3 & 21

mixed media on paper
15w x 22h

introducing darks

windscapes

kite festival in Swift Current, Saskatchewan

How do you find a kite festival on the prairie? Look ahead, look up.










in the wind sculpture garden:




in the town of Swift Current:







on the bluffs above the river valley:

going places

Another portrait, more drawing than painting, really.
Not sure if I like it, also the rectangular format is less appealing than square. Perhaps it will grow on me.

No title
oil and china marker on canvas
18w x 14h




In progress work for the November show



This one's coming along too - starting to look a bit messy at this point, which is good!

time and place

The stretchers finally arrived this week!
Stretching 21 canvases, even such small ones as these, is quite a job.

The're so beautiful, all neatly laid out on my table and full of possibility.


And so it begins.

the beat goes on

Urban Spaces series 2, #4
(alley in downtown Calgary)
acrylic on stitched canvas
31w x 33h


Urban Spaces series 2, #3
(Chinatown, Toronto)
acrylic on stitched canvas
31w x 32h


All together now!

Sometimes I like these and sometimes I don't - they keep me guessing. Some sort of evolution is underway.

interpretations

Here again are the paintings I made on Wednesday, with reference photos:


Canmore trailers with misty mountains




Birch trees and mountain





Atmospheric evergreens





Wolf willow, spruce, pine, birch trees

plein air

Tuesday evening I wrote the final test for my accounting class. Wasn't as easy as the mid-term because I hadn't studied as dilligently! But I think it went ok.

A friend and I had made plans to go painting in Canmore on Wednesday...



Undeterred by the weather, our intrepid heroes make a shelter out of tarps and found materials, and begin painting.



Mel is interested in the quirkiness of the trailer park juxtaposed against the mountains, and boldly begins a large work.



This woman has staying power: after 6 hours it is nearly finished.



Verna cannot stay in one place for too long, and after making an initial painting under the rigged tarps she moves along, inventing temporary shelters as her shifting locations demand.



Occasionally the rain lets up, the sun almost shines, and there is no need for umbrellas.



Almost 8 hours from the time they arrived, our tenaciously good-humoured artists are still smiling.





My four small canvases, from left to right in the order they were made:





And the box I devised for transporting wet paintings in the car:

more urban spaces

A nice shift, doing photo-based work again!
These are not finished yet, but getting close - I hope to have them done this week.

30w x 31h


30w x 33h



my pots and jars

you see I want a lot

You see, I want a lot - perhaps I want everything
The darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.

So many live on and want nothing
and are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgements.

But what you love to see are faces that do work and feel thirst.
You love most of all those who need you
as they need a crowbar or a hoe.

You have not grown old, and it is not too late to dive into
your increasing depths, where life calmly gives out its own secret.


Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by Robert Bly

back to the drawing board

The drawing board being, in this case, photo-referenced paintings.

before:


after:

Not yet finished but starting to look all right at this point.



When I visited the Front Gallery in Edmonton in early May, I met one of the gallery artists - Tom Gale - and he gave me a box of canvas scraps.

This piece was in that box. Isn't it lovely? Looks like coffee cup rings among the paint splatters! A residue of Tom's working history. Of course I must photograph it for the record? :)


Here it is stitched into a new canvas. The pity is that I'll be gessoing over those stains... but the history will still be there, imbedded, an invisible part of the finished work.


And here's the photo it's based on.

Another day indeed. The book is not quite as poetic as I had thought it would be, but well-written so far, and I think the scope will widen as the narrative progresses.