Holiday Post!

Here it is.. a holiday post! I figure if I can't get anything posted during the normal year I can at least post something now when I have a little free time so here it is...

I usually don't give paintings as gifts but I painted this painting for a good friend of mine who has also been a great supporter of my work and she really liked it - success!!

Atmospheric Study No. 3
14x14 inches
Mixed Media on Paper

Anyway I've been home in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia the past week spending some time with family and friends. It's been a lot of fun but I am really anticipating getting back up and painting again! In the mean time, I've been drawing with watercolours, graphite and oil pastels to tie me over, and while I have figured out nothing concrete so far, it is on its way. Oil pastels are a new medium for me, and I must say my previous experience was limited to brutal crayon-like concoctions when I was a kid - an experience that had majorly tainted my thoughts on them in the past - but I had faith in the power of artist-quality materials and bought a set of senneliers (assorted landscape set if you really want to know) and as anticipated I love them!

I can't wait to get to Loomis and Toles tomorrow in Halifax and buy from their open stock. Hee!!

Watercolour is another media I don't use much, but I picked up a travel set to use with my pastels while on the road this winter. I have yet to find the same love for watercolour, although granted I bought cotman series windsor and newton which are considered student grade, with presumably less pigment load and more fillers. I still prefer the colour intensity, immediacy and qualities of the acrylic paint that I use, but I'm also impatient. I have a hard time wanting for watercolour to dry so I can build up the next layer of colour in an attempt to build the extreme contrasts that I love in my work. So perhaps I will like them more once I run out of the paints I have now and slowly start subbing better quality paint. Or perhaps I will discover its all just a pipe dream and I'm destined to just not like watercolour. :p

Anyway, I have a camera and should have things to post later.

Until then!

Drawings Inspired by Europa

I have similar tendencies of many other artists I talk to - start millions of projects and never get around to finishing them.

Actually this is only a half-truth for me. I have a pretty good success rate when it comes to starting and finishing things, and I have no problem about sacrificing the things that just aren't working out in favor for a fresh start. I actually prefer to have many many works on my plate at one time; my painting process requires a lot of drying time, and for me to make the most of my studio time, I pretty much need to have many things to occupy my mind and time. I assume this is similar for many prolific oil painters and count my lucky stars that I don't work with that media. The draw of acrylic paint for most artists is the very quick drying time, but I often manage to find a way of prolonging this greatly.

The most productive times for me involve finding a balance between painting time, drawing time and computer time. I don't have internet access at my studio anymore and I guess that time has actually been replaced with other part-time work time anyway, but I've gotten back into doing several hours in the studio until all paintings are wet, then a few hours drawing at a coffee shops afterwords at night (also means I don't sleep as well but maybe I should just do decaf instead! Lucky for my body, the nearest cafe is only open to 9 most nights unlike downtown where everything was open 11 pm or later).

I started getting back into the habit while working on my last illustrator drawing (okay while this is computer work, it actually counts towards the art/drawing side of things in my mind), then started on some miniature drawings of... well I don't know what to call them yet. They are just heavily inspired by drawings I've done in the past of fossils, as well as images in my mind of various planet topography and memories of rock like shale and petrified wood:

1.5x1.5 inches
Graphite on Paper

I finally was motivated to work on these drawings, Drawings Inspired by Europa which I posted way back (Feb '09 oh my..)..How embarrassing! But here they are anyway:

Drawings Inspired by Europa 1,2,3 & 4 (in that order)
6x6 inches
Graphite on Gessoed Paper

These drawings have been clipped to a wall in my studio since I moved in, begging to be referenced in other work. This has yet to happen.

Also..

I have the worst work to photograph! Jesus.....

Never comes out right.

I never use black.

Smaller works on Paper

On top of doing small studies on masonite, I've also been doing some mixed media works on cold press watercolour paper. I have 2 more to finish up and then I'll be taking off over the winter - first back to Nova Scotia to visit my family over the holidays.

Atmospheric Study No. 1

2 parts both 4x30 inches
Mixed Media on Paper

Atmospheric Study No. 2
9x30 inches
Mixed Media on Paper

A Green Surge

I feel like I'm going to post everything all of the sudden, and then have nothing again for a while.. old habits die hard, I suppose.

This one has been kicking around my space for a while. I'm finally leaving it alone.

A Green Surge (Theoretical Spacescape No. 1)
48x72 inches
Acrylic on Canvas

My paintings are becoming less and less literal, and while they are still heavily influenced by the nebulae works, they are also becoming more influenced by my own memories of landscape and
atmosphere. I found myself writing about the recent direction in a statement for a project:

First, I’m most interested in image references that are obtained by means outside of conventional photography and go beyond naked eye observation; telescopes and radiology reveal a world where the images are determined by electromagnetic readings and colour is arbitrarily assigned according to raw data including thermal readings and radio frequencies. Images of stellar objects like nebulae and planets spark my imagination and leave much room for inventiveness.

Secondly, I am compelled to reminisce on images from my past growing up on the Atlantic coast on the ocean. I’m interested in considering how these memories slowly change and become sensationalized as I spend more time away. Recollections become simplified, deteriorating to simple tonal planes as particulars become vague. Specific details forgotten, they are replaced with memories about the ambiance and energy of the landscape.

Both nebulae and water exhibit fluid, unstable characteristics, yet are beautiful and powerful bodies. My paintings reflect this wavering existence, revealing the excitement as well as the anxiety about these unknown realms. They become glimpses of possible alternative realities that may not exist or perhaps exist somewhere.

I think we all hate writing statements, but I lately have been finding them rewarding in that they can be reminders about what we're doing with our work, and put it in context to the rest of our lives. A little meditation and inner reflection on why we do what we do is not necessarily a bad thing, regardless if the path to getting there may be a little painful at first.

I've also gone back to editing this work, but I think I'm done with it now and will put it away with the other:

m42
46X72 inches
Acrylic on Canvas

Number 15

I like how I started this blog in Jan '09 and have a total of 27 posts. What does this say about this entire year. ??

Anyway, it's been a crappy weather day, and with our transit strike I wasn't going anywhere. I finished another drawing in illustrator - I think I'm really getting it now. Aside from indecisiveness in regards to my design, this actually came together pretty quickly with minimum googling.

This developed a lot considering my original drawing was this thing floating some-what to the right of this paragraph because I don't quite understand blogger's formatting.

I ended up editing it a lot first mirroring it and then adding to it, back and forth between illustrator and photoshop. The rest of the pieces come from a variety of sources, but unlike the waves in my last attempt, I didn't go so far as drawing original stuff to throw into the background, and just edited a bunch of random elements together to make it look half decent.And now to fold laundry.

Studies of Spacey Landscapes pt.2

Here are the rest of the studies from yesterday's post.

While some of these, I think, are much better as small studies, a few of these will move on to become larger works. In the end, the long ones will be 48x96 inches, the square ones 60x60 if I get my way and they work out.

6x6 and 6x12 inches
Acrylic on Masonite panel

When I paint, my work doesn't spend its entire time sitting on an easel. They find their way to the floor, upside down, whatever position I need them as I do runs and washes, so working larger proposes a challenge on canvas stretched on bars which usually has some give at the centre. So my solution has been painting on canvas stretched on plywood, which is great but hard to do when you get outside of anything more than 48 inches in width.

60x60 inch plywood can be done, apparently (I called and checked around), but I still might settle for stretched canvas, I haven't quite decided yet. Of course there's cost factors in everything, as well as weight issues moving such large pieces when I'm working by myself. But I have 2 48x96 pieces on the go right now, and it hasn't been too bad so far.