Bachelor of Illustration
This site features my paintings and illustrations, children's illustrations, photo illustrations, oil pastels, acrylics
One of the colour workshops I ran was with the Toronto Watercolour Society.
As they worked, so did I. This was my demo using acrylics, watercolour pencils and conte sticks on canvas. They all cheerfully worked with their watercolours...it didn't matter that the medium was different...the colour theory still worked.
The workshop ran for 2 days.
What a nice bunch of folk!
I don't think we're alone.
I started with one of my photo's of a water lily and added and subtracted layers of the image to create a sense of another feeling.
Then I added a Water Lily 'fairy', if you want to call it that. Another being like us, but not like us. From another world. The unseen that is always around us.
I found a very old poem from 1881 titled Water Lilies, written by Clara Heath.
"How spotless the pearly leaves that fold
O'er the hidden and perfumed heart of gold!
Like fairy castles they seem to float,
From the shocks and sins of life remote;
Anchored, though wind and wave go by,
With an upward look at the azure sky."
Being an illustrator is amazing...we can create something never seen before.
Sometimes we get stuck. And we need to unstick.
So, as an artist, start doodling. We doodled as children. It's the carefree in us that's always there. We doodle only for us.
I choose my colours and on my Wacom tablet (all my work is now created on the Wacom...it's like being set free) I start to loosely play. And scribble.
There's joy and fun in doing this.
Only for ourselves.
It unsticks us.
Kid's stuff is so much fun to illustrate.
This is my take on Princess & the Pea, the old classic fairy tale.
They get married and have kids. Here are the little Princesses & Princes standing on all the mattresses that were used to judge if the Princess was a real princess.
A photo-montage.
To stand there, all alone, surrounded by unbelievably high arches, in the mist and rain, and the quiet, cannot be equelled.
The old Tintern Abbey.
In Wales.
Deep in the mountains.
No words can express.
It was last summer...I visited the haunting ruins of Tintern Abbey, deep in the Welsh Mountains.
"Once again do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore..."
"And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things."
William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey, 1798
In Paris. On the Champs Elysees.
Within this illustration is something expressed...a longing - a missing - a being taken away before the end...unfinished.
Over the years, painting has helped heal that.
But, I don't think it ever fully leaves.
Interesting story: A telephone call one day. A man at the other end wanted to come to purchase a limited-edition giclee of this painting. He came with 2 brothers. They all individually purchased the same image.
Their mom had just passed away. In the safety deposit box was her will and a card written to her sons. The card was this image.
I painted this sitting on location. Just a few hours each day.
Then the sun got too hot and all my paints would dry out.
The locals checked on the progress each day. Being creatures of habit, they would come by at the same time, whether going to Starbucks for their morning coffee, or out for a walk, or to get their morning paper. The bicycles showed up on day four...quickly sketched them in. Worked on canvas with acrylics and mixed media. You have to work fast on location...best practice an artist can do.
You need to choose carefully where you sit as delivery trucks, when parked, can block your view for a long time.
This image was used across Canada by the Special Olympics.
A past brought back.
I sat in the market, on crates, and painted. In French, this is called 'en plein air'.
You're not carefully painting from a photograph. Your painting will not be tidy and neat as you're working fast to capture the moment and movements.
The farmers didn't pose. They simply went about their business of selling their produce. They set up early in the morning, before sunrise. Their produce was fresh. You bought your eggs and enough food for one or two days. We students didn't have fridges so the stuff would have gone bad.
No bags were supplied...you brought your own.
Market days were Monday, Wednesday & Friday in the square. On Tuesday and Thursday the flowers were sold in the same square. Every week you bought your flowers.
Their day ended when they sold out.
True Love Can Ne'er Forget
"True love can ne'er forget; Fondly as when we met, Dearest, I love thee yet, My darling one!"
Turlough Carolan (1670-1738)
Doodling is necessary for an artist. It unblocks stuff.
I first choose the color scheme and then start to doodle on my Wacom tablet. I allow the painting to slowly come to life by itself…like a slow dance.
Doodling is our subconscious, the child in us that never dies. It bypasses our ‘grownupness’ that has been shaped through good and bad, our life’s experiences.
Doodling is silly and nonsensical. It's our innermost us.
Left Brain/Right Brian.
A linguist sees form, function & semantic in every sentence.
An artist sees colour, light & shape in every image.
Both need the other to balance as a whole.
I sat on the corner in Yorkville, set up my canvas, paints, water and started to paint.
It was the colour yellow...something about that colour...that made me want to paint it. This Cafe where you went to sit to see and to be seen.
It was early morning, the crowds hadn't yet arrived. The cafe was opening up. The guy came out to water the flowers. Immediately I sketched him in...you have 5 seconds to get the pose, then it's by memory.
The title then came..."Early Morning Watering Plant Time."
This is one of my limited-edition giclees.
It all started sitting on the Coeur Mirabeau.
Drawing the cafe's live...en plein air...in French. That's when painting come alive. You have to draw fast to capture the waiters moving around getting orders and delivering drinks. The people sitting there. Up top is where people live. The shutters are real. They are closed during the hot noon day sun.
The cafe's are on the sunny side of the street. The banks on the shady side.
This image is one of my limited-edition giclees. Many have been sold during show time.
I simply wrote "It was quite wonderful. Gorgeous colour."
This is Siena in Tuscany. Old, ancient walls dull in colour, weathered and worn. You sit outside in the heat, under the umbrellas and discuss events. It's hot.
Chianti comes from Tuscany. So does Leonardo da Vinci. Tuscany has the best bread in the world (not quite...no salt in it but when you're in Tuscany eating their bread, it is). Tuscany is home to the town of Verona, which has the famous Opera festival all summer long. After the opera in the evening, sitting outside in the old Roman theatre, you go and sit some more at an outdoor cafe and have your pasta and Chianti....at 12:30 am.
This image is one of my limited-edition giclees.
What are little boys made of
What are little boys made of
Snips & snails & puppy dogs tails
And such are little boys made of.
What are young women made of
Sugar & spice & all things nice
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Old English poems and fairy tales are wonderfully evocative to illustrate.
My parents gave me a Troll when I was a kid. Not a real one.
Troll.
Trolls come from Norway. Some people say they are fiction. Others disagree. Trolls are very ugly. They live in forests, or in caves and wreck havoc on people. They are mean.
So they say.
Trolls are part of the old stories, passed down through the ages. Wonderful to illustrate.
I sat on the docks of Marseille and painted.
The old fishermen came by and checked out the drawing. The sun was hot. To paint on location is one of the best things an artist can do. You are surrounded by the sights and smells and sounds of life. Your painting comes alive.
Painting from a photograph can never achieve that.
There is something incredibly sad about going back to a past life.
You are there in person but gone are the friends and the lifestyle. You cannot bring the past back.
To live elsewhere enriches and enlarges one, but, always leaves one divided forevermore. For, you are in one place physically but inside you are in another.
I have called this painting "The old moss-covered fountain on the Cours Mirabeau".
The classic fairy tale Rapunzel, made famous by Brothers Grimm in 1812, came from the earlier fairy tale Persinette, written by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force. It was originally published in 1698.
The old classics continue to inspire illustrators through the ages, they never pass away.
Here is my illustration depicting the famous well known verse "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so that I may climb the golden stair". With joy, it feels like dancing across the page using colour. Time stands still.