Fall 2010 - New directions

Fall 2010 was a time of trying new and different approaches to painting - I had a course at the Toronto School of Art with TIna Poplawski on all the things you could put into acrylic paint combined with different approaches. Very exciting stuff!  Here's some of the things I did both in and outside of the course. I hope you will be surprised at how different it is from my other posted work!

Manning Park Lake

I visited Manning Park in fall 2009 and you cannot but be struck by the beauty of the mountains. It's a harsh but beautiful environment - snow was already beginning to fall in September and the ravaging effects of the pine beetle infestation were everywhere to be seen.  This was the most successful of my class paintings - taking the thickest of all the items you can add to paint to add so much texture.  I think it's appropriate for the subject matter to make something so still also lively and in some ways out of control. Size: 14 by 12 inches. SOLD!

Fall Apples

November north of Toronto, a few apples are holding onto their tree, rotting on the branch.  Lovely rich earth tones.  This was our encaustic imitation class and I was very energetic, which adds something to the tangle of branches in the background. I feel they are very lively, although I would have liked them to move a bit more into the background. Everything but the branches is done with the palette knife, which is a great way to work freely. Size: 12 by 14 inches.

Mango dry brush

I have always loved drawing white on black and that's what we did in one of our classes. This was an exercise in self restraint for me, using very little paint to create a pastel look and to keep some of the black coming through at all times.  I really like the result, it reminds me of Georgia O'Keefe - floating in space and time. Size: 14 by 12 inches NFS

Mango - new Old Master look

I did six mango paintings in my class in fall 2010, only two make the cut for the blog though.  This one amazed me in that we used an incredibly restrained palette, I think three colours and white only.  And yet the result is bursting with energy, using techniques from the Old Masters but benefiting from modern paints.  Size: 14 by 12 inches

Winter sunset 1

This painting was on raw canvas, no gesso. First time I ever tried this (or knew you could...). Fortunately, I picked an image that lends itself to this approach which is similar to working in watercolour.  You can't really work a lot of details when the canvas is wet, but you can really blend colours well with the right brushes and sunsets are a good subject for such blending.  Size: 14 by 12 inches 

Winter Sunset 2

Here's the second version. I decided to leave out the tree. I was not paying attention, so I did it on a non-rectangular piece of canvas. I prefer it without the tree actually - feels colder for some reason. I have always loved fall/winter sunsets and enjoyed painting this and learning how to blend colours on the canvas in ways I had never succeeded before. Size: 15 by 18 inches

Thanks for reading and looking!