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).

Since it seems that winter wants to hang around for a while still, here are 2 quick vignettes, inspired by the cold temperature and grey landscape.

The first is a photo collage, pieced together with some random photos and some textures I had lying around. Just an excuse to play around with a cool palette, which I don't usually restrict myself to.

The next is a doodle done with leftover paint. The thought popped into my head that winter is also about rosy cheeks and knit patterns, so I tried to sum that up in under a minute with only a few brushstrokes.

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.

I don't remember what the exact point of this old collage done in about 2005 was...but from what I can observe now it would be that choosing patterned swimwear can be dicey at best.

Just like any other activity, it's a good idea to keep your painting muscles in good shape...otherwise they might just get flabby. I like to think of this sort of exercise as painting without an agenda. Find whatever surface is laying around the house and start to drop layers onto it. Mix mediums with different types of paints, pastels, solid colours, typography, line work, texture, collage, spray paint...anything you can get your hands on. The more the merrier. The best part is that there is no finish point. Simply stop when you feel the painting is interesting, or store it away to add to again later. Often as in my recent example, crops of the final painting can hold quite a bit of curious details within them.

As most of the world celebrates the death of Osama Bin Laden, I was reminded of an old painting I did, focusing on other, less benevolent foreign military ventures that the US has been involved with. In fact, once you sort through the full out wars, and the playful meddling imperialism of the 80's in Latin America, there seems very left in the way of positive results. More often than not, the U.S military is mixed up in business that it shouldn't be, and gets its hands caught in the cookie jar. But score one for the good guys. Yo mama osama.

Randomly scouting large words in the dictionary, sometimes can produce an interesting find. As in this case, I stumbled across a word "defenestration", which is the act of throwing something or someone out a window. A word that says so much, with so little, deserves at least a quick collage. It also helped in the comprehension of the jeopardy category, Defenestration in Cinema.