The Round Trip

The Round Trip is a departure from what I usually paint, again, I forget exactly when it was painted but 2005-2006 sounds about right, I know the charcter in the top left was inspired by a minature painting that I entered into a competition back in London Ontario. When I posted "Ga Ga Science Fair" in Febuary of 2012, I talked about wanting to improve the narrative of my work, and in retrospect that hope did not really develop in 2012...  but seeing this painting reminds me that narrative is something I was interested in awhile back, in this work an almost comic book or graphic novel approach was taken with action panels.

In case you can't read it (click to zoom) it says starting from top left going across: 1. "I saw her inspiration yesterday" 2. "But, where was she going?" 3. "She was not alone anymore." 4. "Escape!" 5. "Nothing to fear." 6. "A journey across the river to a car, she presses on fearlessly, rewarded and confident, making no assumptions or judgements, we are stronger now."

To be honest I have no clue what it all means, no wait... I know what it means but I'm not going to tell you ;) . I did use an Alfred Hitchcock-inspired camera angle on panel 3 on purpose to give the sense of the wolfs chasing the car. Hopefully I can figure out how to make this technique work, and still produce a viable piece of artwork in the traditional sense, since my goal right now isn't to produce obtuse comicbooks.

7x11" cold press... 2005-2006?

CN Building, London, Ontario

Way back in the old days I painted this one, probably mid-nineties. This was the old CN building where the train stopped in London Ontario (not to be confused with London England), it was since destroyed and replaced with a more modern looking building with a red roof. The temperture on this day was extremely cold and the windchill was brutal. I rememberhow cold it was, and you can see in the painting at several locations where the paint actually froze.
In the foreground you see the train tracks, suggesting that I was sitting somewhere inside the railyard. I did have a penchant for sitting where I shouldn't in order to capture the correct angle.

At the time I had a lot of courage and would quite often paint outdoors in the winter, the trick was to put salt in the water and a little bit of vodka in the belly. Despite salt the paint would still freeze, and so would your brushes, and the paint on the pallette too. The other issue is that the paint dries pretty slow which is super annoying when you are freezing your arse off. So in this painting the most layering I did was on the shadow on the right side of the building... it is two layers. The more layers you do the more time it takes, so in the winter (or in the summer when it is humid) you want to keep it simple!

5x7" cold press, 1996 (No. 713)

Space Noodles

Abstract painting has always interested me, the first real abstract I did was one called "Science v. Art" in 1995. After that I concentrated on landscapes for the most part, it was not until 2000 when I literally woke up on January 1 and said to myself that this would be the decade of abstract. So it is 2013 now and no looking back! In this painting I worked hard on the overall craftsmanship of the work, making sure that each part received the necessary attention to detail and finish. As for the inspiration behind it, this is a composite of about three doodles I made in my notebooks last year or so. The theme relates to mankind and what defines a person... or something like that.

The green creature in the middle was created with many layers of paint, maybe a dozen. Usually I do not use such complex layering, but the goal was to have a very realistic depiction of a textured reptile like skin. To begin there was a blue wash, followed by several light green, and finally orange washes. The orange was to give the sense of reflected light. Then I applied dry-brush washes to give a roughness to it all, like it was a dimpled scaly surface. Creating a realistic image is challenging, but it does give the viewer a sense of craftsmanship, and enhances the believability factor. I was inspired to do this after viewing some of my older paintings during Christmas (which hang in my parents house), I had gone through a photo-realism phase where the final work, mainly landscapes, looked like photo. I'll try to get these strange abstracts looking like a photo... that would look cool.

11x15 cold press. 2013

Fruit and Veggie Store, Left bank Paris, France

This small study was done on location in the left bank area of Paris along a very busy street famous for it's cafes and bakeries. On the corner there is this fruit and vegetable store depicted in the painting, I was inspired by the contrast between the bright colours of the produce and the typical pastel tones of the Parisian buildings. It was dusk by the time I finished the painting, making it very hard to judge the colours.

This painting although small, was quite difficult because of the time of day... when the sun goes down the paint dries very slowly. I chose to start with a layer of blue over the entire painting except for the areas where the fruit was going to be, I left that blank white paper. It took a long time for the blue to dry, when it did I put on the brick colour... a sort of rusty green-orange. It had to be correct the first time, because it is difficult to get a third layer when the conditions are like this. Layering in watercolour is very useful... it takes time but adds a lot of rich tones and luminosity... even the bricks of a building can be made to look beautiful with layering. The formal word for that is 'glazing'.

5x7" cold press, 2012

Untitled (Ice Palace?)

This is a surrealist-style painting I did awhile back, I forgot when exactly, but judging by the style and technique it was done around the same time as "Creative But Can't Escape"... I can tell by the fluffy snow on the trees, and the coloured light reflection in the brick wall... they are things I was working on back then, approximately 2007 ...but I feel this one may have been a bit earlier than that. It is not a doodle-based panting, where I use doodles for the idea and design, rather it was directly from my imagination. I would have sat down at a completely blank paper and started painting with no idea in mind... a sort of 'free association' or 'stream of conciousness' technique that sometimes works well (but with mixed results). It is hard to say what inspired me, it looks like a sort of bleak scene, but there is an eerie festival lighting... are the people visiting some kind of ice palace? I think that will be the name for it: Ice Palace?

As you can tell I have little memory of doing this painting which is quite rare I usually remember doing it, but it is interesting to try and dissect my own work. I can tell there was some sort of massive mistake or paint-over here, the entire lake region is hiding some sort of design that suggests that an abstract was underneath or something... in fact now I do recall trying to do a fix on this painting and nearly throwing it in the garbage... but now you can hardly tell there was a problem. I'm glad I didn't throw it out, the colour scheme is particularly cool, a kind of RGB-television thing.

Cold press, 11x15", 2006?