Layers and Light

One of the ways to get interesting colour in a painting is to layer the paint.  Three or four thinned washes of the paint, applied separately, one by one, can combine in a way to activate a pigment.  Light bounces between the layers. Your acceptance of the colour is as something complex and transparent, but with depth.  The history of the application, where each layer dries and then the next layer goes on, gives it a quality and an interaction that is different from a pre-mixed colour

I am very pleased that Oeno Gallery selected four of my paintings to go in their group exhibition just launched at their beautiful site in Prince Edward County, Ontario.  'Layers and Light' opens on November 9,  2024 and runs until January 26, 2025.

Red Mountain, 30x75", acrylic, 2017

Green Mountain, 35x65", acrylic, 2017 

Blue Mountain, 29.5 x 49.5",  acrylic, 2017

Dark Mountain, 30x50", acrylic, 2017

Painting Flowers

This weekend is Mother's Day and Mother's Day makes you think of flowers.  Ever since I started painting I loved it when I had a bunch of flowers, often bought from one of those roadside stands that you find in the country.  This would start me off on the challenge of creating something equally wonderful on canvas.  Some of those paintings from the 1990's and early 2000's are presently in a small show at Oeno Gallery in Ontario.  

However, eventually I decided that nature always had one up on me.  It was too difficult to capture the essence of the colours and textures; I would set that challenge aside. 

After 20 years I took the risk of trying again.  During the pandemic, I went crazy with single blossom abstractions, loving the thin texture of the wash and the graphic quality of the edges, against a white ground.  This goes back to when I was starting to get obsessed with painting.  Watercolours were my first choice of medium; the transparency and delicacy of watercolour painting has affected my approach ever since.  I try to resist but it creeps back in.  

My most recent efforts have been on a different scale.  A friend of mine paints mostly in small sizes and does really striking paintings that way.  I thought I would try to see what I could do.  Being in the midst of condensing 2 studios into 1, small also seemed practical.

Here are examples of what I have done on a small scale - some of them look like flowers, but I think of them more as Signs or Signals.

(The first painting has a ruler to keep you in mind of the actual size of these canvases.)

                                    

                                                                   Takeoff, 8x8", 2023

                                                                    Startle, 8x8", 2023

Alert, 8x8", 2023

Diamond in the Rough, 8x8", 2022

Rattle, 8x8", 2022