World Inspired Landscapes: Greece

Greece has a typical landscape for the region that is similar to its neighbor to the north, Albania and further up, Croatia. The interior consists of rolling hills, forests and rivers, the coast has gorgeous sandy beaches and turquoise water from the Ionian and Aegean seas. With its rich history, the people has produced pottery for a long time going back practically to the stone age. There are distinct periods of Byzantine and Greek pottery marked by shifts in the culture over time. The shapes of the pottery stayed relatively similar over the centuries, but the decorations changed quite a bit. At one stage. they made great use of geometric patterns like lines, diamonds and interlocking angles. There was also a popular octopus motif painted onto the pottery. In my painting, I superimposed ancient pottery with an octopus graphic over top of a brilliant bright background of rolling hills, beach and the sea. Its almost as if the octopus is leaping out of the water into the foreground. The warm, pottery-colours in the foreground help to complete the illusion of depth.

World Inspired Landscapes: Greece, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, January 2023 (No. 3364)

World Inspired Landscapes: Ghana

 

Ghana is located in West Africa next to the Ivory Coast. It has one of the most stable democracies of all the African countries after becoming independent in the mid 19^th century. The landscape consists of a variety of terrain including grasslands mangroves and forests. There seems to be many types of large and small animals that live in Ghana including grey parrots. Grey parrots are considered old world birds that are found from Ivory coast into mainland central Africa as far as Kenya. Despite their drab grey colour, their tails tend to have scarlet red feathers. To play up the colourful tails, I combined the parrots with a misty jungle scene in the background. In the painting the parrots look sleek and elegant but in real life I guess they are very noisy and annoying, kind of like pigeons. At least we can appreciate the biodiversity and hope that countries rich in biodiversity can do their best to preserve it. 

World Inspired Landscapes: Ghana, watercolour 10 x 11" cold press, January 2023 (No. 3363)

Ice Flow and Blizzard Dieppe Park

Sunday's painting excursion was all about perseverance. The weather called for snow all day, and a strong blizzard with whiteout conditions. I had wanted to paint the ice flow on the st Lawrence for some time now, but getting to the river without a bike is a tough proposition. The bus and metro took me to Bonadvanture station, then I walked south on Peel to the Peel Basin. Recognizing the landscape, I trudged around the Farine Five Roses and along the port and past Habitat 67. Just before Concorde bridge I veered off into park Dieppe and kept walking through deep snow on unbroken trails until I reached the gazebo at the end. The snow was blowing on an upward angle from the steep embankments but I found a bit of refuge under the gazebo to make this painting.  It was my first try with my new wooden frame that is sized for 8 x 10", which enables me to paint on this larger format in the winter. It prevents the painting from smearing. When I got back in the metro station, the snow on this painting melted and ruined the middle and top portions. At home, I touched up the railing, river, and background elements. As it turned out, it may be one of the greatest winter paintings I have done to date. Perseverance pays off!

Ice Flow and Blizzard st Lawrence River, watercolour 8 x 10" Strathmore Gemini, January 2023 (No. 3380)

This was actually the first painting I made on the Dieppe Park excursion, looking back at Concorde Bridge. The paining, and my palette were thoroughly coated in snow, but it dried out pretty well after all. I just touched up the railing and some shadows at home. The background was really white like you see in the painting due to blowing snow.

Ice under Concorde Bridge, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2023 (No. 3392a)

 

On my way back, I found a rest station at the beginning of the park that afforded significant shelter from the elements. The tables were piled high with powdery white snow, and the pine trees were a jigsaw puzzle of white and green. Off in the distance, the Montreal skyline appeared pale grey due to blowing snow. Today was a massive physical challenge, and I am happy to say that all my winter gear passed with flying colours. The Baffin boots kept my feet toasty warm the whole time, and my wool underclothes and thermal layer Cilei got me for Christmas worked wonders. Importantly, my hands were warm the whole time despite the -20℃ with windchill. I had a pair of light Auclair gloves, Woolpower wrist gators, and Deerskin Gauntlets over top. When I needed a bit of dexterity I could pull off a gauntlet and have the Auclair to keep my hand warm. It took a lot of fiddling to get all the gear right. If I ever go out in a blizzard again the only things I might add are a balaclava and a ski goggles perhaps.

Snow on Tables with Pine Trees, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2023 (No. 3393)

Attempted Roses

 

Some time around the year 2000 I began a multi-paneled wall mural consisting of a lattice of roses. It was an attempt to fuse a flower theme with a decorative abstract style. The multiple panels remained unseen in a plastic bag at my Parent's house for twenty years, until recently, when I got the pieces back to Montreal. The backs of them were mostly blank but some had unfinished paintings. In this painting, I completed an unfinished rose design with new variations on the theme. Old elements were combined with new, so I have to date this painting with two years 2000 and 2023! Perhaps I will try and assemble the original rose panels and take a picture to see what it actually looked like.
 

Attempted Roses, watercolour 10 x11" cold press, 2000/2023 (No. 3361)

Noodle Vases

 

Noodle Vases is a multi-dimensional design that appears to show the same vase in different space and time. The vase was done with wet-in-wet technique using what appears to be daubs of alizarin crimson (PR83), phthalo blue-green (PG7) and french ultramarine blue (PB29). The wood benches are probably aureolin yellow (PY40) with an overlay of alizarin crimson. To create the dark spots, a glazing technique was used where layers of alizarin, phthalo green and french ultramarine were applied in succession. Since the red and yellow are not lightfast, meaning that the fade and alter in sunlight, this painting is best kept in the portfolio.

Noodle Vases, watercolour cold press 12 x 15", 2001 (No. 1767)

Return to Land (P.J.D.I. style)

In 2011 I made a painting called Land Escape, it depicted some abstract figures floating and standing around, with a wispy pastel landscape being torn apart. I saw the painting again while searching through the archive and noticed that the back of the painting was blank, almost inviting an new painting. Its a bad habit I know, but painting on the back of other paintings saves space and materials. If I personally love a painting or think its a masterpiece in my mind, then I will never paint on the back. In this case, the A-side painting was okay but very bland. Recently, I painted a series of Deep-A.I. (artificial intelligence) inspired paintings, and I thought, gee, I can come up with images like that without using A.I. For 'Return to Land' pictured above, I emulated the Deep A.I. style, but with a completely original abstract design. The A.I.-inspired style included an unusually blue sky, the 2D/3D hybrid shapes, and a nonsensical collection of objects. I think I nailed it? Lets call this style P.J.D.I. The title is a counter-point to the front-side painting, which showed a person escaping, but this painting suggests a person landing and staying.

 Return to Land, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2023 (No. 1813b)

More abstract paintings from the archive

Throughout the 2000 and 2010's I was not landscape painting as much and instead focusing on abstract painting in the doodleism style or free style. Prior to that, I was painting a lot of landscapes in London Ontario, on the Spain trip and other trips. One reason for the shift in emphasis was that Montreal was not the most inspiring place to paint at the time; I was living in the dense neighborhood of Plateau and had not quite worked out how to paint standing up or to use my bike as a mobile studio. Those developments would not come until 2020. In 2020 the Lachine canal bike path opened up which was a major reason for my renewed interest in Montreal as a subject. I can pinpoint the turning point to one painting, I was sitting on the ledge of the canal doing a fall canal scene while the construction crew was prepping the canal path across the way. Once it opened, I gained easy bicycle access to all of downtown and the aqueduct. Of course, the pandemic was the other driving force, I went from 50 paintings a year to 500 paintings a year and covered virtually every accessible portion of the island since then.

Some Old Painting, watercolour cold press 7 x 22", 2016 (No. 1811a)

Just before the pandemic, I had a renewed interest in art owing to a trip to Amsterdam with Cilei where we visited the van Gogh Museum and I discovered Hiroshige in a book about van Gogh. In 2018 I was mostly working on abstract paintings like the one shown above, and towards the end of the year doing paintings in the neighborhood. In the early part of 2020 I was copying Hiroshige paintings and starting to explore new paints like prussian blue.

Lost and Found Internal Connections, watercolour cold press 3.5 x 15", 2018 (No. 1817b)