Salamanca Old Cathedral, Spain

At this point in the Spain trip I my confidence was such that I was not afraid to take on a scene with a lot of detail. This was perhaps one of the most elaborate cathedrals I had encountered, with the sun pouring down on its reflective dome, the rich shadows and intricate detailing on the spires, and the beautiful, open square in front of the cathedral, laid with interlocking brick and ornate lamp posts. Somehow all that is captured on a small painting in about an hour or so, just missing the crowds of people that were actually there taking pictures and asking me if I was Spanish or not (I was wearing plaid and a baseball cap at the time...). To paint this work I sat in the sun. It is important to have real sunlight on the paper in order to accurately judge the colours and values you are applying to the work. If you sit in shadow the colours end up looking washed out and the values kind of monotone. In Spain it was so hot that sometimes I had to sit in the shade anyways, counting on the strong light to come through. Notice that in the shadowed face of the cathedral, there are several details (windows etc.) that are done with simple , dark brushwork. Keeping it simple is important for a small painting like this, to keep it fresh and easy to look at. 

Salamanca Old Cathedral, watercolour, 5 x 7" cold press, June 1998 (No. 0955)

San Sebastian (Donostia) Beach House

On the train to San Sebastian I asked the train man if I was headed in the right direction and he corrected me saying that I was in fact heading to Donostia. Confused I sat on the train and waited, and finally arrived in the right place. It turned out that the name Donostia is the Basque version of San Sebastian, the Basque being a distinct cultural entity in Northern Spain. At any rate, it is a beautiful place to visit, and I spent two weeks there on the beach and enjoying the good company and great painting. This painting was done on the beach, facing up towards the town. The typical white-painted lamp posts and red-tiled roofs are seen in the picture, and of course some garbage bins in the middle ground. I often like to paint garbage cans and especially orange pilons, alas there were no pilons on the beach that day. The white lamp post is actually just the white paper showing through. To create the shape of the lamp post I have to paint around it with the background elements (the house, the bushes, the sky, etc.). It takes a bit of practice to paint around an object, you need to imagine the negative space before you start the painting. In the case of the park bench you see in the middle ground, I leave a rectangle of white, and overlay a few narrow strips of green that match the colour of the bushes, thus creating the illusion of white-boards with space between them. The clouds were painted in the same way...by putting blue paint around a negative space, just had to keep the spot wet to have the fuzzy edges. 

 San Sebastian, Ondarreta Beach Lamp, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, May 1998 (No. 0847)

Meet Me Tonight

In a few cases people have asked me about certain elements in my paintings. For example, with "in Touch" there is an abstract form in the bottom left that does not physically connect with the main subjects (the floating heads). In 'Meet me tonight' there is also a disjointed random object in the bottom right portion of the painting that does not seem to connect with the rest of the painting. The reason such things exist is that these painting started as just a blank piece of paper, and I did not have any notion of what to paint. I start (usually in a corner where it does not matter) with random doodles until some kind of idea forms in my head (and on the page). You may notice that nearly every painting I do has a white border around it. I used to paint right to the edge of the paper, but the people who frame the work complained that the mat would never fit properly. So I started leaving more space around the painting, and found that the edge of the painting could actually contribute to the overall composition. In this painting, notice that the edge of the sky is more loose and flows out almost off the paper, while the ground is a straight line. In this way, the elements gain some energy from their edges....the sky is more free and open while the ground is more solid and closed. 

 Meet Me Tonight, watercolour 22 x 15" cold press, 2006 (No. 1764)

University of Western, Snowy Stadium Scoreboard, London, Ontario

This painting was done years ago on the campus of the University of Western Ontario in London Ontario, Canada. It was the middle of winter and yes, I went out and painted on location, the snow was two feet deep (half a meter), I remember scraping the snow off the bleachers to get a place to sit. The thing that attracted me to this scene was the clear white snow in the foreground, the geometric patterns of the scoreboard and roof-lines, and the flowing trees in the background. You can also see the top of Middlesex College, a motif found in many of the London paintings. Painting on location you will see more colour than a camera (even digital) will pick up, especially in the shadows. In this painting, the shadow being cast by the scoreboard is filled with blue light from the sky. Since the material underneath the shadow is white, you are seeing the 'pure' effect from the blue sky. When such a shadow is cast on a coloured surface (green grass for ex.), there is still the same amount of blue, it is just masked by the underlying colours. Your eye will become trained to pick up these subtle hues in the shadows, and also, having an understanding of the concept of reflected light will allow you to make more realistic shadows in abstract work as well, where there is no nature to guide you. 

 Snowy Stadium Scoreboard, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, winter 1997 (No. 0460)

Gray Zone

Often in the pages of my lab books there are one or two doodles that make good paintings. The first doodle I turned into a painting was "Master of the Margin" done some time between 1998-2000, the original was sold out of the gallery in London Ontario. This image was also used in the recent painting Lab Book #10, Apple eye, violet sky....it appears in the upper right portion of that painting. Here the mermaid character is featured in the center of the image, the symmetry broken by the curving background and curvacious figure of the mermaid. As the name implies this painting is based on shades of gray. I actually just poured water on my palette and mixed up a bunch of colours randomly until a grey mud came out. I then deposited the mus onto the paper and before it dried, I dropped in bright, pure colours to create the greens in the grass(and blue shadow by the mermaid), the highlights on the horizon, and the graded-yellows in the swooping cloud/ceiling. The pinks you see in the cloud/ceiling were then applied after everything dried by applying a thin layer of rose madder. The blue/red/black combination around the mermaids head is the darkest and brightest part of the work, drawing your eyes to that particular area.

Gray Zone, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, fall 2008 (No. 1436)

Lab Book #10: Apple Eye, Violet Sky

This is the sixth painting in the Lab Book Series, entitled Apple Eye, Violet Sky; Lab Book #10. The naming very confusing of course, as there is no actual Lab Book 1-3. I am planning on doing Lab Books 1-3 in the future, when the special-effects technology gets better (sorry, bad 'Star-Wars' inside joke-they made the last three first, and the first three last). In Lab Book #10, an apple was created out of many doodles that were grouped together. After grouping the doodles for the apple, they were glazed with a purple-blue colour, followed by a layer of warm red tones. In one section of the apple there was no blue-underpainting, so the red really stands out. Also, the label on the apple was left as white space until it was finally painted. Finally, I applied darker reds and blues for the shadows in the apple, which bring out the individual doodles. 

Lab Book #10 (Apple Eye, Violet Sky), watercolour 22 x 15" cold press, summer 2008 (No. 1963)

Orange and Olive Fall Reflections, London, Ontario

This is another fall-colour scene, done in London Ontario. At the top you see the riverbank with the bottom of the trees and the rocks at the edge of the water, and below, the majority of the painting depicts the murky waters reflecting the reds and yellows of the trees. As in the last blog entry, this painting is a good example of juxtaposition of colours to achieve the illusion of brightness. The reds and yellows in the water are actually quite brown, if you saw them on a white background they would be dark and not colourful. However, the surrounding brown-green of the murky river water is darker, and is also a neutralized version of the same red and yellow. As a result, the actual red and yellow are made to look brighter and lighter. This is how to create realistic looking bright colours. 

 Orange and Olive Fall Reflections, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 2004 (No. 0684)

Fall Car, Bolton, Ontario (updated scan)

As fall approaches I though I would post a few fall paintings from the archives. This painting was done just north of Bolton Ontario where I grew up for a time and my parents still live. The backroads, mostly gravel still, criss-cross farm country-vast valleys of crops and pasture, and rolling hills in the distance. In the fall the trees are afire with red orange and yellows. This car was for sale, it was in mint condition. I liked the way the light blue paint-job contrasted the orange trees. In the fall, an original painting can be much better that a camera for capturing colours. A camera does not pick up all of the subtle colours and contrasts that you can see with the naked eye. Actually painting fall colours is always tricky. The temptation is to use bright red and yellow directly from the tube, but this leaves the impression of a false-colour. The best way to go is to use a red with touches of green and blue in it, make the red kind of earthy, an then place it next to a green or brown. In this way the red becomes bright by comparison. 

Powder Blue Car, watercolour 5x7" cold press, 1999 (No. 0360)