Made in China - Mixed Media
The taste of sulphur coated my tongue and the air clung to my skin as I emerged from the Beijing Capital International Airport on an unseasonably hot October night in 2007. I was on a whirlwind tour of the Asia-Pacific region as part of my work on an online network of universities. I was touching down in China’s capital for a 48 hour stay. Continue reading
Colour Mixing Experiment
I’ve been taking classes with Kitchener artist Alan Daniel. Alan is a master of technique and a marvelous illustrator. You can see his illustrations in the much-praised books The Story of Canada and recently in Fireside Al’s Treasury of Christmas Stories.
One of the tasks that Alan set for me was to learn how to mix a wide range of colours using the three primary colours – red, blue and yellow.
The accompanying image is of one of my mixing experiments using acrylics on wet watercolour paper. I love the way the colours spider across the wet paper, but unlike watercolours you can lay down heavy layers of paint while the paper is still wet, getting a more textured effect.
So much to learn, so little time.
New Painting: Reflections 2009 — I’ll start 2010 with good intentions to post here more often. Despite my best efforts I was unable to keep a consistent flow of ideas in 2009.
Perhaps this painting is an appropriate image to start with. Reflections 2009 is a piece I struggled with over the summer and fall.
It began as an anthropological examination of what you might find if you took a slice of the earth at the horizon line. I started out with newspaper pages attached to the board with several coats of gel medium. I gradually built up layers of paint, both washes and opaque colour. During different epochs found objects were attached to the board, then later removed leaving behind remnants of their presences. Sections were scraped down to the original board. More colour and texture were added.
The breakthrough came when things got turned upside down — the bottom became the top and the top was transformed from sky to shimmery echo of the textured other two-thirds.
In the end it is a much darker piece than I anticipated, but only now, after emerging for a tumultuous year, I recongize this is a more satisfiying representation of the my original intention.
I just finished this painting. Acrylic on masonite with found objects.
Click here to see a large image.
Comments welcome.
