 red


oil on sewn canvas
79 x 122cm
(48 x 31")

This is one of the early sewn canvasses - the 6th, in fact!
Lately I have altered it a bit. I am being less "safe" with them than I was at the beginning, and this lack of restraint is a good thing, I think.
This is what it looked like before:



I'm glad I hadn't varnished this one, because I think it is much improved now!

a day in the city

a day in the city

initial sketch and sewn, stretched canvasses:


39.5 x 39.5cm each, 320 x 39.5cm entire
(15.5 x 15.5" each, 126 x 15.5" entire)

You can see the different types of fabrics used for these: burlap, bouclé suiting, mesh, organza, corduroy and even a few pieces of zipper sewn on top of the canvas. I'm really having fun with these.

They are now gesso'd & I have begun painting - excitement! The zipper gives a particularly nice effect, so far.
I plan to try a similar colour method to the one used in "stack II" (a couple of posts back), though applied in a slightly different way - stay tuned!

rain

rain

oil on 3 canvasses
76 x 76cm each, 240 x 76cm entire
(30 x 30" each, 99 x 30" entire)

from there:




to here:



finally feeling the desire to work on this one again, having some idea now where it's going.... still not finished, but (at least in my own mind) clearer. Feels interesting to work on canvas that is not sewn - it's been awhile!

opaline

opaline

oil on stitched canvas
145 x 86.5cm
(57 x 34")

diffuse light showing colour


direct light showing raised texture







and a couple of close-ups:

industrial dawn

dawning industry


oil on stitched canvas
27 x 27cm
(10.5 x 10.5")

stack II

stack II


oil on 5 stitched canvasses
167 x 28cm each canvas / 167 x 160cm entire
(66 x 11" each / 66 x 63" entire)

I really like the way this one looks now - except for the patchy look of the last glaze on the second-from-bottom canvas. Perhaps it is only a minor detail, however.

A brief look at some of the colour progression...

cadmium yellow light + indian yellow, then raw sienna:



fuschia, then cad yellow middle:



some strange and very ugly colours:



complimentaries over the previous strange colours, then quinacridone red + cad red middle:

now didn't those weird colours make the nicest underpainting for the reds?
:)

(my studio mates thought I'd lost it when I put on those awful greens & blues & purples, but all along there was a plan!)

cranes

cranes


oil on stitched canvas
84 x 46cm
(18 x 33")

first use of mesh stitched on top of the canvas

city distance

city distance


oil on 3 stitched canvasses
59 x 135cm each, 186 x 135cm entire
(23 x 53" each, 78 x 53" entire)

treeline

treeline


oil on 2 stitched canvasses
approx. 33 x 102cm entire
(13 x 40")

... not finished yet, I think, perhaps, maybe...

SUNSET CITY

"When I looked again, the city had divided itself into 151 pieces..."



this is what this painting looks like now
ha - still not finished!
it's been two years in the making, so far
last night I counted them all, and was surprised to find 151 separate pieces of canvas stitched together for this work!
(I had thought 100 pieces was a generous guess)

the tower

more fun with photoshop!

graffiti city

oil on 2 canvasses
105 x 115cm each - total 220 x 115 including space between

not sure if these are finished
could be slap-dash quick, grade-school look
could be simply sophisticated
could be....

Northern Lights

oil on 3 canvasses
total 120 x 51cm including spaces between

Green Rain

My love affair with bright colours continues...

oil on 3 canvasses
44 x 40cm each - total 150 x 40cm including spaces between

The idea here was to sew the canvas minimally to create fields & fence, then create sky effects with paint only. Really like the undiluted vermillion colour on the fence.


the middle canvas - subtle colours more obvious in this photo
(top photo is a bit dark compared to actual paintings)

The Yellow Prairie

A ground view just outside my apt building - you can gauge the cold by how big the plumes of steam are - here about -17C
Brrrrrrrr! But pretty to look at.


I've been thinking of long summer evenings:






Part of the fun of making paintings is that I can create whatever environment I wish in the painting!


oil on 3 canvasses
they're about 50 x 120cm, including spaces between

Fence, field & sky

oil on 2 panels
61 x 97cm
2006

#3 red

oil on canvas
155 x 40.5cm
2006

guess what?
this painting was sold June 2007 - hooray!

Sunset City

oil on canvas
106 x 153cm
2006


this is what it looks like now
(still unfinished)

I covered the entire thing with a really awful yellow because I still didn't like where it was going, after all...

The idea now is to get the lower, foreground bits into some darker blues & purples; keeping the yellows & adding some red glow in the middle bits; and fading into paler green-ish blues in the top sky distance.
A kind of push-and-pull of warm & cool colour.

Rain

oil on 3 canvasses
89 x 89cm each
2006


These 3 canvasses got to this point a few weeks ago & I was not sure where to go from here - then several people at different times saw them and liked them, not thinking them unfinished, as I had been.
So I guess I'll leave them as they are for the time being...

The edges of the canvasses are painted a dark purple similar to the colour I've used to frame them here.

One guy who saw them said this work reminded him of rainy weather in the city - thus the name.

SUNSET CITY

Sunset City
approximately 110 x 150cm

This painting began several months ago. I wanted to take the sewing as far as I could - how large a canvas, how many seams, before stretching the thing becomes impossible?

This one was quite difficult to stretch. So much sewing, the canvas inevitably went a little crooked & wobbly with all the patching of small bits - I think there are at least 50 separate pieces of canvas sewn together here! It is not strethed very tightly; this makes it difficult to paint on without touching the supports behind the canvas, which leaves a mark in the brush-stroke.

I am painting very carefully!



First photo taken after 2 colour layers. Sunset colours, thus the name.

Some of my paintings have names.
Most of those names - titles is the proper term I suppose - are simple descriptions.
Not thought about, just arrived at: a way to distinguish one from another in conversation.

Many of them wind up with numbers instead of names.
Especially those done in series, like the work I did in June for 30dayartist.




This painting had been turned to the wall & ignored for a couple of months, because I didn't know where to go with it. It is the 9th sewn canvas I had made, and I was getting a bit stuck on the sewing lines, doing a paint-in-the-shapes kind of thing with them up until this point. Wanted to get outside those lines, but was afraid of mucking things up.

Ha! Afraid of "ruining" this canvas - badly stretched, difficult to paint on, in general a pain in the neck kind of experiment. Funny.


Then I did 30dayartist, and now I am finally beginning to use what I learned from that experience.
Making all those little paintings in June had been a worthwhile excercise in that I tried various approaches to painting on canvasses that already had a composition sewn into them.
Because those canvasses were small, I was able to experiment a little more: if one is ruined, it's not so big a loss!




Second photo, taken just a few days ago.


I hauled it out of hiding & stopped worrying about what might happen & just began painting.

It's not finished yet - maybe not by a long shot! - but I am liking the progression so far.








detail - just look at all those little bits of canvas pieced together!

Am I crazy or what?