Yellow Flower and Ink

Yellow Flower and Ink was part of a series of paintings I did in the summer of 2004 shortly after I finished my PhD in London Ontario. The idea was to sell them at art shows in the park but that didn't go so well, although I found a dime on the sidewalk on the way back from an art show, so I can say that I made a dime at least! The painting was done completely from imagination, though at the beginning of my painting career (1989 until early 90's) I did paint a lot of florals, so I kind of knew how to depict a flower.

Around this time I was experimenting with Chinese black ink, which I had obtained while taking lessons at the Chinese art and calligraphy group in London Ontario. The ink outlines you see were actually applied last... in other words, I did the flower scene using conventional old English-style techniques which do not use black or white, and then when it was dry, applied the ink outlines over top. The white star-burst patterns were created by throwing salt in the wet watercolour, or by dropping on a bead of clean water at the precise moment to create a controlled backwash.

5x7" cold press. 2004

L’Assemblée nationale, Québec City, Canada

A political painting if there ever was one, this was done in Quebec City in the scorching heat of a summer weekend. In front of the National Assembly protestors had erected six flags, including the provincial flag, Canadian flag, two separatist flags, a black flag, and a red flag. The first two (provincial and Canadian) were flying upside down. The provincial flag was flying at half mast to acknowledge the train disaster of last week. The red flag represents the student protest movement, and the black flag is, well I don't know. So out of all these mixed messages I did not appreciate seeing the Canadian flag upside down, whatever a groups beliefs I really think that was wrong. So to correct the situation I did this painting, notice the Canadian flag, second from the left, is right-side up. That is what you call judicious use of the Artistic License. Incidentally, the whole display- which included some sharp political messages- was taken down by the time I left.

11x7.5 cold press. July 2013

River Park Kyoto, Japan

Awhile ago I went to Japan for a conference and had the chance to visit Kyoto afterwards. I rented a bike and rode it all the way to the south part of the city where there was a very large park next to a river. It started to rain so I sat under a tree and made this painting. The rain hit the paper making a rain-like effect which was rather convenient.

Monet would often dangle a tree limb from the top of the canvas in his compositions. Over the years I have borrowed that trick, here you see two branches hanging from the top of the page. There is no tree trunk visible, but you still get the feeling of being under trees. This painting is also a good example of controlled backwash... I mentioned that a few blogs ago in the painting called 'In Sequence'. Here I used the technique to create the field of grass in the center. I also used it to create the trees off in the distance.

5x7" cold press. 2006 (No. 1213)

Mount Orford Park, Quebec

Here is a small landscape I did on location at Mount Orford Park, just one hour east of Montreal. It was done early in the morning, the low clouds were floating atop the mountain in the background. The scene was tough to find, when you are surrounded by trees the sight lines are blocked, so basically, you end up painting the trees. There is a nice relaxed quality to this painting, you get that camping vibe. It is hard to see, but there is a tiny orange construction cone near the lane way. Construction cones and garbage cans are signature features of many Darlington landscapes!

Painting trees is always difficult. The temptation for the amateur painter is to try and paint every leaf but this quickly becomes a hopeless task, especially in the forest. The better strategy is to try and 'represent' the leaves. In this painting, I represented the leaves by first doing a wet-in-wet wash. To do this, lightly moisten the paper with some clean water, then paint the shape of the trees using a medium green-orange or green-blue mix. When that starts to dry, add some darker versions of the base colour by adding some red and blue. Let this dry... it will look like an out of focus green blob at this stage. Then, drag some dark green paint over top of the 'blob' to give texture. Use the brush sideways and gently drag across in random directions. The texture gives the illusion of leaves, and the underlay gives the volume of the tree. This will take some practice to get the wetness correct on each layer, and judge the colours and values properly.

11x7.5" cold press July 2013.