Chelsey's Hair

My recent painting “Chelsey’s Hair” is included in the Shape and Form 2024 online exhibition of the Federation of Canadian Artists, available for viewing here. I feel like it’s an excellent example of how shape and form combine with verve and paint to preserve a very human moment.

Great Rabbits Think Alike

Sometimes paintings just happen, that you never could have planned! This one evolved from two quite separate poses that nonetheless had something in common… a rabbit essence? I intended to let the figures speak for themselves, but in the end those dratted rabbits snuck right in!

In Perpetuum, detail

Here is a detail from a large multi-component work that references eternity. These hands could also stand alone, however, on their little 8 x6 inch panel. Enjoy!

Just Wait Here

As a preview of the grand series I’m working on, on the theme of waiting, here is the final in a line-up of six patiently (or not so) waiting women having been instructed to Just Wait Here. As the work evolved, the sterile setting I had first envisaged morphed into a richly patterned landscape, where each of the waiting women is enfolded in a colourful world of her own construction. The paintings are each 20 by 16 inches, and I am now enraptured with painting wallpaper. A new career may await…

The Shape of the Farm

So here’s something different… long ago and far away, from a photograph I took of farm buildings in Burgundy. It was the shape of the farm that caught my eye. and the way the warm light spanned the stone buildings.

To Seed

I know it’s a little early to be thinking about dandelions, at least where I live… But from here, any floating hint of summer is to be snatched at, and appreciated.

Towards the Light

Turning towards the light, anticipating where it will arise, recognizing its sources, looking also with the internal eye.

Ripples in Time

One of the things I appreciate about my ongoing involvement with the Federation of Canadian artists is being inspired by the themes of their upcoming exhibits to create work I might not otherwise have considered. Such was the case with the painting in this post, “Ripples in Time,” which was a response to the theme of the Federation’s “Water” show scheduled for later this fall. I was particularly interested to see if I could use the same sort of flowing, semi-transparent paint application I like to use in backgrounds, to represent the shallow shoreline ripples. The title was prompted by those ripples as well as the painting’s retrospective view of a long-since holiday.

Harvest Moon

As the gardening year drags on, amid the heat and mosquitos, it can be hard to stay enthusiastic…

Perspective

Here is a bit of a different painting. From time to time I revisit imagery I have tackled before, in this case in watercolour. I was intrigued to see how those beautiful light areas could be handled in oil. Coupled with the challenge of painting the two heads from such odd angles and having them still read well. I love paintings that couple two people, and this pairing is a beauty!

The Children

I feel like this is “almost a likeness” of each of these two children, but something feels true about the painting nonetheless.

Beware of Shark

The subject specifies that he himself is not a shark, he’s just letting people know.

So, thank you for that.

To Be There, Alone, to Be There

This week, as a contradiction to the seriously sub-zero weather, I painted a sunny dry hillside in Spain. What captivated me at the time, and what I sought to replicate here, was the “all over-ness” of the pattern of pines, shadows, rocks … endless variations on a theme. As my title suggests, a person could get lost, in this non-directional sense of nowhere but here.

Yesterday's Sunshine

Breaking a snowshoe trail up to my studio after our first big dump of the winter, it was a pleasant surprise to be greeted by my little oil sketch from yesterday’s outing, full of warmth and light. Yesterday’s sunshine indeed.

In the Meantime, It Snowed

I keep a list inside the door of my studio, of things not to forget when heading out plein air painting. Believe me, I’ve forgotten most of them at one point or another. Some things there’s an easy workaround for, others not. On one occasion earlier this fall it was white paint I had left behind, and I dealt with the oversight by using the white of the panel for the light areas in my sketch and keeping my colours bright and transparent. The approach certainly worked but it was a little, well, sketchy. So this week I headed back to the same spot with a full range of paints — and everything else I was supposed to remember, including a hot water bottle because since my previous visit things had cooled off considerably. In fact, it had snowed. I painted another layer on my previous effort, taking care to let some of the bright colours underneath continue to have a voice.

Snapshot

Against the light, on a balcony outside a museum in Florence, a young woman seeks to capture the moment and is herself captured. Painting “Snapshot” involved an exploration of balance. The ten inch square surface captures the intersection of the very dark and the very light, a human figure and constructed geometries. In painting it, I tried to keep a balance between, on the one hand, the serious study of light effects and composition, and on the other hand a lightness and economy of touch.