This was a somewhat more radiant tumult. I felt thwarted by this but am coming around.
August 14th, 2017
This I painted when very upset by events in the US that week. It was a tumult frame of mind, producing a tumultuous sunset.
July 31st, 2017
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in
Lake of the Woods, Ontario
A nice sunny, windy day – still shaking off some rust but feeling better about how it was coming out.
July 30th, 2017
I painted this inside the boathouse on a sunny, windy day outside. Like the one below, it was a sketch I tried just to get back into the painting way of processing. What was dumb was that it was so bright out and dark in that I couldn’t see my colours properly. It was frustrating but I had to choose either to give it up & waste the paint or see it through. I chose the latter. My fixation was on the colours I was trying to blend, the drawing & perspective were not important as is apparent.
July 30th, 2017
Just a quick sketch to shake off the rust.
July 26th, 2017
I’m not sure who he is but he asked to be drawn and when I saw him, I felt I have or will know him forever.
Gloucester Blue
I was grateful to have the opportunity to paint at the Sargent House garden on an absolutely glorious summer day. I opted for a spot in full sun and was careful for the sake of being able to see my palette consistently to position myself so that even through the course of the 5 hours I was there no shadows would hit me. The downside of course was that it was a very hot day – not only was I roasting, but also the board I was working on! Generally I think of myself as relatively intelligent and yet it had somehow not occurred to me what the effect of a canvas primed black would be – effectively, a skillet.
I mixed & matched all my colours carefully and slapped them on the board in a hurry trusting I could resolve all the flaws the next day. Well, the next day the painting was dry as a desert and therefore unfixable. So I used my painting as a guide and the colours I had mixed on site and painted this the next day.
I got a little tour of the museum while I was there, including the John Singer Sargent room. The room features one of his old palettes, which I’m told features a colour blue that doesn’t match blues on any of his other palettes. It’s possible there’s a very dull reason for this – like he had run out of his preferred blue and had to settle for what there was available to him in Gloucester at the time… but I prefer to believe it is because of the unique roseate quality of light in Cape Ann, and that nowhere else do you see such a dizzyingly gorgeous violet blue skies.
June 14th, 2017
Unable to get to the lake this year until deep into the summer (Well, mid-July but May & June are my favorite months there) I have been “mooning around” despondent. Seemed fitting to paint the moonlight.
May 30th, 2017
Again, felt like being a little more detailed – plus, I have a bunch of these small canvases to use up. Was thinking of my late Uncle and his breathtaking garden.
May 17th, 2017
After painting Obama I felt like I was not entirely ready to return to the broad strokes I’m used to as a knife painter. In the mood for more detail. Hence this small painting of a loon in my lakewater (Lake of the Woods.) I think it looks better in person though.