Black Velvet Paintings

You know those treasures we can still find in second-hand stores, the paintings painted on real velvet?  They gave me the idea of starting with a black canvas, which is the opposite of how I have traditionally worked.  Using different blues, reds, and yellows, I mixed my own blacks, then layered thin washes on the canvas until the surface reached a rich matt finish.  This formed the base for the brush marks I placed on top, the marks thick and thin, opaque and transparent, with their edges jagged or smooth depending on how the brush draws across the canvas.  The dark grounds make the colours pop, but also the dark grounds make a wonderful surface to draw on.  Below you can see the steps I took to paint a Black Velvet painting.  

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Influences

Recently someone asked me who were the artists I looked back on; which were the ones who had influenced me.  There are so many that I can't even begin to say this one or that one was crucial to the course I took in my work.  Here are a few who are presently tacked to my studio wall:

Agnes Martin; Georges Braque; Paul Cezanne; and Paul Flandrin. You can what they have taught me, whether it be in the trees I have painted, the road trips, the lakes, or anything else.

Memories

Yesterday there was a memorial gathering at the Art Gallery of Alberta for the artist Douglas Haynes, who passed away unexpectedly two weeks ago.  I wish I could have been there to join the others in remembering the many ways in which Doug was a part of our lives.  He gave me so very much encouragement when I first met him at Emma Lake in 1980, and in subsequent years. Even today when I am working on a painting, I wonder, what would Doug think of this?

In those days we used to have great studio visits.  This is Doug, myself, and Scott Plear  on Thormanby Island studying some watercolours painted that day.  The photo is a bit fuzzy, but it was 35 years ago!

Happy Friends

Jane Crow took this photo at the opening of my exhibition in Calgary on Saturday.  I met both these two good friends many years ago at Emma Lake, the professional artists workshop in northern Saskatchewan.  Barbara Ballachey, when she is not voyaging around the world, lives and paints in Calgary;  she and I have travelled many times together to attend exhibitions in New York and London.  Michael Matthews hales originally from Calgary, but he and his partner Jane, also a painter, do their creating part of the year in Harrogate, B. C. and the other part in Syracuse, New York.  They both also travel extensively, and took the time to join us last fall to see the Matisse Cut-Outs Show at the Museum of Modern Art.

Artist in Williamsburg

I just got back from a visit to New York.  As well as haunting the museums and galleries, I had the treat of an invitation to visit Matthew Blackwell in his studio in Brooklyn.  Our friends Michael Matthews and Jane Crow were going to visit him and asked us to come along.

At the top of five steep sets of stairs and through a maze of twisting hallways, we found him busy making a pot of coffee for us.  The living quarters are what you might call cozy, or colourful, or claustrophobic but there is a great view out the window and he seems to have no fear of fire traps.

Here are a few of his paintings:

After looking at his canvases, you might wonder what kind of a crazy person created them.  However  he is a very charming, relaxed and friendly character.  He shows at Edward Thorp Gallery in manhattan.

Colour!

Paul Klee is an artist whose work has always captivated me.  Recently reading a book on him, "Paul Klee Painting Music"by Hajo Duchting, I noticed this quote about colour:

"Colour was for Klee the 'imponderable' and thus individual element in the picture.  .....    As Klee once commented:  'Colour has always had something secretive about it that is difficult to grasp.  This mysterious quality penetrates the mind.  The colours are the most irrational elements in painting.  They possess something suggestive, a suggestive power."

Paul Klee, 'Fire in the Evening", l929, oil on cardboard.

Peter Doig in Montreal

There is a wonderful exhibition of paintings by Peter Doig, just opened at the Musee de beaux-arts de Montreal.  

Peter Doig: No Foreign Lands

It is funny that if I had painted these paintings I would think, oh they are not good enough, I had better work on them to make them better.  That is how much I know; the Art World has embraced them.  What I do like is that they are paintings, an exuberant abundance of paint and colour on canvas.

In an interview in Canadian Art,  The Closer You Get: An Interview with Peter Doig   Doig says some interesting things, many of which I agree with.  For example, they ask him what he is learning from his paintings:

PD: I’m questioning where I am in the world, where I live in the world, thinking about other people, thinking about their situations. I think what I am doing is important—not because painting is important. As an activity, it’s important to actually do something. I feel guilty if I’m not painting. Once you succumb to painting, you have to carry on with it. Gerhard Richter said something very interesting to me—I’m not a huge fan of Gerhard Richter’s work, but he said, if you think about it too much, you stop doing it. That’s a great way of thinking about painting. You have to put your blinkers on, and stop thinking."

Triangle Workshop 30 Year Anniversary

This year is the 30th anniversary of the Triangle workshop, which first took place in Mashomack in upstate New York.  I attended in 1983 and again in 1993. My studio space was on the cavernous top floor of the big old dairy barn and I have vivid sensual memories of the hot dry space.  Other artists were strewn throughout the barns and outbuildings, while the sculptors worked outside.  For lunch, we sat on the grass under the trees and feasted on the tasty food they trucked over from the club house.  (It was an old dairy farm, but converted to a fishing club.)

As a painter of landscape, I revelled in the surrounding scenery with its gently rolling hills and expansive cornfields.  One of the visiting artists, Graham Nickson,  suggested that I set up outside and go crazy with big cans of oil paint :

It was a challenge, but fun.  However the hardest part was getting the cans of oil paint back to Canada. I couldn't pack them with me because they are considered flammable; and none of the courier companies would accept them for shipment to Canada.  Finally, another artist came to my rescue.  Ron Shuebrook very kindly put the box into his vehicle which he was driving back to Ontario, and then put the paints on a bus to Vancouver.  He was a true friend.