New Work

Surfacing

Surfacing

“Surfacing” was me using my paints and brushes to muse about what a surface is. I wondered about scale, and at what scale does a surface become contained. Teasing out cycles, I will generally take a lot of time in a re-iterative exploration of form, depth & nuance in my painting and drawing. The art gradually reveals to me it’s own relationships and inner structure. My unique eyes allows me to enjoy a unique vision. The whale was a whimsical spirit acting as Gaia’s powerful,

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CatLynn – Our Cat Tree Dancer

My Lady told me she wanted an outdoor cat tree on our back deck. There is a wood wall that covers a sealed doorway. It would be the perfect place to put some sort of cat perch for our Furry Fellows George & Ulysses. She had the happy thought that I would make a Tree Dancer for cats as its structure. I was stalled on how to design and construct her proposed outdoor cat tree dancer. So I snapped at her suggestion we design one and commission a metal worker to build it. 

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W.I.P. Whale Dream drawing

Whale Dream is something I’ve been wanting to visit for a while now. There ought to be a few drawings I can pull out of this general theme. This one is the first – 17″ x 23″ finished size.

Just for the heck of it, I’m putting a photo of the piece as it currently sits on the easel in my studio. The clamps that are holding the (well sanded) wood strips on either side of the plexiglass drawing board allow me to easily move my mahl stick to any orientation while I’m working.

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Sky Drop

I had an image of an Earth Mother type figure that acted as the central engine of life. A flow of light and energy and spirit that fills everything, guided by the organizing principal that seems to be what life is, weaving ever-more widely reaching possibilities out of the materials at hand and creating the wonders that we share in as living creatures.

I wasn’t sure just how a painting of this would come together, but I at least had an idea of what it would look like.

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Time

There has been a shift, somehow, in ages past that has resulted in this place I now stand. I sometimes wonder what is the real place I am standing in. Is my perspective limited in some way? Ought I shift my viewpoint in order to really see what is around me?

Myth Becomes Dream

I was thinking about the stories of time gone by. Stories that have become myths. And these myths in turn, as the ages pass, have slipped away. New people, new lands, new stories, each in turn slipping into that deep and faraway place we sometimes connect into and call it a dream.

 

acrylic 24″ x 18″

 

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Kuwaiti Tree Dancers

The hotel in Kuwait City didn’t have any place for me to sit outside and enjoy the view, so I ended up spending a lot of time in our room drawing. Luckily I’d prepared for this, and was able to get a set of 4 Tree Dancer drawings finished.

Night Toad

I had this strong mental image of the silhouette of a large toad on a toadstool as seen from below. How would that affect the lives, the patterns, the stories of those who lived in it’s shadow? I’ve started the tentative beginnings of a children’s fable, but in the meantime a completely different aspect presented itself to me visually. So I drew it out. Here are different stages of the drawing.

Sky Dancer painting WIP

I thought I’d blog this painting’s progress because I haven’t done a painting for a while (those Tree Dancers keep leaping onto the page) and thought I’d try a different process than one I’d been using recently.

9"x 12" pencil

Passing Glances in 3 steps

I didn’t think to take a photo of this piece until it was pretty well set, so there isn’t a real early stage photo. But it is interesting to see a couple of intermediary steps before the finished look. I didn’t try to make the colour of the stages look like the finished piece. I think that is part of their attraction, actually.

Passing Glances – I knew how I wanted it to look and used an image that was very close to the final layout in order to give me a good proportional drawing.

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