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

Arbitration Place on Bay Street in Toronto

Nikola Rukaj Gallery in Toronto has placed some of my paintings at Arbitration Place on Bay Street. They will be up for June and July this summer.  I hope they are aiding the discussions and 'arbitration' taking place!

Here are a couple of them: 

'Layers-I', 36x48"

'Minder', 69x65"

Trees turning into Paintings

I am just packing to drive up to Edmonton for my exhibition there, "Totems", opening July 9, this Saturday at the Scott Gallery.  There will be lots to see on the way, some of my favourite scenery and sources of inspiration.

To elaborate on how 'trees' can become paintings, here is an example of what can happen.

This:

can become this:

Or this:

could become this:

Which is Larger?

It is always interesting how what you paint on a canvas can make it look bigger or smaller.  I haven't quite figured it out, but sometimes a painting with lots of detail can look larger than it really is; and vice versa, a large painting with little detail looks smaller, especially in reproduction.

I was recently putting an undercoating on a canvas, and left it sitting side by side with an unpainted  canvas of exactly the same size.  Here they are:

Do they look the same size, or does one look larger than the other?

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.

Online Catalogue/Essay About The Retrospective "Painting This Place"

                                           1983         "Nocturne"      30x36"            acrylic



The Evergreen Centre has produced an online catalogue for my recent exhibition, with an essay by Gregory Elgstrand.  It is viewable at this link:  PAINTING THIS PLACE .  Please click on  Exhibition Catalogue.
   

Retrospective Exhibition at Evergreen Cultural Centre in Coquitlam

March 6 is the opening date for an exhibition of my paintings at the Evergreen Centre in Coquitlam, B. C.  The curator and I went through three decades of my work to select the representative canvases, 16 pieces altogether, just barely skimming the surface of the many directions I have pursued.  It has been quite interesting to look back and one of the things I noticed is that I have ended up not far from where I started.  The paintings are on my website (www.patservice.com) and here is the show announcement:

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."

The Problem with Commissions

On occasion I have been asked to paint a painting as a commission, perhaps the same as another painting of mine that has been seen and liked.  As much as I would like to accept, I always refuse.  I try to explain that  it is impossible to duplicate a painting, that no one painting is ever the same as another.  However, this is a difficult concept for people to understand and I think they often wonder why I won't do it.

Recently I was delighted to read James Elkins writing about this individuality of every brushstroke in every painting:

"...each painting would insist on its own uniqueness, because no mark can be like any other, and no picture can duplicate another....  A painting or drawing...is unique, and so is every mark on it.  As every artist knows, a single brushmark can never be retrieved: if it is painted over, it is gone, and no matter how many times the same hand passes over the same inch of canvas, the mark can never be reproduced.  Every mark is a different beginning ...."    P. 41, "What Painting Is" by James Elkins.

If every brushstroke is unique, you can imagine how a whole bunch of brushstrokes can never add up to the same painting.

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.

Workshop Progression

When we were setting up in the studio at Emma Lake this summer, my friend Becky (Rebecca Perehudoff) offered to take a photo of me in my space.  Everything looked pretty clean and tidy at this point:

By the end of the week, things had changed slightly:

Here are some of my paintings:  (You can see that trees are still my inspiration.)

We had a pretty good time; weather wise, there were some big storms alternating with sunny days.  The professional artists' workshop being only one week this year, it felt as though we were just getting started when we had to pack up.  As always, it was interesting to meet some new people, while re-connecting with old friends.  The guest artist, Elizabeth Macintosh, who teaches at Emily Carr University in Vancouver, shared some provocative professional experiences with us through her stories; and she also introduced us to new faces through her slide shows.  Eating our meals on the closed-in porch over the lake was more congenial after she pushed all the tables together.

Exhausted after my long drive back, which thankfully was very uneventful, I am left with  good memories of the scenery and the people.

Packing for a Painting Trip

For the past week I have been making preparations to go to Emma Lake, for the professional artists' workshop.  It is a lot of work getting ready.  I have to make sure I have warm clothes to paint in, as well as cool things if it is hot.  Whatever I wear will end up covered in paint, so I don't take anything nice, just something comfortable, with long sleeves and pant legs;  I don't want any mosquito bites.  Then there are decisions about paint, brushes, tools, canvas, paper, equipment, what route to take, who to visit along the way and so on.  I am finally ready I think, exhausted before I leave.  Two days and a half of driving ahead of me.

Card Photo File for Paintings

The other day I was talking to an artist in Edmonton.  He is the one who in 1980 taught me to keep track of my paintings with card files.  Here is a photo of one:

Using 5x8 inch cards, I take a photo of every painting and staple it to a card.  I number my paintings by year, month, and then 1,2,3 and so on, and I put that number in the upper right corner.
The name of the painting goes on next.  Sometimes it is a temporary working title, which can be changed later.  I put the size of the canvas, and the dimensions, and the medium used (i.e. acrylic, or oil, or whatever it is).

If I have varnished the painting, I jot that down. When I sign the painting, I note on the card where the painting is signed and whether I have used initials or my whole name.  On the back of the card, I record when I send it out on consignment, what gallery it went to and when.  If it is sold and I know who bought it, I note their name.

It sounds complicated, but it has worked well for me.  I have sent off many paintings over the years; the galleries aren't always good at documenting the ins and outs of inventory, so I make sure that I know.

Here is a link to the website of Douglas Haynes, who shared this piece of helpful advice with me:
http://www.dhaynes.com/

"Preview" Group Exhibition

Here are some photos from the group show I was included in this past month, at Art Placement Inc., in Saskatoon.

The exhibition, called "Preview", included the artists Dorothy Knowles, Kelly Goertzen, and Jonathan Forrest.  It was a good group to 'hang out' with.

Strange Mark

The other day after working on a new painting, I realized I had made an unusual mark in an area that was supposed to represent some foliage of a tree.   It was not what I was trying to do, but I found it interesting.  It is a soft, sort of round area, of a delicate blue-green colour.

I don't think I will be able to leave it like it is, but I woke up thinking about it the next morning.