Snowy Morning In Springbank

A scene from early this morning. Very simple, atmospheric.

Watercolour

11" X 4"

For information on this or any other painting contact me.

Weaselhead with Snow

I am a believer that you don't need to go too far to find inspiration when you paint en plein air. It also helps me to think of these 'on location' experiences as information-gathering sessions rather than trying to produce a 'masterpiece'. This way I can relax and just throw the paint around.

This image was a quick reaction to the view from the parking lot overlooking the Weaselhead on 37th St. I feel that it is a companion piece to "A Snowy Morning In Springbank".

Watercolour

9" X 4"

For information on this painting or any others please send me an email at this link.

Bow Valley Still Life

On a recent painting trip in Banff National Park, we spent a morning along the Bow Valley Parkway. We stopped for a picnic lunch and this was the scene I kept staring at as we ate.

Watercolour

11" X 9"

For information on this or any other painting contact me.

Cameron Falls

From our recent trip to Waterton Park, this falls is just off the road to Cameron Lake. I was much influenced by the photo I took with a long exposure time.

Watercolour

10" X 8"

For information on this or any other painting contact me.

Banff Connections

This is my first attempt at using oil paint. Originally this was a watercolour but as often happens it needed some adjustments and I decided to modify it with oil. As much as I love watercolour I appreciate the ability to add lights over the darks with an opaque medium. I'd always been interested in oil but was turned off by odour issues. For this work I used walnut oil and found that there weren't any odours in my studio. I guess that by eliminating the turpentine or paint thinners it is possible to enjoy a good work environment. I had tried some odourless thinner before but it was far from odourless. Anyway, the way that oil paint can be pushed around was neat and if it is possible to keep fresh air in the studio I'll certainly try it again.

Banff Connections

Watercolour & Oil

16" X 20"

For any further information please contact me.

Bow Valley Expressions

I was intrigued by this scene on the Bow Valley Parkway during a recent painting trip to the Banff/Kananaskis area. I must admit I had in mind some of the Group of Seven's paintings of burnt out areas.

Bow Valley Sevenths

7" X 7"

watercolour

Basic Drawing Skills -Horse Portrait

A particularly attractive composition. Very interesting to try a different type of portrait.

Basic Drawing Skills - Humphrey Bogart

By the time I did this, our last portrait, I was well into the groove and it came together quickly. I think this one, of all the portraits I did for the class, most closely combines accuracy with expression.

One of the many benefits I derive from teaching Basic Drawing Skills is that I get to put some concentrated effort into drawing and drawing really is at the heart of all art. As mentioned in a much earlier post, I am an experimenter and I have to put in a lot of effort to explore, learn and progress and this class is a major dose of that effort.

Basic Drawing Skills - Audrey Hepburn

This is my second attempt at this beautiful image. This time I was much more in tune with the image and not so concerned with accuracy. As a result the picture is a better likeness and has a fresher sense.

The quality of the students drawings was outstanding on this portrait. To view their work visit the Basic Drawing Skills class blog.

Basic Drawing Skills - live, in class demos

I have become captivated by this image of Audrey Hepburn. Her class, and humanity seem to shine through. I'm also very interested in the fact that these two drawings I did, very quickly, live in class on the overhead, both seem to capture her personality whereas, the official version I did in the studio (in the next post) has completely missed her personality. I think there is a bit of a message in that.

Basic Drawing Skills

This image of actress Helen Menken was done for my drawing class. Because the students in the class are progressing so quickly we now take accuracy for granted and are working on expressing the feeling of the portrait. This particular image speaks to me of quiet contemplation. I'm also experimenting more with a cross hatching approach rather than my normal method of smudging the graphite for shading. I started trying this in order to speed up the process and am finding now that I really enjoy the more direct nature of cross hatching.

For information on the Basic Drawing Skills class contact me.

To see the students' work visit the Basic Drawing Skills Blog.

Elbow River Colours

The same bold colour approach applied to a scene we came upon while hiking along the Elbow River.

Watercolour 9" X 12"

Let There Be Colour

Lately, I've been spending a lot of time looking at Eleanor Lowden Pidgeon's DVD and her bold use of colour. The sun hitting the hedge in our front yard seemed tailor made for a bold use of colour as the sun sparkled in the yellows and reds of the hedge. I like the feel as if someone has just been sitting in the chair and has briefly left the frame.

Watercolour 20" x 13.5"

Basic Drawing Skills

This image was a true pleasure to do. I wanted to try drawing on a toned background and letting the toned background be the mid values so I only needed to add the dark values and then the white highlights. It was done on a pastel paper with a pronounced circular texture. The entire drawing tool only about 45 minutes 30 of which were for the drawing. The shading was fast and easy and when I added the white charcoal it just came to life. I was literally blown away by this process and will definitely be trying this again.

I've started a new blog dedicated to my drawing class, Basic Drawing Skills. Check out the students work at this link.

Basic Drawing Skills

Our second portrait was of Don Knots from his days on the Andy Griffiths show. I was very surprised that some of the younger people even knew him, though he also was on some more modern shows like Three's Company. Anyway, for this portrait I enjoyed the surface used which was matt board. There is a very definite texture which allows some of the white board to show through. I used a different shading style just because I didn't have the time to do my usual smoother smudging technique. I've used a cross hatching style which was much faster to do. It's a little more muscular than smudging. These two approaches to shading with graphite are very different but each is equally effective, it's all about finding which approach you enjoy more or perhaps it's best to know both so you can use the most appropriate one for the particular drawing you are doing.