I’ve always enjoyed Chesterton’s quote that, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” but after so much effort I’m very disappointed with the results of this painting. I think it has only gone from bad to worse throughout this week’s work. This is the kind of work which I usually burn afterward (a sort of … Read more
Things are not going well … I thought I had some notion of where I wanted this painting to go, but that idea proved to be less good than I had hoped once I committed it to the panel. After considering what did and didn’t work, I tried again the next day after re-sanding the … Read more
The past few days have been about silver leafing. While I’ve been laying gold for many years now, I’ve never applied silver before this weekend. And, while the techniques used in water gilding are the same, the black bole and the silver’s nature as a metal were definitely a little different: The black bole being … Read more
While I spent the whole day working in my studio, my favourite part was what my youngest assistant (and also my son) created from our backyard’s ice this morning. Although I didn’t know what he was up to, when he came into my studio and asked me to follow him, I did. He took me … Read more
My sketches of what I’m going to paint using the pigment I’ve collected/created from Cobalt continue to develop … I think I’m beginning to see something I like. It continues to be a challenge to work out how such a tree will be painted with such a limited colour pallet. Unlike some other locations that … Read more
While it has been good to see the colour changes that can happen when applying heat to the iron based ochres, this controlled fashion has limits for me. Without pushing things I can get the pigment samples up to about 1100 °C (roughly 2000 °F) and this gets me well into the brown range of … Read more
I’m feeling very focused on the Red pine tree in my mind right now, and so I’ve moved ahead and created the panel while I’m also finalizing the drawing. The panel itself is a single slab of poplar that I cut down a few years ago. As I did with the three panel prototype I … Read more
With the introduction of crows, I’ve begun to realize that what is drawing me to these birds is their connection to my childhood memories. The other strong connection I can remember is to red pine trees. As a child, I spent countless hours under these trees playing, and since this project is focused on trees, … Read more
With my interest in crows going strong, I’ve realized that the Conestogo colours I collected earlier really aren’t what I need in this particular painting. Those colours will be great in another work, but for my crow I’ve decided to take some time and explore the rocks I collected in Cobalt, Ontario this spring (if … Read more
It’s not unusual in my art practice to have things take unexpected twists. So, I really haven’t fought the introduction of crows into my tree paintings. Crows are something very much of home for me, and connecting to them within my art seems natural. But, attracting crows isn’t the same as attracting most other birds. … Read more