Eternal City - early days yet!

I was in Rome for the second time a few years ago, and did this sketch of the Teatro Marcellus. There was something about it, and I knew it was a foil to my painting that I was working on at the time, Fractured City. So the intention to paint this was always there, the sketch a little kernel for the future.

For Incognito 2017, the fundraiser for the Jack & Jill Foundation, I conceived of three "cityscape" postcards. So  still the painting was on my mind.

I took a printmaking workshop at the beginning of April this year in order to learn the Chine collé technique and quickly did an intaglio from my sketch.

Finally, I unrolled some canvas, quite a large piece (takes up most of the wall in my attic studio) and blocked in Eternal City.

I started to apply metal leaf in the negative areas behind the architectural structures.

I had applied some texture before blocking in the painting, but then decided that I wanted some rougher texture on the older part of the Teatro building.

I will gesso over this scrim burlap and re-block before I get into the meat of painting.

The texture of the columns is mostly smooth rather than canvas.

Gare d'Antibes - finished painting!

I was away in the US & Canada towards the end of June and beginning of July so I had to leave my painting till my return. I worked on it on my return in July and in August finally put my signature to the completed painting.

My husband took lots of detail photos for me. Where mountains meet sky.

Sunset sky.

Antibes train station.

Tree branches with mountain background.

Treeline, mountains and sky.

Here is the complete painting: Gare d'Antibes, acrylic on paper, approx 220 cm x 267 cm, triptych, 2015.

Gare d'Antibes - new painting in progress

This is the view from the third floor apartment in Antibes, where we have stayed a few times with relatives. This is looking to the left, north. at the maritime alps at sunset over Gare d'Antibes. The view right is gorgeous too, looking south the harbour is only a 5-10 minute walk away with the scultpure, Le Nomade looking out over the Mediterranean. This picture was taken last August.

 If I had turned the camera left at the time, the picture would have been of yachts and a floodlit Le Nomade. 

But I digress. I did a quick sketch last August of the parts of the view that intrigued me: the line of the mountains and the large tree in front of the station. The sketchbook I was using at the time is one of my own, pocket sized using recycled materials.

A few months ago my husband was assisting me in putting up some kraft paper so that I could start a new painting of the sunset over Gare d'Antibes.

I first did a preliminary chalk drawing. Immediate changes are apparent once I started to add paint. 

And so the process of painting begins with some blocks of colour...

Anticipation!

It took a bit of figuring out - I re-sewed the hanging loops to make them a bit shorter and gave a bit of direction to my personal slave (I mean husband) - Fractured City was taken down from the studio wall to make some space for some new work that I want to start. Of course, putting this painting up (above my husband's workspace in the bedroom) meant that at least 6 other paintings had to be manoeuvred about the house!

So yesterday morning once again I required some assistance to get the kraft paper onto the wall in my studio.

I have planned another triptych and now it is ready for me to start!

Fever Afterimages - some finished paintings!

I've finished the other two small canvases, but I am posting the first one again so all three can be seen together. They are all the same size, 40.5 cm x 51 cm, acrylic on canvas, 2014. I created the texture before painting began by gluing newsprint onto the canvas.

Fever Afterimage 3:

Fever Afterimage 2:

Fever Afterimage1:

Dream Paintings

My huband has been teaching me how to use GIMP, an free software programme alternative to Photoshop. Since I regularly need to adjust colour, crop and resize images, I have been getting in some practice with old polaroids of artworks that I don't have properly documented. I am only doing the simple things to the image, so there is still a lot of "noise".

This painting is one of many paintings I did at the time based on dreams. Specifically, in the dream I was surrounded by water looking up at the sky and could see a red sailed boat on the horizon. I sold this painting sometime in the 1980s to a friend in Toronto who was an art conservator at the time but then got into alternative therapies. Recently she let me know that this painting is hanging in the new offices of her practice. I was delighted that it still has pride of place! I saw it after she had it framed over 25 years ago and it looked fantastic (if I do say so myself!). The painting is primarily acrylic on heavy watercolour paper; two of the hands are silver paper affixed to the ground before painting was complete. Though not visible in this picture, there are many white lines radiating from the stars in the pink sky which I created painstakingly with a ruling pen (do people still use this tool?). The piece is quite large, either 3 or 4 feet square. 

This painting is also about 3 or 4 feet square, acrylic on heavy watercolour paper and based on the same dream. I don't know if this piece is rolled up somewhere or was a casualty of one of my purges!

Also taken from a tiny polaroid, this image is an installation view of some paintings that were shown in Winters College gallery while I was at York University. It may have been spring 1986 or may have been earlier. This triptych and diptych are acrylic on canvas, each panel being 4' x 3'. They are again based on the same watery dream with the starry sky and red-sailed boat. I know most definitely that these paintings no longer exist, as they were destroyed in a purge before I moved countries and the stretchers were sold to Central Technical School for use by students in the post-secondary art programme.

 

More work on Fever Afterimages paintings

I have been working on the small(ish) paintngs of Fever Afterimages, slowly adding colour. The central yellow area here was originally a deep dioxazine purple (bits are still visible at the edges, so you can see how much a painting can change as I am working on it.

This is still very much in the early stages too.

I finished and signed this one today: Fever Afterimages 1, acrylic on canvas, 40.5 cm x 51 cm.

Fever Afterimages - painting!

After the past week of lovely weather and dealing with the damsons - picking & canning (jams & chutneys) - I have finally gotten a chance to get back to the studio. So, I have been working out the compositions of my three small paintings in the Fever Afterimages series.

 And have started to add some colour.

I have always liked the contrast between this chromium green and the purple/pink/blue combo. But this is just the start, so who knows what it will end up looking like!

Fever Afterimages

Though I haven't quite finished with my "Moments" series (there is at least one more related painting that I want to do) -- I have had ideas for another group of monoprints and a painting percolating for the past year! With this in mind, I started preparing canvas. The painting will be a free-hanging piece, unstretched. I am making use of end pieces of canvas, I have sewn 5 pieces together and made hanging loops. I wanted to pre-soak the canvas, so here it is hanging outside to dry. I plan to apply texture in the form of newsprint glued on, though it will be completely covered by paint not as per Maritime Alps and Tree Kids where the paint was translucent. 

As is my usual practice, ideas for new work generally show up on my greeting cards first. These were all created in 2013 for various occasions. I haven't yet decided on the composition or colouration for the painting, but I expect to have it worked out with the help of the monoprints and drawings, which I am starting this week.

 I am titling this body of work "Fever Afterimages". For once I am not tentative about the title!

Maritime Alps - finished!

By the end of last week I had finished "Maritime Alps" the triptych I have been working on. I think it is the last painting of the "Moments" series for now, as I have had some other work percolating in my head for at least a year, which is a definite departure from this series.

Maritime Alps, mixed media on kraft paper, approx 220 cm x 267 cm triptych, 2014.

Here are some details which show the drawing I did on top of the painting. The drawing is done with a black china marker. 

The signature is towards the bottom of the right panel. This is the first completed work of 2014.

To give a better idea of scale, here I am with the completed painting.

Maritime Alps - still in progress

Still working on my triptych, Maritime Alps. It is coming along nicely - here are some more details which show the progress. This is a detail of the figure on the left panel.

Below is a detail of the figure on the right panel'

This is a detail of the rocks on the right panel. I like Oscar Wilde showing up from the newsprint under the yellow paint (in the top third of this detail).