A New Painting!

 Copy II of Delauney's Eiffel Tower.

36x48"

Oil On Canvas

2022

I love Delauney's work - and especially this one from his Eiffel Tower series. So, this is the second time I've painted a copy of it. Great fun.

Morning Embarkation

Finished at last!

This will be going to O'Connor Gallery in a few days.

Morning Embarkation

48 x 60" (approx)

Oil On Canvas

2007-2022

"Frankhensteen!"

I thought I would do an oil painting of Gene Wilder from the material for 'Young Frankenstein', for a friend, partly as an exercise - I thought it would interesting to do a grisaille. That's a grey layer that underlies a certain way of oil painting - grey beneath, then colour on top. I don't usually work that way - I mix a full palette on the side then dive in - but this was interesting to paint. Especially for how few layers of paint it needed to complete itself. Some of my colour ones are twelve, fifteen, thirty layers of glazes and whatnot. This one is about three.

We loved the movie growing up. Still do.

Grisaille Detail

 

Corot Variation (for Lee Ann)

 Well it finally worked out.

It's off to O'Connor Gallery.

Corot Variation (for Lee Ann)

Oil On Canvas

30x40"

2022

Early Spring

This painting, too, is heading off to O'Connor. 

It's an early work I did, with some later retouchings. 

'Early Spring', 

36"x48"

Oil On Canvas, 

2002.

Who?

A little oil sketch I just did of Christopher Eccleston as the 1st (newly rebooted ) Dr. Who. It's not based on one of my own photos - it's from one I pulled from the 'web, so it' s not for sale. That would be tawdry. Mr. Eccleston has a great face, though, so I thought it would be fun to paint him as fortifying practice. Cha!

Corot Variation, finally.

My Corot variation, getting close to wrapping up.

This one's taken awhile. 

 

New Little Painting

"Tom"

 4"x6"

Oil on gessoed wood panel.

Last Of The Autumn Colours

 Victoria Park, Kitchener, Ontario.

New Studio Space!

 For the first time since I started painting, I've been able to find studio space out of the house. This is a big deal. For the sake of my vanity, it means oil paint and construction won't be slowly destroying anything in my house with a finish nicer than a cement mixer. But really, it's about getting up and going to work! I get to leave the house, interact with the world and set myself down where I can concentrate on the task at hand.

Kitchener, Ontario, has had a hard time recovering from the massive recession of the early '90's that saw a big chunk of manufacturing businesses relocate elsewhere. The manufacture-based towns around Toronto (not unlike the rust belt in the U.S.) have been trying all sorts of strategies to recover. Kitchener is attached to the city of Waterloo. In the 80's, Waterloo began investing in tech. Flash forward - that town, once just an appendix to Kitchener is now it's powerhouse. Kitchener in turn, has been investing in tech as well, plus the arts. It has been paying off.

The city funds an 'arts accelerator' at a nifty former post office downtown. A number of arts groups have set up in it - and more engagingly, a good number of artists as the building provides subsidized studio spaces. It took months, but I finally got in. 

So far, the experience has been great.

I feel very fortunate. Thanks, Kitchener!

New Painting - "Vestibule"

"Vestibule" 

 Oil On Mounted Wood Panel 

 18 x 24" 

 2022

 At O'Connor Gallery in Gananoque.

-https://www.facebook.com/OConnor-Gallery-228073441110725/

-https://www.instagram.com/oconnorgallery/

-Phone: (343) 363-6844

 
 

After Corot

 I've been painting a variety of different works that I've loved, or found fascinating, from art history. It's an odd exercise - it is showing me lots of things I didn't expect, along with my own shortcomings which I drearily fear.

This is a copy of a painting - or, rather, a copy of a reproduction of a painting. I have never seen it in real life, but growing up I had a book about art history that was great for kids, though most of the reproductions were in black in white. Sometimes I wonder if that contributed to why I was an avid drawer first, before I became a painter.

I had a wonderful high school art teacher - one of those necessary, hoped for teachers who help and protect you, as you learn from them. Sometimes the protection is as subtle as encouraging you to keep progressing personally, which, growing up in a small rural town, felt like an adult must feel finding a door of their prison cell somehow opened to a hallway.

Anyway, there was a painting of the late Corot in this book, in black and white.

The accompanying text went something like, "We heard there were fairies in this painting, Mr. Corot, but we don't see any."

"I see them", said the artist.

Early Corots were  - and still are - kind of plain - like something naked vs. something nude. His landscapes and portraits seem to be aiming at verisimilitude, but in flat, unexciting tones.

Somewhere along the way, though, he underwent a major change, from a kind of keen and cool objectivity to a deep, romantic subjectivity. Looking at the variations on the landscape featured in the painting I copied, it seems recognizably true to place - the trunks, trees, river and marsh banks are all where they would be, when viewd from different angles. But the entire treatment speaks of nostalgia, dreaming, memory, love.

Trying to copy a master is a fool's errand in most ways: if it's perfect, you're a forger. If it's indistinguishably as good, you are conquered by the original master - just a passive subset, active enough only to erase oneself.

The only way to succeed is to pay honour. Some do it with money, some with curation and care, others by interpretation. 

I didn't have a clear path to reinterpret it - looks like I was waiting for some outside guide to tell me what to do. I was uncertain of my re-developing technical abilities, and that shows up here too.

Ultimately, I just had to give myself a deadline and stick with it, and say: This Is Where I'm At Now.

I'm disappointed I couldn't take more joy in it while doing it, but I'm glad that I've noticed that I missed out on that, and am looking forward to working with those kind of openings, that joy, more and more.

I don't think it's some wild showy success, but it would be bizarre if it was. That's not the point though. The point is what I've learned doing it:

a) Work is work, look for the joy around and through it.

b) I'm hard on myself and my moods when I finish a work are usually whack, tending to the negative, so - let it go! Fuggedaboutit!

c) I should enjoy that I can make things that show me where I'm at, learn from it still, and ... have some faith that in leaving it to others, they will find worth in it where, for all the inner intrigues I've listed I cannot.

Souvenir Of Mortefontaine (copy from reproduction)

Oil On Canvas

30x40"

2002

Touchups

An old painting I'd had in storage for, oh, about ten years, proved itself irredeemable at last.

I'd spent years thinking about what to do with it - I'd invested so much time and effort in it already, I was sure I could save it if I just found the right...what?

Anyway, I decided to cut up my losses - and salvaged a few bits out of the larger canvas.

What you see below is a detail of a fragment. But  - the face and figure (out of frame) still had some worth, so I'm giving it a touchup. 

It's going OK. But I've got to let go of any lingering ideas about the importance of the now-gone piece, and just, well, enjoy, bringing this little bit more fully to life.

 

Puppy Love

I had the opportunity to foster a pooch for the Humane Society of Kitchener-Waterloo this last week.

Gigi was one half a sweet, cuddly delight - the other half was a tornado of rip-n-tear destruction, along with a biblical lack of housetraining. Happily, the floorboards are indomitably laquered, and my supply of Mr. Clean inexhaustable.

I had specified I wanted a housetrained dog, but the HS called me in a hurry, saying that they had an urgent need for a foster. "How Bad Could It Be?", I thought.

Many exasperating days where I felt overtaken by the gargantuan, crazed de-luxe B-movie spirit of Mommie Dearest followed many sweet nights of lovely snuggling. She even slept picturesquely.

She was adopted quite quickly before my opinions, or flooring could be tarnished. So, all in all, a good experience.

Studio Corner, To-Day