The Questioner

This painting was actually untitled when I finished it, then since it looked like a big walking question mark I decided to call it the questioner. It was done on a small cutting that I had leftover from some other piece of paper that I had cut to size. It was mostly done using layers of paint, a technique called glazing where the thin washes dry on top of each other. That gives the work an eerie glow. 

4 x12 "

Rain Surf

Rain or shine surf is up! This painting was inspired by a song by Marcos Pagu translated as "Returned Rain After Ten Years" a friend of our friend David who makes artistic projection projects in São Paulo.

Community Connections, Brazil

Communities by definition are connected within, and to the outside by roads. In São Paulo these communities could be seen along the highways, between the condo sky scrapers, and behind the shopping malls. Separated by only a few broken walls the houses were jammed in together, made from cinder block and red brick, with the occasional plastered and painted construction crawling up the hill sides. Here in the communities of Brazil, connected by washed out dirt roads, families live,work and play oblivious to the passers by.

This painting was done entirely from memory and some small sketches I made while in São Paulo. I wanted to capture the spirit of the community and depict the chaos of buildings cars and people. Among the where's-waldo-like design there are many details that are typical. The blue bucket shapes on top of the houses are rain water collectors, the satellite dishes are for TV, the musicians on the balcony are playing songs (imagine the voice and the instruments), the car parked up on the mountain side is apparently defying gravity, the kites are flying in the big blue sky, the condo buildings grow up on the horizon. But the one image that stuck in my mind most of all was a mother walking hand in hand with her child, slowly making her way up the steep, coppery-coloured dirt road. That seemed to say it all...

Watercolour 22 x 30 " cold press, December 2017

Totem inspired

This is a small abstract painting inspired by indigenous totems, just inspired though, not meant to be a copy or something! Another artist was recently criticized for copying the indigenous art style so much so that it could have passed off for the real thing. I've copied impressionist art before but that was all for practice and learning, rather than to commercialize it in some way.

In this work I wanted to create this feeling of the walls closing in around the totem, which was done with the two tree trunk like shapes flanking the totem. The colour scheme is a cool triad of orange-yellow, purple-red, and a turquoise.

To create texture using watercolour start with a wet in wet technique, two tones or just drop some clear water in the wash while it is drying. That will create a blotted look, kind of a starburst effect or like dropping coffee on a carpet would look. When it is dry, use dry brush technique... this is where you keep the paint fairly dry on the brush and drag it across the paper surface, holding the brush on an angle. It works best with cold press or rough press paper because it is bumpy and pulls the paint off in a scratchy way. I used this to create the textured side panels. In doing so, it makes the totem seem smooth by comparison.

5 x 7" cold press watercolour. Dec. 2017

Sky Emotes

Hi, silly, really? This is how we talk now using emotes on the smart phones. LOL. In the painting, the emotes are projected onto the clouds like some kind of modern 'bat symbol'. Below is the city of Montreal.

To create the luminous glow, I started with the three colours yellow red and green and let it dry. Then I overlayed with the cloud effects and the city on the bottom. Originally the painting was going to be in the other direction, that is, what is the purple building were to be the sky, and the buildings would be the white space. I just saw the paining upside down had a more interesting composition, and the emotes would be in the sky. Seemed fitting IMHO.

5 x 7" cold press Watercolour, Nov 2017

Museum Mutant

This was a mixed media painting I did way back in high school art class taught by Mr. Clarke. The project was to put together two different art styles into one painting. In the middle portion is an arrangement of characters done in watercolour media. The image of the characters was derived from a renaissance era  oil painting but the exact painting escapes my memory. Surrounding them is a group of seven painting which was also originally done in oil, but here it was painted with a tempera or gauche paint using a lot of water as if watercolour. I remember finishing this painting very quickly in class, and people gathered around to look at the work. In retrospect, the idea of fusing styles would continue in my work up until now 25 years later. Wow, 25 years since high school, time flies.

Mixed media. 1992 (1993?) 22 x 30" (?)

Vendome, Montreal/NDG, Quebec

Here is a rare painting of Vendome, rare only in that there is probably not too many paintings out there of a busy metro station at the edge of Montreal. The paper I used was different than usual, it was from a pad of paper given to me as a gift. It was different than the usual rag paper I use which is typically 140lb press cold press. This paper was flat on top and lower absorbance so the colours flowed around a lot and it was more difficult to build up the layers. I remember too that there was plenty of wind that day and the page kept blowing around. Lately I have been wanting to paint more of the local neighborhood here in NDG. After having gone through all of my old paintings of London and other places in Ontario it inspired me a bit to do a few more local landscapes.

11 x14" Watercolour. July 2017