Urban Playground

from here:


to here:


& a few more small changes to here:


acrylic on stitched canvas
16"w x 17.25"h

Finally the acrylic seems to be working for me...

Experimentation

First I learned to paint with acrylic, and used nothing but for ages.
Then a few years ago I decided to learn to use oils, and have used nothing but since.
Now I have decided to try acrylics again, partly because they are less toxic than the alkyd mediums which I love to use... and partly because acrylic dries so much faster than oil!
This could be an especially nice benefit for me, since I love to layer on the glazes, and 20 or 30 layers of oil glazes makes the painting a long time in the making!

Well these are not finished, but already I am feeling pretty ambiguous about the results:



This one is a little more subtle, and may work out yet:



That purple tree has got to go, but the building shapes in the background are showing some potential:



I am forming the conclusion that acrylic just will not give me what I want! However, this is just the first bit of experimentation and perhaps I have a lot to learn and re-discover...

Postcards

I have a friend who is a really great photographer, and many of her photos are undisputed works of art, in my opinion at least!

But (like all us artists) every photo she takes is not a success. A few nights ago we took some of her less-than-successful experiments and cut them up, and then glued them to pieces of card-stock paper to make our own postcards.

Her idea is to use a computer program to digitally "cut and paste" some photos into collages for postcards.... my idea is the hands-on approach with a ruler & carpet knife, glue stick & heavy paper!
She has a lovely open mind and so agreed to try the "hands-on" method with me. (not so sure I would be interested in trying the "mousing" method - oh, my dismally closed mind!)

These are a couple that I came up with:




Next I would like to take them to a print shop and get copies made on card stock paper, have them cut - et voilâ: handmade, original postcards!

Velocity

You know how the city just sort of grows & grows...?
Calgary has no natural boundaries, no mountains or ocean's edge to stop the sprawl, and I have come to see it as very amoeba-like, enveloping whatever lies in the path of its residential psuedopods.

And I got to thinking about the relative speed of various types of changes.

Usually, the word "velocity" is associated with fast speeds: the velocity of a moving vehicle hurtling down the hiway, for example.

But my Webster's Dictionary defines velocity simply as "rate of motion" - no mention of fast or slow motion - and in chemistry velocity refers to "the rate of dissappearance of the reactants or of the appearance of products in a chemical reaction"

The next entry in the Webster's is "velocity of escape *escape velocity"

Hmmmm, interesting.


So, I had an idea:

City meets trees - not clear which is being overtaken by the other...


Here are the canvasses just finished being assembled, pinned to the wall sideways for lack of space:

That's a fourth canvas on the table, just begun.


This is my sewing assembly setup, after the floor has been swept!




And here is the fourth canvas, now finished:

Just visible is the stretcher it will go on, measuring 37 x 58".


This is the cumulative effect of three and a half days' sewing at a slow but steady velocity - whew!

Next I will build stretchers for the first three canvasses - they will measure 32 x 42" each. Then I will stretch them, seal the seams, apply several coats of gesso, and finally begin painting.

Is it really worth all this effort?
Yes.

Rising

oil on stitched canvas
26"h x 28"w

Whatever Leads to Joy

Bought a bag of oranges which came in a mesh bag - was about to throw it out, then thought "hey, wait a minute... this looks a bit like that chain-link fence they put around playgrounds....!" And thus an idea was born.



See that little dark spot on the orange mesh? That's blood. Pricked my finger while sewing the thing.
Yup, there's proof: I bleed for my art.


8-)

btw, "whatever leads to joy" is a line from a poem I heard on the radio a few days ago... not sure title of poem or author, but the line stuck in my head & I hope I'm not breaking any copyright laws by using it for a painting!

A Day in the City

My little chromatic grey paintings which used to be coloured until I went too far and screwed them up...


So I said to hell with it & painted them over, avoiding the colour issue altogether by making them grey.
And then realizing that greys are colours, too - very subtle colours!

atmoshperic

have got to this point now & like the atmospheric nature of these - but still they need some work.
slowly, slowly they emerge...

City For Trees

Now truly finished - just added the fine light lines overall + a bit more red glaze over some areas.


under the incandescent overhead studio lights


under a halogen flood in a narrow place with not room to photograph properly!

It amazes me how the colour changes on this painting under various lights. Blues & purples seem to be more changeable than reds or yellows, generally.

continuing along....

The drying time of oil drives me crazy!

None of the following paintings are finished, but I wanted to post something, because I have been working away and even though it seems that nothing is happening, all these layers do contribute to the finished end product.
I must remind myself of this.
The beginning is always very fast and exciting, and the end is usually fast and a bit surprising - and then there is the long stretch in the middle......



Pattern Recognition
oil on stitched canvas
66 x 66"
this one's getting quite close...



Yesterday Morning in the City
oil on stitched canvas
23"h x 46"w
this one is in a bleah! phase - patience and dilligence required.



Another Sunrise
oil on stitched canvas
29.5"h x 66"w
this one is just beginning to fumble its way out the the bleah.



Rising
oil on stitched canvas
26"h x 28"w
this one is lost, but I have some ideas on how to find it again.... stay tuned.



Lowering
oil on stitched canvas
26"h x 28"w
this one is not outwardly exciting yet - but deep within there is great potential and an idea forms in my mind...


Someone told me once:
"the preparation of the canvas requires time and patience - the painting should be done quickly"

Ha. I wish.
Just because the paintings are abstract does not mean they are thrown off, slapped down onto the canvas without contemplation or struggle...!

But that is my way. Tedious, yes - but in my opinion, worth the labour.

playground

oil on stitched canvas
10.5" square

all together now

today was sewing day in the studio!
I finished stitching this canvas, which will be 46"w x 56"h when stretched:



... and then I made these two:





they will go together like this:



although the idea is that it needn't be a diptych neccessarily - I intend for each painting to work individually, but also together.

the photos are a little hard to see!

stand back

if there is light it will find you

wall street is divided

had posted this some time ago:



it has become the left side of a diptych:


now have got to this point and am liking it, not sure what to "finish"
maybe just let it sit awhlie...

skyline

skyline
oil on stitched canvas
73 x 33"


Now finally I feel it is looking good!
Had been thinking of it as finished, mostly because I wasn't sure where to go with it.
Yesterday made the latest changes.... more contrast, more violet, pulling some colours into the foreground, etc. Very glad I did not ship this one last month because it is definitely stronger now!

This is what it looked like before:


only subtle manipulations, but makes a big difference

industrial dawn

a large version of an earlier painting
this one measures 35 x 35"

...city for the trees

stitched quite awhile ago, and gradually worked on in fits & starts until yesterday it got to here:


not finished yet, but I am liking it at this stage.... thinking I will next add translucent glazes of colour over some areas, then maybe draw back into it.

when I first started making these canvasses I was doing the paint-by-numbers staying within the stitched lines kinda thing - but this approach has been gradually abandoned, and lately I have been entirely ignoring the stitching and just painting freely on top, and liking the effects very much!

I was going to call this one "can't see the city for the trees" but so far it's the other way around - can't really see the "trees" because of all the buildings painted on top...

A Tree For Mother

hey mom check it out, I believe they're very close to being finished!
... perhaps a touch more contrast in the branches?


well, yes, they do look rather more like flowers than trees, but that's ok - mom likes flowers too.

and for the record:
oil on 2 stitched canvasses
40"w x 20"h

"pattern recognition" continued...

from there to here:



difficult to photograph because it is so big!

worked on the lower part & also clear-coated the sky bit with alkyd medium, because the difference in texture of the gel was noticeable under a light - damn!
explanation: the seams are sealed with gel medium before gessoing, and usually I paint with many layers of oil colour glazes, but in this case the sky was done in one layer, and where the sealing was done you can see these kind of ghostly edges & they are not a "happy" accident, in fact they look rather crappy.
The coat of alkyd helped a bit, and I hope several more coats will work even better...


really liking that pale blue bit in the almost-center, it sort of floats on top of the other colours

another new beginning

so far just stitched & stretched
and tonight, instead of sealing & gesso'ing & generally getting in gear with it, here I sit blogging...
ah well, tomorrow!