What a stellar morning. When i woke up i could see that it was going to be terrific morning for gathering resource info. Between 6am and 8am is the window of opportunity for me… I pulled my jacket on over my pj’s and before i had coffee i was out there.  Some geese watched me.  The wetlands are so full of life, even early on a November morning. 

‘You Never Know What’s Around The Corner’ – oil on linen – 12″ x 12″ I decided to give in to my inclinations.  After yesterday’s playful landscape venture I thought I’d play around again with some urban landscape elements…moving them around to satisfy my whim.  If you know Kingston you might recognize some landmarks in this painting, but they have been whittled down to simple elements… you definately wont recognize the exact place! ha ha. It’s a product of my imagination.  I really had fun with this. 
I will be showing 7 or 8 paintings in an upcoming show at Kingston Frameworks Gallery beginning November 6.  The work will be in the gallery for the month of November and some of December.  The show is to feature the work of 3 artists: Sylvia Naylor (stitched paper collage), Florence Niven (fused glass) & myself (with oil paintings).  All of my pieces for this show have a whimsical bent…a little bit of magic  and frolic for the holiday season.

Here’s my inventive observation in process: Floating around in the hot-tub this morning at 8am,  looking out over the autumn landscape around me i decided i was really in the mood to do something to celebrate the gorgeous fall day dawning around me.  In the studio digging through my photo resources I came across this landscape  scene;  I loved the roly poly hills and fields.  It’s one I snapped on a pitstop somewhere between Toronto and Kingston one day in May.  You can see (vaguely)on the monitor the photo resource I am using for this piece.  It’s my jumping off board to start today’s painting.  I’ve posted my start so you can see how it’s going.  Fun and liberating.

‘Tapestry’ - oil on canvas – 30″ x 30″  It’s 5:45 pm, so it’s officially Halloween I guess.  I wouldn’t know it.  Out here in the country, trick-or-treaters are pretty scarce.   
This evening I’m posting the painting that I’ve been working on most of the afternoon. I had originally painted it with a cool forground, but it didn’t  work.  This afternoon I decided to glaze it with a warm dark which helped a lot.   Almost every evening around here I get a most spectacular sky show.  I’ve been painting it quite a bit lately.  The sky affects the local colour of things on the ground like the trees (in this case) or the livestock, or farm buildings in the other paintings i’ve worked on; but  it always surprises me how much these things are influenced by it. Something about this composition brought to mind patterns from a silk kimono or tapestry, and so the title.

‘Clarence & Ontario’ -oil on canvas – 12″x 12″   “What made me want to paint this?”  I ask myself that a lot when I’m painting.  In this case I know that my goal was to paint an urban scene, paring down the shapes as much as I could.   I find it difficult to super simplify urban landscapes, and yet all the more reason to take up the challenge is the way I see it!  For me it is so much easier to apply the method when painting serene rural landscapes.  A lot of it has to do with joining shapes of similar values which can  read as one shape; but when perspective comes in to play, as is so often present in urban scenes, it gets confusing.    
The good thing is I probably wont run out of urban subjects to knock myself out with! ha ha.  Sometimes what makes me want to paint is the mood of the subject.  The mood of this one seemed inviting with the flowerbox hanging over the patio railing.  I think i was a bit thirsty for a cold one… this pub at the corner of Clarence and Ontario streets in Kingston serves great irish brew!

Sheep Farm -oil on canvas – 14″ x 18″  Using summer sketches from a rather grey afternoon near Perth,  I developed this painting yesterday in the studio.   Queen ann’s lace is in full bloom from July to September along the roadsides and ditches in Ontario…it’s spritely growth habit really appeals to me and I’ve often wanted to have a go at painting it.  There’s quite a repitition of soft rounded shapes here,  the queen ann’s lace, the sheep, and then the haybales near the barn. hmmm…the mound of turf behind the sheep might need a little more condsideration.  Best to leave it alone for now though.

 Setting up for the studio tour weekend always takes me way longer than i think it’s going to, and consequently  I dont get any painting done while I’m making it happen.  So instead of new work, I’m posting pics from the tour. Here you can see two of my favourite people Claudia and Donna who came out for a visit; enjoying a cappacino in my livingroom gallery with some of the paintings.  Stoneheath studio saw about 60 visitors on Saturday,and about the same amount on Sunday.  I sold some work,  and had a good time greeting visitors.  However I have come to the decision to stop doing the studio tour in the future. I want to try other things now.

Last week on Thursday night I went with a friend to the Kingston Arts & Letters Club. It’s a relatively new club, in it’s 2nd year in Kingston and is still finding it’s feet with art enthusiasts here.  There was a big turnout, as the topic for the evening was: “Whither Portraiture?”…a timely subject, as The Kingston Prize is currently on exhibit at the Grand Theatre in Kingston this month before it moves on to Wolfville NS,  Toronto & Calgary.  That evening the speaker was Gary Michael Dault (globe&mail art critic).   He spoke once last year at the club as well, and i found it interesting.  However this evening  I wasn’t very impressed.  I was surprised to realize just how little insight an  ’art critic’  needs before waxing poetic contempt about a subject.  Being articulate doesn’t necessarily mean one knows what he is talking about and in fact he proved this a few times on Thursday evening…in my opinion he was  narrow minded on the subject.   Thank goodness there was a few humourous quotes, and some educated portrait artists in the crowd: Daniel Hughes, Ben Darrah, & JT Winik (to name a few) who were able to argue for the relevance, culture and validity of portraiture in art.  We left early.

‘Finding The Light’ -oil on canvas – 16 x 20″  I forgot to post this one when i finished it.  I think i forgot about it because it kind of evolved over time. I started painting the nasturtium growth habit about 8 months ago, basically to satisfy my urge to paint one day when i wasn’t focused enough to plan anything out.  (I usually do at least a small thumbnail of a painting before i start one).  I just charged away with gusto, slap- dash and there you have it.  It sat around  for a long time looking rather garish and brazen, but somehow i didn’t paint over it.(it must have been hiding out of sight, because usually if i have something lying around that’s not working i do the old paint over trick) There was something about it’s twisting curling vines that still appealed to me, but it had no depth.  Anyhow about a month ago i got a hankering to try a deep raw umber glaze on it, trying to get the feel of dappled sunlight on a dark corner of the garden.  It certainly wasn’t working as is was, so i thought  ”what have i got to lose?”  i mixed up the glaze and painted over that gregariously gross green vine until i found a light pattern emerging.  i would say that light inspires 90% of my work,  although i am attracted to shapes and rhythm running thru subjects too. I plucked a couple of nasturtium buds from my garden and brought them up to the studio to model for me after the glaze had dried.  So that’s my story of “Finding the Light.”