Part of my year’s proposal currently talks about creating, “a variety of artworks that focus on the adventure behind creating colour”; with that in mind I’m trying something new … Last year a number of people commented on how much they liked the photographs I typically take when I’m out collecting my rocks. They also …
With an interesting colour range created from my Madoc rock, the question before me was, “what next?”. What could I create that would show the interesting progression (and the rock’s potential) that resulted from this processing? My first inspiration comes from the colour palette cards that I typically create for myself. But, in the case …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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, …
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 …