imagery & imagination

Autumn is coming and I love the quality of the light! So I stand in the street and take photos like this:




And the following are works in progress.

these have some way to go yet:




this one is looking quite good, maybe just needs a few tweaks:




loving the colours here, but not sure where to go with it - it will have to just sit for awhile:

A Clear Stratosphere

no, really, it's finished now...!

oil on stitched canvas
34 x 60"

beep-beep!

only three more to stitch now...

34 x 67"


35 x 62"


26 x 57"


41 x 71"

On The Grid

acrylic on stitched canvas
12 x 12" each

So I'm thinking these are finished.
Liking them hung in the grid formation - like city streets.
The colours are so unusual for me. I do vastly prefer a brighter palette!

Still, however, this has been an interesting excercise: working with photographs and also working with acrylic paint.
I discovered that acrylics work better for me on raw, unprimed canvas. Also learned a few things about depth of space.
Most importantly I learned that trusting in the sponteneity of my imagination is a lot more fun than adhering to a pre-developed image!

constructions

ok, so I'm sticking with it.


First I draw them out like this.
Then I will paint them with watered-down acrylic on the raw canvas.

There are 10 little canvases in total for this series.
:)

in the real world?

I just can't seem to stay excited about painting from the photographs.
It's very limiting.
But my hope is that the excercise will prove worth it in the end.... it's all about vocabulary, right?
:)

construction

These are acrylic on raw canvas, 10 x 10" each

before

after

I have a plan

The plan is to stitch canvases for all 12 of the stretchers I built a couple of weeks ago, before I begin to paint on any of them...
Usually I stitch a few, begin painting, stitch some more, &c. Now I want to try working in a more concentrated way.

57 x 62"


25 x 57"


34 x 67"


only 6 more to go!


and "studio rosie" watches over all...

(o):(o):(o)

from where to here?


all together now

painting on location

at Axis Contemporary Art Gallery in Calgary, AB



working from photographs
acrylic on canvas

progressions

None of this is finished yet.

from here:


to here:


to here:





"in time"
getting closer now



"light traffic"
maybe a few tweaks yet...

Building Canvas Stretchers - part II

First there is the tree. It gets torn up into little bits and re-assembled into a sheet of plywood. The sheet of plywood is then torn up into little bits and re-assembled into, in this case, my stretchers. The logical next step would be for my paintings to be torn up into little bits and made into something else, which would also in time be torn up, and so on...

But now on to the practical aspects of building stretchers.

I always do my cutting in the hallway outside the studio to avoid getting sawdust all over everything. This is particularly important if there are any wet paintings around.

The strips of wood I prepared a few days ago, and the trusty power saw.


Make 45 degree cuts with the higher bevelled edge outside.


Cut gussets for the corners. 1/8" thick doorskin works well - 8" for larger stretchers, 6" for smaller.


Wood and gussets ready to go.


Use a carpenter's square, wood glue and 2" nails.


7-8 nails per corner works well - not too many, but enough to hold it together. The 2" nails are long enough for everything.


Measure from corner to corner. If it measures the same both ways, the stretcher is "square". (Meaning not a lozenge shape - this works for rectangular stretchers too :)
If it is not square, it can be manipulted a bit at this point to make it square. 1/16" off is nothing to worry about; 1/4" off will need adjustment.


Glue and staple or nail the gussets. This will set the corners and help prevent the stretcher from going off square when it is moved around.




Final check: make sure the finished stretcher is not twisted. This is very important for the painting to hang flush to the wall - have you ever seen a painting which has one corner lifting off the wall? Right.

I find the easiest way to check this is to free-stand it on the floor and eye it from above. The top and bottom bars should be parallel.
Free standing is important because if you are holding it, it may bend a little. If it is laying on a table, the surface of the table may not be flat.
If the stretcher is twisted, you can twist it the other way to get it straight. Usually twisting until you hear a slight crack will do the trick, but you will need to eye it again to be sure.


A magical process of deconstruction and reconstruction: 2 sheets of 3/4" plywood become 12 stretcher frames.



Final note: I generally cross-brace the rectangluar stretchers one at a time just before I am ready to use them. I don't know why I don't do this along with the rest of the process, but there it is.

so then I had this idea...

Spent the last few days stitching them up, bit by bit as time allowed. The really dark lines are parts of my old studio sweater cut up into thin strips and stitched on.






They will be 39x39" each. Yesterday I prepared the lengths of wood, and tomorrow another job-free day, so I can finish building the stretchers!