Happy Days (Alien Hand on a Post Apocolyptic Earth)

In the course of exploring various watercolour techniques I came up the painting seen here, 'Alien Hand...'. I wonder what people would think of this painting without the title? It kind of looks like an octopus trying to stick it's head into a vase, or some kind of incredible-hulk insect reaching for the sky. Hmmm, those sound like pretty good ideas for future works.
The main technique used was to apply a very wet wash (like a miniature pond) onto the canvas and let it dry. The next day I looked at it and tried to imagine what it could be. I applied the red-blue washes on top to create the shape of the hand, and finished with the earthy colours on the bottom that make the terrain, and put in a few dark trees on the horizon. I used a similar strategy for 'Dream Tree'.

Happy Days (Alien Hand on a Post Apocolyptic Earth), watercolour 11 x 5" cold press 2005 (No. 1497)

Lab Book #2: C451 The Bomb

Over the holiday I dug through my pile of old paintings and found a few that fit in the doodleism style. In this example, the composition was based on lecture-note doodles from my chemistry 451 course. Left-middle you see a bomb coming down on a ballerina who seems to welcome it. In the top middle is a character locked in a cage. Again, the theme of insecurity, failure, and being trapped comes through in the work. Did I really feel this way? At the time (4th year university) things were going pretty good so it is unfair to say I really felt these things. But I guess sitting in a boring chem lecture does invoke some depression.... In retrospect I decided to include this in the lab book series. Originally I planned to create new paintings for Lab book 1-3, but the discovery of these paintings seems to provide a logical fit. I will assign two more paintings to the lab book series (including , 'Caged Mind' which I posted last month, and 'Chem 453 Free the Monkey', which I will post shortly). The decision to put them in the series was primarily because they were done before the core Lab book paintings (which began with #4), and also fit well with the development of the overall design themes and evolving concepts of the entire series. In particular, the designs of the Lab book paintings begin with more 2-dimensional compositions and evolve into more 3-dimensional illusions, and the themes evolve from feeling trapped and insecure, to feeling free and confident. 

Lab Book #2: C451 The Bomb, watercolour 15 x 11" cold press, 2003 (No. 1748a)

Elliptical Horizon

Here is the original 'Elliptical Horizon' painting which came before 'Elliptical Horizon Reprise' posted December 2008. The actual Horizon was covered up in the painting, barely visible- it was scrubbed out and covered with the red wash near the bottom of the sky. The painting depicts a Kangaroo on a flying sled, blasting through a blizzard. She is heading 'somewhere' according to the signs on the twisty highway, and away from 'nowhere'. However, in the 'nowhere' direction lies a comfortable and warm looking house. Is the Kangaroo going in the correct direction? The title of the painting suggests that the directions are actually one in the same. The snow effect was a bit of a trick....once the colour wash is just about dry, you toss in some regular table salt and there you go, once it dries the snow effect is complete. The challenge was to keep the snow flakes looking similar in all the different colour washes. To do this, I make sure each colour wash had about the same level of moisture before tossing in the salt. To check the moisture level, I tilted the painting a little and looked for reflections. When a colour wash is wet it looks shiny, and when it dries it becomes more matte (dull). 

Elliptical Horizon, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press. Fall 2008 (No. 1398-2)

Downtown London Dundas Street, Ontario, Canada

I began doing urban landscapes in London Ontario, the first of which was done in frigid temperatures sometime in 1996. This scene was done some years later, perhaps on the corner of Richmond and Dundas looking east. The city of London was built a hundred years ago or more, and the old fashioned architecture is still seen in the rectangular false-front brick buildings with cast iron exterior fire-escapes and deco trim on the angular rooflines. Building booms in the 60's-80's brought on the steel and concrete sky-scrapers, which are depicted in this work-towering over the old 3-story brick buildings. Where are the people and the cars? The glib answer is that nobody lives in London, or at least bothers to go downtown, but the real answer is that painting people and cars on location is hard! For one thing they move, and for another people and cars have tremendous detail that could take hours to capture. It may have been possible in this painting to put some people walking on the sidewalk by using thick, dark colours which would overlay on the heavy washes that are already there. For some good examples of that see the Montreal Jazz fest paintings posted this summer. 

Downtown London Dundas Street, watercolour 7 x 10" cold press, 2001 (No. 0436)

Spanky's Fantastic House

For lack of a better name I called this one 'Spanky's Fantastic House' as it was this painting that inspired 'Lab Book #6, Spanky's Fantastic Cathedral". Here, in the distance lies a realistic cathedral reminiscent of the one appearing in LB#6, while in the foreground is a romanesque house and a garden filled with abstract statues. The viewer is drawn into the middle ground by a walkway, where their eye can wander into the flamingo-pink sky streaked with blue cotton-candy clouds (that should be an ice cream flavor?). The house has a heavy dark outline which makes it stand out from the rest of the drawing and gives a surrealism feel to the piece. The dark outline was an innovation I first used in "Birdman" using Chinese black ink, although here the outline is done with paint, and was applied over top of the finished work. Sometimes outlines can be used as an effect, while other times the outlines just need to disappear. In comic book format, or some movies (A Scanner Darkly) outlines are used to create the character, convey emotions, and define the form. In fine art, outlines are often meant to be unseen. Traditional watercolour painting begins with a light pencil drawing, which can be (gently) erased when the paint dries. I prefer to use paint for outlines, using light greys or other neutral colours, which mostly dissapear as you apply washes over top. In the doodle technique I make the initial paint outlines heavier, so they show through in the final work, helping to convey the detail and the energy 

Spanky's Fantastic House, watercolour 16 x 12" hot press, 2003 (No. 1782)

London Rooftops, London Ontario, Canada

Reminiscent of the Notre Dame Cathedral painting, this painting captures the detailed architecture of the cathedral in downtown London Ontario. Mind you, the cathedral in London Ontario is not quite as spectacular as the little one in Paris, but it still stands out against the surrounding residential buildings. I had wanted to paint this scene for years but could never find the right angle. Finally one day I was walking around and found a parking lot that had a great site line to the cathedral and so I took a photo, and also did a small location painting to get the colours. This work is a composite of the photo and the location painting.

Painting green is always tricky for the beginner painter, regardless of the medium. In this painting there are several examples of greens, the stairs in the foreground (viridian+french ultramarine+a spot of crimson red), the lawn in front of the house (winsor yellow+viridian+burnt sienna), the roof of the house (emerald green+rose madder genuine), the spires (emerald plus viridian, with some crimson red). Notice how each combination contains some warm colours to balance the green, this is important to achieve realistic greens. Another factor that makes the greens really sing is the overall colour scheme. Here, the reddish bricks of the cathedral provide a good complementary scheme. By the way, you may wonder why I left the ugly telephone wires in; for one thing, it helps fill the composition in the top right sky, but they also give a good sense of the environment....beautiful cathedral in an otherwise.... hansom? city.

11 x 15" hot press. watercolour, 2004

Self Portrait (Selfie)

Self portraits have never really been my thing, and with results like this you can probably see why. The painting was based on a photo I took by holding the camera two feet in front of my face while I made a funny face. The painting captures the shimmering light effect and dark shadows that the flash produced, as well as the warped 'fish eye' from the lens. Does it look like me? Sort of. But it looks more like an intoxicated mannequin of an Irishman stuck in a bad horror movie.... To create realistic skin tones I use a strategy based on some advice from a magazine article written by the master of painting watercolour skin tones, Steve Hanks. His advice was to start with a layer of light blue and purples, and build layers of orange/peach tones on top. In this way, you avoid creating fake looking lobster red or canary yellow skin. Another aspect of keeping the skin tone real is to think about the reflected light, in this work the flash created white highlights on the front, while the dark surroundings (the photo was taken indoors at night) created bluish reflections on my temple.

Self Portrait (Selfie), watercolour 7.5 x11" cold press, 1999 (No. 1492)