I tend to get bogged down by larger scale creative projects which can end up feeling like a chore by the time they're finished. In order to avoid the boredom and explore new ideas, I like to slide in a quick painting now and then. Just something done in an hour or two, with no expectations of what it will be, or how it needs to end up. Here are a few recent items...

Hustle
I just painted this one up loosely based on a sketch I did. I've missed working in oil. It's my favourite medium and it had been over a year so this one just felt good. I enjoyed wiping my hand around in the paint and blurring out some of the face. I find a lot of my effort goes into loosening up and not caring about details which I know I really don't have the patience for.




Carriage
I also used to do a lot of work on a more collaged surface. I layered a few snippets from my collection onto a canvas and spread out some colour over it as a start. It needed some sort of outline drawing, of something unexpected, which I picked flipping through an encyclopedia. I think this type of old-time carriage even had a special name I learned (but have since unlearned).

I've been looking at this abstract print for a really long time, and have concluded that it has to be a jaguar. Maybe a hyena even, but mostly jaguar. Printmaking can be an enlightening process as it forces you to rely less on drawing and more on solid areas, and prevents you from becoming too focused on details.

The original was done as a black print on white paper, with oil paint on glass and has been sitting around for a while, so I thought I'd lend it some new life. Some digital colour and texture were all it needed in Photoshop to make it a bit more interesting, though no less mysterious.

The birds in the yard can be loud. Loud and mornings don't go very well together. I sometimes wonder what all the chirping is really about...maybe birds are just bellyaching about their early morning commute. Incidents of birdrage may be on the rise.

I guess officially it is actually summer now, but it did take its time arriving. And the weather keeps on fluctuating so it can be hard to pin down exactly where in the calendar we are. Nevertheless, here is an old random collage pieced together with a bunch of different bits o' stuff.

It's good to use up bits of random illustration board and paper scraps instead of throwing them away. In fact, sometimes it even turns into something useful. Here are a few portraits I painted in oil, over top of some collage leftovers, and on oddly cut boards. One of my favourite things about oil paint is the ability to carve back into it before it dries. I find working outside of the box and the normal frame dimensions can add a new perspective or generate fresh ideas when least expected.

In honour of the colour of Valentine's Day, here's an old mixed media print I did featuring Red. I can't exactly remember what the process was but I believe I started with a block cut print. Then on top of that I did some watercolour and some inking and pencil scratches. Also of note, it seems to be from my comic-period, when everything I painted needed to be on top of comic book panels torn from random 80's features like New Kids on the Block. An interesting experiment anyways

Here's an old one for Movember! I think this is some sort of print hybrid, that I went back over with oil pastel, and then inked on top of that...I can't really remember. Sometimes things become more mysterious as they get older. Except for the moustache...timeless

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.

The appearance of Spring means it's time to think about getting your garden underway. Whether it's filled with inspiring blooms or tasty vegetables, gardens go with spring like snow and Far West jackets in the 90's go with winter...the natural world never stops its cycle.

Gardening brings to mind an old self-portrait I painted of myself as a carrot. Sometimes enough is enough with self-portraits and a differerent take is needed. Carrot Top was done in oil on a large discarded roof shingle of some sort. Roof shingles and expensive paintbrushes surprisingly do not get along so well together.

The Hammer isn't always pretty...or not really at all. But its years of decay and neglect as an aging industrial city do produce some interesting subjects to draw and paint.

Here's a view somewhere in downtown, done about five or six years ago. Painted with acrylic over a wax resist, along with xacto scratching, it takes on an interesting feel and texture, which seems to suit the grittiness of the area