She Was...

She Was is an abstract painting done using variations on the doodleism style. The variations include surrealistic landscapes, dream-like forms, and a sense of free creativity. The surrealistic landscape is best seen in the middle right portion of the work, a psychedelic sunset and mushroom are on the horizon (are they related), and the colours are fauvist- or perhaps tie-dye?

When doing a large painting like this, there is always a temptation to overwork the detail in parts. In the old days I started on the bottom right with a lot of detail, and by the time I got to the top left I was bored of the painting and tried to rush it. The problem then, was that the attention to detail was inconsistent and distracting at times.
 After awhile I learned to begin with the focal point because when you begin a painting that is when your enthusiasm and creativity is at its peak. In this work I began with the center elements as well as the funky landscape in the mid right. As a result, the focal point has the most detail and complex techniques which holds the viewers interest.
 
These outer sections were filled in in a matter of hours, in fact the entire top left portion with the orange mountain and blue sky was completed in about 20 minutes, as compared to the central shapes which may have occupied over five hours each.

22x30" cold press. January 2014.

Peak Performance

It's been awhile my friends and family! Always difficult to take good pictures in the winter, this was taken on a flatbed scanner which looks ok. The painting is a typical doodleism style, derived from doodles done during one of our never-ending faculty meetings. They all know I doodle now but they still renewed my contract anyways. The coi pond at the bottom was an addition I made during the production of the painting not from the original doodle.

Fauvism is an art style where funny colours are used in funny places. Matisse, Gauguin, maybe Canadians like Milne and Carr used this technique. In my painting above I made all of the trees a bright red- the reason simply was to throw in some fauvism!
11x7 cold press 2014

The Thought

The thought process here was to produce a doodleism painting! I went for a primary colour composition which means using red, green, blue, and yellow... the 'crayon' colours. I'm not sure that there is any particular message here- the design elements are all familiar to the style- the broken horizon, the flowing organic shapes and the strong use of outlines. At the left middle the painting 'opens up' revealing a blue sky and side of a building.... I have often used this element for example in the "Three ringed flying circus" series of paintings. In that series every painting had a little opening into a blue sky background.  I have a larger painting in the works now, it is mostly original design, with limited use of doodles from my notebooks.

22x16 cold press Nov-Dec 2013

The Uncanny Valley (Strangely Serene)

It has been awhile since my last post partly because the painting productivity has slowed down a bit this term. It is also difficult to take quality pictures in the winter because all I have is a regular camera and no professional lighting something that would be great to rectify. At any rate, here is a painting done in the doodleism style that also incorporates several composition elements designed to make you feel uncomfortable. The characters in the foreground are purposefully robotic and non-human looking... this concept is called 'The Uncanny Valley' it refers mostly to robots that are meant to look human- the Japanese Scientists have developed some robots that have fake plastic skin and look kind of creepy. Try googling 'Uncanny Valley' can see what comes up. The issue is that humans perceive small differences in faces as representing sickness or death, and naturally feel repulsed.

 To make matters worse I implemented the "dutch angle" a technique used in film to make a movie scene feel dangerous or exciting- Hitchcock used this a lot. In the painting I convey this with a diagonal horizon and skyline.

I combined the Uncanny Valley and the Dutch Angle as a sort of experiment- the final product however looks strangely serene...  perhaps I should subtitle it strangely serene?

22 x 12" cold press, watercolour, fall 2013

Lemon Sunset III

This is the third version of Lemon Sunset, curiously proceeding the first and second versions. I tried to refine the composition and create a sense of sunset reflecting on the water. The object with the people in it is better featured. There are a lot of things I like about this version, yet still a few nagging issues. A version IV is in the planning stages right now, this is the first time I have tried repeating a painting so many times!

The luminous glow of yellow was achieved by putting down a layer (an under-painting) of aurelian yellow, which is fairly soft and shines through everything.  The impressionists used this kind of technique all the time, Monet would prime his canvasses with warm orange tones so that the finished product would be filled with warmth and light. 

22x 16"

Restricted Space

 

Restricted Space was done on an unusual paper format, a long narrow strip that I had left over from some other paper sizes that I cut. It kind of looks like the upper margin of a lab note book, in colour. It is actually a composite of about a dozen doodles from notebooks. I called it restricted space because there just wasn't much space to paint on. Also, there is this theme of living in a futuristic tower and bubble-like abodes. I used this them in the past in many paintings, like Chiken No 5. or Lemon sunset for instance.

Restricted Space, watercolour cold press 3 1/4"  x 22 1/4" 2013 (No 1819)

Neighbors

Once upon a time there was a wedge of cheese perched upon a heron's leg walking through a forest filled with spirits and conch shells. Was there a penny lane, was Lucy in the Sky? We will never know. This painting is a reinterpretation of a landscape I recently did on a camping trip in  Mount Orford. Check out the blog on July 5th to see the original... I kept that in front as I created the current painting called Neighbors. The inspiration was from my parent's neighbor in Bolton who is also an artist, she commented that the trees in the original had faces in them. I also wanted to emulate some of the vibrant greens she put in her landscapes- though I went a little overboard perhaps with the yellow.

 Usually making green requires plenty of colour mixing to avoid an artificial appearance. In fact, green trees can be mostly purple or orange with only hints of green. In this painting however, the challenge was to come up with vibrant greens that still looked somewhat natural. I used a lot of blue and purple and mixed that with heavy pure yellow or pure virdian (a shiny emerald green). I also faded the colour intensity from foreground to background. In the fore, you will see the brightest yellow and green, in the back you see the pale blue-green/teal. In between are variations. In this way you create depth, and a feeling of natural atmosphere.

22 x 11" cold press. Sept. 2013