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This is an animation I did a few years back with audio I created today. Enjoy!
I often find resources for my paintings after I’m actually done them. Here is a perfect example. I listen to Down by the Weeping Willow by Daniel, Fred and Julie now and then but didn’t think about it (consciously) when sketching up “Sleeping Willow”. It also didn’t play while I was painting. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve heard it. I just started singing it today and made the connection.
The painting is not a depiction of the song as you will find out if you listen to it, but sleeping by a weeping willow is the image that stuck… I should also note the woman in my painting is not dead but sleeping. Still, I thought the connection between image and song interesting enough to share. Enjoy the creepy, sad, but pretty tune.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz…
Sleeping Willow, oil on canvas, 16 x 20"
Here is the another painting along the same theme and narrative as the last.
Lake Blanket, oil on canvas, 16 x 20"
I’m working on a group of paintings (well, at least a pair of paintings): sleep-walkers, sleep-swimmers, sleep-paddlers caught in the middle of their dreaming when you wander out with a flashlight to see just where they’ve floated off to. To me these paintings are strongly connected with the paintings Cedar Falling and Desert Girl from yesterday’s post.
Today’s painting is a thank-you to artist Peter Doig, whose canvases fill my dreams on a regular basis. Who has painted many canoes, star-flecked skies and pudgy, dancing pine trees.
Thanks is also due to Canadian musician and poet Gordon Downie whose music and lyrics filter into my mind (and heart) on a near-daily basis. The songs Starpainters and Lofty Pines were particularly influential in the making of this painting, and the next painting that I will aim to post tomorrow.
Thanks also to my brothers who pasted the constellations with tiny glow-in-the-dark stickers on their bedroom ceilings growing up. And who continue to dream big, lofty dreams with white paddles flashing with silver…
Under Star Stickers, oil on canvas, 16 x 20"
And here is a detail:
Under Star Stickers detail
Sometimes the process of making a painting is over in a blink. The ideas come to me in an instant, I make the time to plan, sketch, set up the colours and dive in. My body cooperates (no headaches or back aches) and hours later I stumble out of the studio in a dehydrated daze trying to remember when I last ate… I’m happy when I peek back through the door and see a new creation staring back at me… I’m excited, often surprised as I stare at it… the painting almost seems to be saying, “What? Did I get the wrong address? Isn’t this where I’m supposed to be?”
But quite often, this is not the case. Sometimes ideas germinate for a long, long time. I sketch, I plan and nothing develops out of my efforts so I leave it alone and move on. Often I let the ideas go forever (there will always be more) but some are more potent than others and I keep thinking about them from time to time, curious and hopeful that they might still one day grow.
Cedar Falling, oil on canvas, 38 x 48"
I made Cedar Falling a few years ago and it has since been waiting for a “sibling” painting. I had many ideas in mind and never found the time between my four part-time jobs to test them out, always afraid they wouldn’t turn out and I’d have wasted my time. For the past two months however I’ve been walking past the imposing 38 x 48″ canvas of Cedar Falling, which I set against a wall in my living room – a constant reminder of those ‘loose ends’ in this story.
So for the past two weeks I’ve been piecing together more of the imagined narrative and have three new small canvases in various degrees of completion. Below is the first one that I finished today. Hopefully the other siblings will also find their full force and I’ll post them here… maybe they won’t. It’s a mystery. Stay tuned.
Desert Girl, oil on canvas, 16 x 20"
Here is my first Illustration using the glory of CS2, just as I promised you in my recent post: “A Little Animal Love“. Yep, I’m a bit behind the times, but will catch up soon enough.
Sun Patch
Right from the sketchbook today: this is a mock-up sketch for an illustration of another little story I’m working on. It may soon be digitized so stay tuned – this could be fun!
Page 3 sketch, graphite and pencil crayon on paper, 4 x 4"
Drawn from a photo by Liby Ball who owns this miraculous cat.
I have always been fascinated by my surroundings and easily get lured into the landscape. This painting may be a good example of this. Lately I see myself favouring warmer colours on my palette, mimicking the gnarled lines of the vegetation with my brushstrokes and inventing characters that are as enamored with adventuring as I am.
Here it is, the second painting in my new adventure series:
Towards the Old House, oil on board, 10 x 10"
There has been about a two month hiatus in my oil painting practice – something I did not really enjoy and will not repeat if I can help it. Nevertheless, I felt right at home in front of my easel today, minus some awkward moments getting used to painting like this again (paint on face, dropping brushes, spilling oil mediums etc.)
Here is a painting from a new series involving adventuring and strange places, and always, as much nature as possible.
Old House, oil on pine, 10 x 10"
