Lemon Sunset #5

This is the fifth version of Lemon Sunset, painted not long after our trip to São Paulo Brazil. Many of the elements were inspired by São Paulo, like the big condominium buildings across the landscape and the rolling green South American hills. Happy people are living in bunkers buried under sand. I did a painting a long time ago called Chicken #5 which kind of started the whole motif of giant chicken-shaped living quarters. This was in part from advice of a customer who was shopping at an art gallery that I volunteered at. He suggested that an artist, in order to be famous, had to develop a catchy motif that would be unique and original. As an example he mentioned chickens, off the top of his head rather than in a serious way. I gave it a try, Chicken #5 painted in Bolton at my parents house was posted in a blog on Monday July 7, 2008. Now, I wonder, has this idea of an apocalyptic future full of poultry-themed apartments and happy stick-figures living in yellow submarines become my original motif?

watercolour 22x 15" cold press. 2017

Le Jardin du Luxembourg, France

The parks in Paris are really something to behold, you can walk all day in them and always see new things and be amazed. In this park there are metal chairs all over the place that you can pick up and move around, so people can sit together in groups or just on their own. That came in pretty handy for a painter like me because I had a decent chair to sit in for a change. I used to bring a little tripod stool to sit on but over the years stopped doing that because of the airport security, so I would have to find somewhere to sit on location. The year for this painting  I am not totally sure about, I'd have to check the other paintings from this time, I would guess it was my third trip to Paris in 2010. The other time I went were 1998, and 2007.

5 x8 " cold press, watercolour, ~2010

Still Life, Red Peppers

This is one of the first still life paintings I ever did, albeit with some help from the teacher who I remember was Sue Coleman. She brought in various object to each class and we all tried to make a painting of them. There is a technique in the cloth where small drops of water were added to create shapes. From the look of it, the teacher did that part because it took me years to really master and control that technique. The paper was rather thin, an acid-free rag paper in a spiral note book made by Bienfang premiere collection. Thinking of mom today, it was her and my late grandmother who bought all of the art supplies for me early on the hobby. I just scanned this today, part of several bags and portfolios full of old paintings that bring back memories. 

9 x 12" watercolour, hot press. 1989

Montreal Summer (Summer Scene)

Will summer ever REALLY be here? This painting was made years ago shortly after I moved to Montreal, or moved back to Montreal to be more precise. There were a few things that struck me about Montreal summer aside from the surprising heat and humidity: the crowds of people at the Jazz Festival, at Mont Royale Tam tam festival, the sidewalk sales, and the bustling old port. And to get there, everyone crams onto the metro system and buses. The painting shows these aspects in an abstract surrealism, at the bottom the crowds and the metro cars, in the middle a staircase leading up to the events: top left the Jazz Fest complete with an acrobatic busker, and top right the tam tam fest with pungent aromas wafting in the air. In the center top portion there is a depiction of Lac Mephremagog which is a small town in the Eastern Townships where Montrealers and tourists go to visit, and in the side left middle region there is a little stone archway with a person cross-country skiing in the winter. The cross in the top is the famous cross on top of the mountain, my dad and I went skiing around it once. On the back of my painting rack I named this one 'Summer Scene', I actually took it off the rack before it was ever named or signed because I didn't think that it was finished enough, but wanted to move on to the next painting. So this year I named and signed it with the help of Cilei, we decided to frame it and hang it up in the condo.


22 x 30" cold press watercolour, 2006