Most artists sign their paintings, traditionally in the bottom right, sometimes with the date. Over the years my signature tag line has changed a lot, and it helps me figure out the era that I painted it. In the beginning I listened to mom and used a fine ink pen to write my signature at the time, along with an initial PD, and year in the circle, in the painting below it was 91.
This wasn't cool enough as I became an older teenager so I invented the P---- D---t--- scrawl, there is even a back of a painting where I worked this out and practiced a bunch of times. In this painting, which was done from a mix of imagination and source material (a plant book), you see the bold new signature adorning the bottom right, no date. Over time I would shrink it and place it less conspicuously in the corner. Versions of this signature were used until 2019.
At the turn of the millennium, yes, Y2K... I had Monet on my mind and a desire to sell paintings, to market myself as he did. My chicken scrawl signature wasn't going to cut it, people had to know who I was! Using my new favorite paint cerulean blue, I carefully printed my name in legible block letters in the bottom right. In 1999 it was DARLINGTON, then 2000 P DARLINGTON, then 2001-02 was PJ. DARLINGTON. As you see in the original Spinners version below done in 2001. An alternate version of Spinners with the same signature was done around the same time.
Spinners, 15 x 22, cold press 300lbs, watercolour, 2001
I didn't use this signature for long though, I phased it out around 2002 and went back to the chicken scrawl. Partly because my dream of selling art and being a famous artist like Monet was on hold as I was grinding through the difficult last part of my PhD. Occasionally I used an interlocking PD initial, as with Bubble Catchers and a few others over the years. One bad habit was leaving paintings unsigned, which I would sometimes do if I wasn't happy with the quality of the painting or was pressed for time and forgot. In this example, I just named the painting Unsigned. It is a sombre painting done after a co-worker had suddenly passed away.
Unsigned, 7.5 x 11" cold press, watercolour 2014 (No. 1609)
As I start to put 2020 in context, it was a mix of things leading up to it, including the 2018 Amsterdam trip and inspiration from Van Gogh, discovering Hiroshige and his Japanese prints, and reading about paints and colour theory from Handprint.com (MacEvoy) and The Color of Art Pigment Datbase (Myers). This painting is perhaps the very first one I did in 2020. At first you see the absence of a signature, then you may notice a PJD 2020 prominent on the top of the building. Although its hard to see in this small version, you can click on it and it should go full screen. I would use PJD 2020 on almost every painting in 2020, usually on the bottom right. In some paintings I would even blend it into the design as graffiti like in this Montreal West train track painting. A true tag.
Full Colour Range, 7 x 22" cold press, watercolour, 2020 (No. 1811)
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