Splendour in the Leaves

My favourite time of year is here. I love the fall, but it's just so short. Knowing it's brief is probably one of the things that makes me enjoy autumn all the more. All those bright and beautiful leaves will shortly blow away. Summer has its moments where you think it will never end. Fall, with its sharp breezes snapping at the sunshine, supplies no such illusions. And really, it's impossible to think of enjoying something beautiful and fleeting without thinking of newborns.

My baby is six weeks old and when I snuggle him in my arms, it's hard to imagine that he won't be so little for long. Trying to describe the wonder of an infant by just calling him 'little' is a wordsmithing injustice, but I'm too sleep deprived to put that feeling into words. Fall reminds me that each season and each stage has its particular splendour that needs to be savoured before it's gone. Which brings me to this watercolour painting: my tribute to fall.

As for the title in the bottom right, there's the obvious Canadian flag reference, but, while I worked on the painting, my patriotic tendencies were also helped along by listening to an interview with Paul Henderson on the 40th anniversary of the 1972 summit series win against Russia.

The Dapper Dog

photo by afterglow images

     

  

Ginsberg, watercolour, 11 x 14

Here's a painting that confirms my long held belief that everybody looks good in polka-dots. This watercolour pet portrait was commissioned as a wedding gift for a couple who had their engagement photos done by the photography studio, afterglow images. Fortunately for me, I was able to use one of those engagement shoot photos as my source material, so I had a wonderful image to work from. In addition to the pleasure of painting, the gratifying thing about creating commissioned work is knowing that the work is going to be enjoyed by its recipient(s), and I've heard that this piece was very well received by the happy couple. Booya.

Before I started this painting, I thought, "hmm, I should buy some masking fluid, draw in the polkadots and mask them off," but then I started painting and, whamo, there I was, free handing polka-dots. I confess to being afraid of masking fluid. What if it doesn't come off the paper without causing some kind of damage? In case you're unfamiliar with this particular art supply, masking fluid is a substance you apply to a section of watercolour paper that you want to stay white. Once the fluid is dry, you can put washes of colour over top of it and the paper underneath it stays white, which saves you from having to painstakingly paint around areas that are meant to stay light. When you're done painting over the dried masking fluid, you erase it off, exposing the unpainted paper underneath. I should really get a bottle of the stuff and experiment with using it. But in the meantime, if you've used it before, fill me in on your experiences with masking fluid: is it super amazing wonderful? or does it haunt your dreams in a bad way?

Hands on Auction

Bluejay in Summer, watercolour,
framed in a dark wood that's hard to see against the background

The other day I was photographing this framed watercolour painting, just before bringing it to the Dundas Valley School of Art to be part of the DVSA 42nd Anniversary Art Auction. In the last shot I took, my little boy put his hand over top of the painting. As he placed his hand on the glass, Clarence said, "I'm going to stop the bird from flying away."  Uch, too cute. And if the bidding at the auction gets opened up to include paying in Lego, Clarence really could stop this blue jay from flying away to a new home.

Come to think of it, this hand on painting photo makes me think of last year when I was also photographing a piece that went to the DVSA Art Auction, and Clarence wanted to touch the bunny rabbit.  And now that has me thinking about the time I was at an art gallery in Washington, D.C. (I can't remember which one because I was very young), and one of my two older brothers dared the other one to touch a VanGogh painting. The dare was followed through on but I don't think the result was as exciting as either one of them had hoped.

Orchid Instructions

Orchid, waterolour, 5.5 x 7.5 inches

  

There's a wonderful purple orchid blooming in my studio right now, and it's a pretty irresistible subject for a painting. I don't think I have my orchid care quite right because the first flower comes out well before the rest of the stem has finished producing buds, but the effect is still lovely. There is so much detail and wonder in one orchid flower that if the plant had given me numerous blossoms to paint at once, I think this painting would have taken me a ridiculously long time. There is also a delight in seeing the flowers in their various stages of development simultaneously. It's a reminder that as much as it would be nice to sometimes just get to the end result that you want, it's the process that makes everything possible.

Framed (and loving it)

I found a frame for my orange leaf watercolour painting and, as it happens, came across a frame that I thought would be nice for a giclee of my blue jay printing. Since doing two leaf paintings last month, I can't seem to walk across my driveway without seeing a leaf I want to paint. I think I'll do one more watercolour of a leaf as my farewell to fall. Without looking at the calender, I know fall is on its way out because today it was cold enough outside to make me wear my puffy, feather-filled winter coat. Gulp!

These two will be for sale at a Christmas Market I'm doing which is Nov 19 in Hamilton. More on that to come!

Lighting the Way for Frogs

It's been eons since last I wrote and there's really one reason... the OttLite. I looooove this desk lamp; it gives off a light that very closely resembles daylight. The OttLite allows me to do watercolour painting at night and when the day is very overcast. Time I would have previously used to write a new blog posting is now spent painting. I've been enjoying myself but I also have a bit of sore neck from bending over my work for the additional hours. I've had more than one art instructor in university who had a ruined back and that knowledge combined with the twinge in my neck is reminding me to go work out at the Y.

Some things I've been painting are...

This needs a few finishing touches (like a signature) but I figured I'd better show what I've been up to.

This 5 x 7 watercolour will be for sale at the Fall Marketplace happening next weekend at St. Paul's United Church in Dundas  (more on that to come)

 

The cards are hand painted and very little, 2.5 x 4 inches. A pack of them were on sale at Curry's a while back and I cannot resist miniature stationary. Painting the cards was a bit of busy work while watching a movie, X-Men: First Class. It's safe to say the movie was enhanced by my being lightly distracted, although it was entertaining; minus the uncomfortable feeling that comes from seeing fictitious elements introduced to the Holocaust. I don't know, I find it's somehow a little unseemly to add made up horrors to something that was so completely horrible in and of itself. If you haven't seen the movie, it isn't very graphic or gratuitous, but there's a character whose mutant powers are studied by Nazis. The movie is also ridiculously long so that I stayed up till 1AM without realizing it was so late.

Live and Learn

I´d been thinking about doing a watercolour painting of a blue jay when last week I found a blue jay feather in my backyard. It was pretty much impossible to look at the feather without wanting to paint it, so I did a quick little watercolour... 

After the feather was done I started on the whole bird. I think this piece might turn out to be an elaborate preliminary because I´m not please with the composition. I misplaced the bird and now his tail feathers are getting smooshed into the edge of the picture frame. Hmm, so maybe the week your two year old has been sick and cranky and wearing you out a little is not the week to start a finicky new painting. When I´m doing a watercolour I don´t draw the outline of what I´m going to paint because I don´t what there to be any pencil lines in my painting, but this is one time when it may not have hurt to pencil in the bird before I started painting.

Nooks and Crannies

Phew, I had to make my way through plenty of fur, but I finished the watercolour painting of my friend Catherine's dog, Cady. This one took me a little more time than I'd reckoned because I hadn't planned to go so heavy on the detail. I'm painting along and then before I know it the nooks and crannies have sucked me in. I guess I don't put up much of a fight because I enjoy seeing the resulting sense of texture that comes into the painting. And by the by, if you have a pet that you'd like to see captured in a painting or drawing, please feel free to get in touch with me.

Every once in a while, I think it's good to do a "just because" painting, as in a painting you do just because you feel like it, and I feel like doing something in oil. Possibly because I may otherwise forget how to oil paint since I haven't done so for over two years. I'm thinking something that's large and abstracted. The weather is starting to warm up so I'll be able to use a studio space that's detached from my home and is the best place for me to do any oil painting. A curious 21 month old and an oil painting curing in the house strikes me as a terrible combination, and I don't want to test that hypothesis.

Before I go, I thought I'd show the process work for Cady's portrait in sequence. When I first started studying art in university I really disliked doing any preliminary work, the idea being that prelims would somehow deaden the end result (and besides, who wants to do extra work?). One of my professor's chastised this notion and cited Picasso as an artist who did numerous preliminary studies and produced final pieces that are both carefully constructed and appear spontaneously alive. At the time I remember thinking something along the line of "if it's good enough for Picasso..."