Vignettes

It is true. There are no vines running through the images nor is there much shading. Some would call the collection of images charming, one of the qualities of a vignette so the dictionary says. Why vignette? Well, it is a convenient way to differentiate between sizes of murals. A vignette in my corner of the world is a three foot by four foot panel which will be mounted in a steel frame set beside a path in a park. A tableau is a four foot by eight foot panel and a mural is any size after that. So these are two of the three vignettes that I have been commissioned to paint. I prepared the panels as usual with molding paste and several coats of iridescent colour. The base is the same for all three: ultramarine blue and burnt sienna with a touch of silver. A little alizarin crimson adds a further dimension. I chose a purple watercolour pencil to do the drawing on the medical image. Purple is the colour of healing they say. My favorite poppy red watercolour pencil delineated the collection of parades, a complicated piece. Parades are lively, red is lively. Now all that is left to do is paint.

My world

This is so much fun! It looks like chaos but it is really organized chaos. We see here the feeding of my life’s blood, not one or two projects but ten, or more. Lovely! Boredom be gone! The three panels on the tables are commissions. Christmas money…maybe. The six panels on the left, leaning up against my moveable wall are the beginnings of a new series, again done in triplets. The untouched canvases on the easel are waiting for my attention in another series entitled, for the moment, “Pilgrims”. I have still-lifes set up all along the shelving to the right for pen and ink studies. The finished panel for Mural Mosaics sits just above the toaster oven and unobtrusively amid my lunch is a pad with a mechanical pencil. I have an incredible story to tell. The beginnings are down, prologue and a few sentences in chapter one. As with my paintings I have a vague idea where to begin, how it ends up is anyone’s guess. Well, the commissions are calling me. They are ready for an undercoat. I think I will pick my ultramarine blue/burnt sienna mix. All three will match that way! Once that is dry I will tackle the problem of having created the sketches in the wrong format, a ratio miscalculation. Sigh. Math.

Finishing Touches

Obviously the white hand had to go. The white bridge was a little shaky too.  I picked up the paint brush in my left hand again. I am not really left handed. The left hand fit in the picture. We artists make all kinds of sacrifices and use all manner of lies to create the illusion. Truth is expendable in painting. Purple people come into existence at the flick of a brush. Anyway, to get back to my left hand, I could see that the quick block in that I had previously made was somewhat inaccurate. The fingers did not quite work… That kind of truth is not expendable. So taking my other hand, a brush and a little gesso I adjusted the drawing to suit the circumstance. I considered the colour. The underpainting had been a pale green. I wondered what I could get away with. A green hand would work if I were careful about the rendering. Green is also part of the colour of flesh. The first layer was burnt sienna followed by yellow ochre and a touch of alizarin crimson with a dash of ultramarine blue. Yes, quite satisfying. I took out the phthalo green and brushed over the back of the hand and grazed a few other spots in the shadow areas. Just the ticket. Now for the bridge. It needed some understructure and a few fine negative spaces. Much better. As a finishing touch I wrote a poem, bilingually as usual, and enhanced the needles of the pine tree in the foreground. Perfect. All that is left is a protective overcoat and my signature…. Not in that order of course.

Blocking In

I considered using paint. I did use some coloured gesso to solidify some areas; it looks pure white but it isn’t. Then I decided I would block in with tissue paper. I have a lovely variety of colours and tonal values in the same colour combinations that Lewis used in his under painting. The challenge came in adjusting the image I had chosen with the tonal values already present. The bridge spanned some water. In the photo some of the water was light but very little, certainly not enough to respect the lighter areas laid down in the under painting. So…. I jumped into being artist, took control of the image and changed things. It just has to be believable that is all. I wanted to relate the sky to the water and the sunlit patches on the trunk of the tree to the right. Out came the gold. Real gold. So much fun. So, the blocking in is finished, the gold has been carefully positioned. Now, what has to be adjusted to relate to the original colours and tonal values so that the panels around me relate? That requires an image of the original panel…. Did I keep that? Thank God for computers!

Light and Negative Space

Quite a while back the St. Albert Painters’ Guild was searching for some images that we could use as a base for a collective interpretation. Everyone would have the same photo from which to work in their own style and media. I spent a few minutes wandering the parks of St. Albert one late afternoon, looking for those magic shots where light and negative space collaborated to form perfect compositions. I submitted my photos and someone else’s image was chosen. I was left with a file of beautiful inspirations for another day. The thought crossed my mind that one of those shots in particular would be excellent for my #53 panel. I hesitated. Chaos is still my middle name these days. Where might have I placed those printouts? This was to be another lesson for me in my faith journey. When my intention is clear the universe conspires to contribute to my success. I walked over to my cutting board, moved a couple of piles and voila! There it was. Considering my main colour palette to be gold and purple I chose an aubergine watercolour pencil and manipulated the image into the set parameters of value and colour. Next step: paint and perhaps a little real gold. Tissue paper? Mmmm…. Anything is possible as this piece will not be attached to an outside wall but rather archived for future generations. Love it!

Beginnings

I decided to be part of the Lewis Lavoie team in another mural mosaic which is destined to replace the ill-fated “What Inspires a Child” in St. Albert. This is my panel #53. The selection process itself is intriguing. How does one choose from a pile of disconnected squares covered in abstract strokes of paint? I once heard of a sculptor who visited quarries with a metal file. When he happened upon an interesting rock he struck it with the file to listen to its story. He bought the one with the best story. I found several panels that had a story to tell and I allowed each one to speak to me. I selected the one with the best rhythm and rhyme. Taking it home I set it aside giving it time to more fully develop the tale it had to tell. I mulled over the possibilities. I could celebrate dance, Mother Nature, story telling, quilt making, music. Perhaps I could concentrate on my own joy: painting. There is also the consideration of technique. How could I best incorporate my mixed media technique in this little exercise? Last week I mentioned how much I love light and negative space. These two elements are necessarily part of the equation. O.K. I have the basics but what is the image to be? I guess I will allow some more incubation time.

Celebration: 150

I am so getting better at ‘en plein air’. I am discovering what really fascinates me: the play of light and how that works with negative space. I also discovered, with this particular painting, why photographs just do not cut it. I had not quite finished the bottom of the piece when I snapped a photo and brought it home after a long day of painting under the willow tree. I had been very thankful for that willow tree. The sun shone all day and it was hot. In the shade not only was I protected but the sunlight did not pounce off the surface of the paper and distort the colours I was using. I had stood for sometime gazing at the river and its surroundings before I decided what had attracted me to the scene besides the shade... I love the spaces between the blades of grass. I love the challenge to simplify, a necessary step because there are always too many blades of grass. I gazed at the background and decided what I was going to eliminate while keeping the illusion that I had eliminated nothing…. Fun! First I took a poppy red watercolour pencil and began to record the large spaces from the background enjoying the increasing difficulty of deciding which negative space to include. Carefully rendering the background without a lot of detail I came to the fun part of painting the water reflections within the negative spaces while at the same time keeping the tonal values and colour consistent with the surrounding landscape. Then, with the bottom I began to slap in some curvy strokes emulating the shaded grassy areas. I was tired so I packed up and went home. I had enough information to complete the painting at home. I printed off a copy of the photo I had taken and compared notes. Wow! The exuberance of the shaded strokes could not be seen in the photo. I continued with the same strokes, relying on memory, and left a little grass in the sunlight at the bottom. Standing back I decided that the patch of light at the bottom needed to disappear. It was distracting. Once I had finished covering the paper with darkish paint I moving into darker paint and created the negative patterns between the blades. A few more touches and voila! How I love my job!