Another Thursday

Picture this, you're walking down a boardwalk, say in Vancouver, and suddenly an Orca jumps out of the water. Just another Thursday? On top of that the water, beach and sky is a kaleidoscope of colours and shapes. Maybe it's just another Thursday for the Beatles... by the way, the date in the top right is not the date the painting was done, but the date of the doodle I used for that section. It says 7 10 11 which is October 11 2007, I use this order of year month day to keep my laboratory records consistent. In retrospect I found out that Japanese also use year month day.

Reflecting on this style which I coined doodleism, I often think it is inspired by Salvador Dali. Dali created dream like landscape and populated them with abstract objects and characters. For Dali, the landscape was the cake, and abstract forms was the icing on top. My style is a bit different in it's conception... I use a bunch of abstract shapes and characters to create the landscape. That would be kind of like making a whole caking out of icing, and then putting some cake filling on top. I do not remember when exactly I painted this, but the date of the doodles on it, late 2007, suggets that I would have done it some time in 2008.

11x15" cold press, 2008

Opéra de Paris Garnier, Paris, France

Paris has a number of amazing landmarks, this one is the Opera building on the right bank near the big shopping centers (printemps and la fayette). The front view has tons of statues and gilded angels on the roof with all these romanesque pillars and detailing. I took on a less demanding viewpoint, this is looking at the side of the building, focusing on just one of the gold statues. What grabbed my attention was how this sparkiling gold statue stood out against the grey overcast weather.

Painting a gold effect is rather challenging...a lot of it has to do with the surroundings. I started by painting the sky, being careful that the shape of the statue was preserved. At this point the statue was just blank paper surrounded by the sky. Of note, I did not make an outline for the statue, because it would have lessened the sparkling effect. Technically this is called a negative shape, because you are painting the space around an object before the object is even there, it takes a bit of practice. Then I needed to let the sky dry, so I worked on the other elements, the brick, the eagle on the pillar, and the background building. When the sky was mostly dry I started building up the staue with thin layers of nearly pure yellow, followed by layers of amber, and finally some darker browns for shadow. I used each layer to try and make the shapes and contours of the statue, the goal was to have something with volume, but that also sparkled. In several spots the white paper shines through. By placing a golden object against a grey background, the gold really pops out and looks real.

7.5x11" cold press, Jan 2012

Ga Ga Science Fair

This painting was based on drawing I made during a science conference, many of the presentations focused on transgenic mouse experiments, where the mice have been engineered to express special genes, or have certain genes "knocked out" (deleted). These kind of studies are very important and are supposed to teach us a lot about how humans work. The impression I had was when watching some of the presentations was that the experiments were quite 'flashy' but did not teach us very much, kind of like a movie that has a lot of special effects but not too much in the way of plot (Avatar?). To extend the analogy further, I likened the situation to a certain pop star (lady gaga) who seems to rely mostly on style and presentation rather than vocals and tunes. It's like they try to distract you with a lot of glitz and glam to cover the lack of content. It's a harsh commentary to draw this comparison to scientists. If you study the work you will see that many of the elements support the above-mentioned theme.

How do you grow as an artist? I suppose it doesn't matter as long as you do grow. I have gone through several phases, always trying to push technical and inspirational boundaries to the maximum. I feel like the doodle style is quite well advanced, it is actually somewhat 'easy' for me to produce such a painting by now, which means that I have to keep pushing until I don't feel comfortable anymore. The next frontier I want to push is that of the narrative. In other words, to tell a story with the art.

22x15" cold press. Dec 2011/Jan 2012

Place Furstenberg, Paris, France

Another from Paris, the rain had mostly stopped by now but the sun was rapidly going down. I just caught it as the tops of the buldings were illuminated by the dying light. Hockney made a famous montage of paintings in the same square (Place Furstenberg which is actually more of a circle), I was sitting in about the same spot as he must have, but off to the left a bit... I cut out the central trees for simplicity. There is also the Delacroix museum, it is just off to the left of this scene... indeed a lot of historical and artistic value in this place, it certainly has a lot of 'energy' the first time we stumbled into the area we knew it was a cool place but were unaware of it's significance. You can find it in the St-Germain des Pres area.

I don't often use a purple-yellow colour scheme. These two colours are naturally complentary, so they kind of feel like they belong together. You see the pairing in many easter-themed work. In nature it is a bit rare. I unintentionally stumbled into the colour scheme here, maybe it was instinct. To see it, look at the window on the bottom right, it is being lit from inside from an artifical lighting,  quite yellow, while the road is a deep purple. The buildings are all yellow tones while the sky is a lilica purple.

11x7.5" cold press watercolour, Jan 2012.

Pont Neuf, Rive Gauche, Paris, France

On a recent trip to Paris I had the opportunity to paint in the rain. Actually I found a clever place to sit under a causeway, just at the end of Pont Neuf (the ninth bridge) on Rive Gauche (the left bank). In the distance you can see the famous luxury department store that closed recently called La Samaritaine, while on the right you see some of the classic Parisian condominiums that are bordering right on the river Seine. In the foreground you see a lamp post. It is not very exciting, yet the lamp post was kind of what inspired me to do the painting, it just had that sort of rainy-day feeling that defined the experience. I threw in the flag after the fact to add a splash of colour.

I used to use exclusively Windsor Newton paints, not because of any loyalty to great Britain where they are manufactured, but because that is what mt mom bought me all those years ago when she was helping launch my hobby. Sennelier is a brand sold in France out of the famous Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and a few little outlets, including one that was literally just down the street from where I did this painting. In fact, we bought a bunch of Sennelier paints on sale for 40% off, they were like 3 euro (~5$)  per tube! The same thing in Canada is more like 15-20$. In the painting I used many of the new pigments, which were fantastic. Especially the French Vermilion (apt for the occasion), which I used in the flag.

Watercolour, 11x7.5", Jan 2012