Details, Aug 2018

Painting, detail

acrylic and ink on 140lb w/c paper

22 x 30"

Tree, detail

(unreachable crabapples)

approx 25' tall

Studio table, detail

mixed media on plywood

32 x 96"

Plant, detail

view from studio window

approx 8' tall

Painting, detail

oil on canvas

approx 24 x 60"

House, detail

view from studio door

approx 10pm

Palette, detail

fluid acrylic in plastic egg carton

4 x 6"

Newsletter July 2018

The circular imagery that I've been working with over the last few years has reached an interesting stage of development recently.  "Reached" is not quite the right word, because my paintings continue to evolve... I'm feeling so excited by my studio work lately, and this is an excellent place to be, creatively speaking.

Because some of my new paintings will be in exhibitions in the coming months, I've made another newsletter.  
You can find it here.

Womens' Art Exhbition, a collaboration of Front, Bugera Matheson and Scott Galleries in Edmonton, AB.  A few of my new Augury Sketches will be included. 

My newsletter also contains some info on the Brooklyn Art Library's "Sketchbook Project", which I am participating in.  I am so pleased to finally be doing this, after thinking about it for a couple of years at least.  Isn't that so often the way? 

Until next time, dear Reader.

snippets

today - reworking older stuff

yesterday - five seasons, dancing

last week - framing

last winter - the kiss

couple of years ago - re-learning how to paint

Five seasons, dancing

Wound up with a lot of panels of identical size, some months ago.

Breaking them out this week.

drawing: acrylic mediums on hardboard

seal the drawing, then gesso

couple of lengths of 1x2 under the table

keep small stuff off the floor

don't know much about them yet but there they are

---------------------

Below: what I looked at during my lunch break

happy day

Alberta Landscape 2018-5

Three friends painting at Sibbald Creek.  Look at that lovely vista!

I did not like the lovely vista.  I painted something more simple.

But I think my painting is not boring.

1. sketch

2. midway

3. Completed

...

All our paintings together:

left: Frances Vettergreen, mixed media on paper
centre: my painting, oil on panel
right: Russel Mang, watercolour on paper

When we had done painting, we had a picnic supper of bread and olives and two kinds of hummus and cheese and meats and cut veggies and grapes and probably some other things as well which I have forgotten. 

Before we painted, we went walking in the woods and around a little lake.  There were many wildflowers.

It was a really terrific day with good friends.

portraits of RM

Portraits of RM, made in the summer of 2015.  About five weeks ago we received news of his death.

Making portraits is very interesting to me.  Often in the finished work I find I have caught something of my sitter's personality that has not been apparent to my conscious mind.

One thing I like to do when looking at portraits (drawings, paintings or photographs) is to cover first one half and then the other, looking at each side separately.  I find there are usually two personalities contained in every face.  Of course there are many more than two sides to a person, but it seems at least two are evident in almost every portrait.  Maybe two sides of the artist as much as of the sitter.

print this

Above: Drawing with acrylic molding paste on 3  pieces of leftover MDF.  Maybe I'll try making a print off them all together like this.

Below: Two paintings from 2015, reworked last week.  I think for the better :)

BREATHE - 65x34 in.

PULSE - 65x35 in.

The last 4-5 weeks have contained several friend & family's health & life upheavals, an intense spate of teaching work, me getting laryngitis - and my studio was sidelined a bit in the midst of it all.

So it felt really good to get in there and tidy things up, take stock, let my mind wander through some possibilities.  Even small pockets of creative time can bring some soothing calm into life.

Branch Out 2

A few weeks ago I met with a neuroscience student at the UofC, as part of my involvement with the Branch Out Foundation's "Your Brain on Art" event.

This is the painting which I have put into the exhibition and online auction.  All artwork will also be exhibited at cSPACE King Edward this month, May 16-17, should you wish to see it in person.

I very rarely put my work into fundraisers, but when I do, here's my standard deal: 

There is a minimum bid price - so that my work does not sell for pennies, thus lowering the perceived value of the visual arts (which can be a problem in this country).

I get 50% of the sale - same as if my work sells through one of my galleries, so that I am paid for my work as everyone, including artists, should be (but sometimes are not).

If you've ever wanted to own one of my small abstract works, now would be a good time to bid on this one.

Here's the link

Thank you in advance for your support of art and brain science!  :)

turn around

Feeling less than great about this painting.  With every added layer it decreases in visual flexibility.  Too much control on the part of the artist, methinks; I just can't seem to lose it.

All right then, if that's the way it's going to be, let's apply some serious control.  Haul out the pencils and rulers!  Erasers, even!  (gasp)

... and charcoal and conte and a bit of oil medium ...

Well that turned out to be a pretty good response to the situation.  Once this layer is dry, I will add some subtle oil glazes.

I have been wanting to make paintings that have a similar feeling to the Tension : No Tension installation I created at the turn of the year, but was not sure how to translate the 3D into 2D.  Now I have a starting point.  Feeling excited about my work again, curious where these will go.

And, of course, when I get tired of exercising this level of control, I have those unfinished big loose paintings to turn to.  A beautiful balance, n'est-ce pas?

working on it

Sometimes painting is easy, other times it is difficult.  

A year ago I began a new series of paintings.  The first stages involved layering several blind colour sketches on each of about a dozen stretched canvases.  I'd been making blind drawings in a sketchbook and had decided to try translating the technique on a larger scale.

Here is one of the "beginnings"

it languished for some months

but then I worked on it again

and now it looks like this.

I am not sure whether it is now a better painting; it is certainly a different painting than it was.  Sometimes after I work over a painting I feel a sort of nostalgia for its youth, so to speak, but it is never possible to go back.

I also worked on this painting a tiny bit

whose orientation is still unclear

and I'm calling it finished for now.

Please feel free to use your imagination to see various tonalities of reds & oranges... which my camera unfortunately does not differentiate between very well!  :)

sometimes you have to be ruthless

Sometimes you just have to be ruthless in order to get to the good stuff.

first incarnation

wiped, begin again

finally, the good stuff

I really like like the way this portrait turned out, despite some anatomical imperfections.  Very glad I wiped it halfway through.

To my amazement, the whole endeavour took only 1h 15m.  I get that my drawings are done very fast, usually about 20-30 minutes in my 9x12 sketchbook with watermedia...  but this was an oil portrait, and the first I'd done in a very long time.

Must've been an exceptionally good model.

:)

portraits and portraits

Today I spent the day in Black Diamond, AB, hanging out at Bluerock Gallery and exploring various parts of the town and environs.  During my travels I made some portraits.  

Here they are, more-or-less in the order they appeared:

And in the newest sketchbook, 300gsm toned grey paper which was very smooth and did not take the watermedia too easily but nevertheless was enjoyable to work in:

It was nice to get out of the city for the day.