Every time I venture into an abstract painting I find myself somewhat lost. I guess the point is that by the end of the painting you should have found something along the way but with abstract works, I just never know when the journey is complete. There is a good amount of layering, making marks and covering them up, in this case across a six foot canvas for a conference room...but unless you regularly work in the abstract there is always the urge to improve upon it.

There is great challenge to be had, in reducing something down to to basics of colour and composition. I found this piece to be unique, actually going into it with a bit of a plan and colour tone, but finding out quickly that doing what feels right actually is the logical choice. Putting constraints on drips and splatters of paint is not a very sane thing to do.

I busied myself for a few days with a little cute cat footstool project for Mother's Day. As my first cat project of this nature, I wasn't sure I could make it as endearing as a career cat painter, but it seemed to turn out ok. I don't know if my success will carry over to a genre specialist but it was an interesting challenge. Painted in acrylic with an antiqued feel

Row houses are a great source of unending artistic inspiration. They just kind of stack up together nicely in unusual shapes and colours, randomness hard to naturally recreate. And every place has it's own style too.


I took a shot at painting some bright coloured rows of the buildings lining the canals in Amsterdam...a pretty popular subject in all the souvenir shops. Split into two sections, the underpainting is just loose square shapes of acrylic blocked in. Then overtop of that, I created a bunch of texture by dragging oil pastels over the toothy board. And I threw in a twinkly Van Gogh sky just because.

Sometimes I've got my head in the clouds. But it's more of a useful thinking mode when you need to come up with ideas and solutions. Not at all related to the snooty head in the clouds, which is more of an I'm the most important person on the planet and I can't be bothered with doing anything for myself and mortal thoughts in general vibe.

Infinitely more annoying, the latter inspired this painting on wood which I did I think a few years ago. It's notable as it involves clouds, which I hate to draw or paint. Something about their insubstantialness.

Sometimes a painting drags on. Especially if it's a larger canvas, and especially if you don't like the direction it's gone. There's always one that sits around for months while you chip away at it.

My most recent battle has been with a painting of some old buildings I call Property, which only within the last few weeks have I started to consider finished. At 36x48 in size, it wore me down over a period of about four months. I worked in layer after layer, starting in oils and then shifting over to acrylic. It didn't seem to matter what I did, it was just turning out much duller than expected. Too tentative...it happens a lot on a big surface...smaller brushes just don't produce enough energy. I made the decision to work back into the painting with house paints and a large brush, dripping and spattering until it felt right. It was a tough choice considering it wasn't really a bad painting and there was the potential to ruin it, but since I didn't like it anyway, the risk seemed worth it. Overall it's a stronger painting and I'm trusting my gut.

 At some point in time I got the idea to paint a faux exposed brick backsplash in the kitchen. It seemed more attainable than either a real brick wall or tiling for any number of reasons. I did underestimate the time it would take, which despite succesfully not rendering every little brick detail, ended up being a bit of a journey. But as Teddy R said, "Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty..."



The process began with two coats of drywall compound, in rows of brick strokes. The natural stopping and starting, as well as overlap, created the 3-D shape of bricks, along with some interesting textures. I sponged it as it was drying for more texture. Next I gave the area a warm basecoat and  began laying my yellows following the basic brick pattern. I used about 7 different warm colours in total, being particular about which colours I mixed and trying to keep a realistic pattern. Some of each colour was saved to drybrush over top of the solids and work some colour harmony and texture in. I followed that with some toothbrush spatters.

The step of painting in the mortar took a while, as I followed the existing texture to seperate the bricks. As I worked, I drybrushed over certain areas, to add aging and crumble and fade out pieces of brick. Finally, I completed the look with a light airbrushed shadow underneath each brick. Overall it turned out surprisingly well, actually more so in person than photos. One of the stranger murals I've done.

At the tail end of a busy winter painting season, I managed to finished up a few paintings and drawings including this conceptual one I call Distance. It was something I've had in my head for a long time, inspired by a Calvin and Hobbes strip. In it, Calvin brings a plane to show and tell to emphasize how much distance he will soon be putting between himself and classmates he doesn't like. I thought a traffic jam would be an obvious symbol representative of a place someone might want to escape from. Really, the underlying idea is more important though, that distance is a strong emotional state of mind, whether it's wanting to put distance between something, or wanting to close the distance and get somewhere faster.

A large painting at over four feet tall, Distance was built up in several layers of mostly acrylic. First a full fill of random notations and lists, followed by a monochromatic traffic scene. Then, on top of that, the hand and plane in a linear style, meeting up with the typographic message.

After buying an inversion table, I had a bunch of large cardboard lying around that I couldn't bear to recycle without attempting to repurpose first. Based on a blurry roadtrip photo, this painting of an old barn, seemed to make pretty good use of the material.

My idea was to harness the natural cardboard grooves and turn them into the wood planks of the rusting barn. Barns themselves can be quite interesting subjects to paint with the various shades and textures of weathering and degrees of decay. Though the scene is from a bleak winter day, I wanted to accent all of the cool grey and white with some warm colours popping around the composition, to generate a bit more interest.

 The expanded version of the article about my painting in the Tribune also ran in the St.Catharines Standard. Page two article, along with an unexpected cover inset. Here are a few screen shots of the layout.

Inspired by the orange brown colour scheme of the new living room, I could feel the creation of an orange painting was only a matter of time. Done on a horizontal gallery canvas in acrylic, East vs West began just as an an abstract mix of colours. On top of that, I layered another round of abstract colour, keeping the brushstrokes more defined and unblended. Feeling ok with that stage, I dropped on with oil pastel, two different line drawings. There is a New York scene done in light colour, and a San Francisco scene done in darker grey. Both drawings merge with each other to create an interesting visual collage. Depending on if it is brightly lit or dim, only one city sketch pops out from the mass of orange.

In this quick little painting in acrylic, I set out to paint a city sunset, without the sunset. I wanted to challenge myself to think more about positive and negative space, rather than than true colours and a black outline. In keeping with orange hues, it basically reduces the image to a series of layered silhouettes, while dropping the late evening-sun going down on the city vibe. And of course a romantic couple is the perfect subject to include in such a painting. This was based on a series of reference photos taken in Toronto.

I have a painting that will be showing in next month's 6th Annual juried art exhibition at St.Catharines city hall. My painting Hockey Shrine was chosen to be among the thirteen local artists showcased. This year's theme is Shoot High-Go Low:Art & Sports in St.Catharines, with the show running May 20 - August 13, 2010.
This painting is a portrait of Bill Burgoyne Arena, an older venue which still houses all of the Kiwanis hockey in the area. Since I spent much of my youth playing hockey there, it holds a lot of unique memories, and I wanted to capture a bit of that in the work. I guess I wanted to say that while it's not a new jazzy four-pad arena, there is still plenty of community spirit inside. Hockey Shrine was painted in acrylic on canvas, over some old collage hockey photos, with a heavy gloss varnish.