Thoughts About Light

Throughout my travels, I have often looked out at the landscape before me and thought "this is bigger than me". It is as though I understand that I cannot grasp it, so I do not attempt to. I take it with me to think about and try to intellectualize it at a later time. I have never been to a place where the entire landscape, stretching over the entire time I was there, has made me feel the same way. For me, Antarctica represented everything I have tried to understand about light, reflection, contemplation, and phenomenon.

Coming home is an important time for me. I am aware of the Familiar, a topic that is so important to my philosophy. There is about a two week period of time where I seem to be in two different worlds; the one I have just seen travelling, and the one that I have returned to. In the present I am experiencing my Home, my city streets, the return to the routine. In my memory, I am cycling a slide show of experiences I have just had out in the world.

This dichotomy yields inspiration. 

I am working on the back of the sink. The pleasure of painting something that is white is that there is barely a time when it is purely white. I find myself thinking of the time and place the photograph was taken to give me a hint of the time of day, and the quality of light.

Jack Chambers is a Canadian painter who lived and worked in London, Ontario for the breadth of his career. Sunday Morning No. 2 is a typical suburban winter scene. As a fellow Ontario native, I cannot help but participate in the Familiar which makes me question whether my draw into the painting is fueled by this sensation and/or the other qualities it embodies. I am not sure that it matters. Understanding the power of Familiar is lesson enough!

Chambers was intrigued by light. You can see this curiosity was a prominent aspect in much of is work, whether graphite drawings, paintings or photographs. He said that spirituality is not found in the representation of light - in the fact that it exists, but in the feeling it gives you.

When I look at the left wall and the light shadow cast through the window, I feel that the moment is alive. I appreciate that feeling as a powerful thing.

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White Chipping Paint

This week I learned something new. Along the way somewhere, I was asked if I was afraid of painting the pipe. It looked complicated and complex. My answer at that time was "No, I do not fear anything in painting". I must say that although my reply sounded heroic, I questioned my abilities more than once while bringing this part to life. 

The novelty of its newness made it exciting. I was painting with blinders on, having no pre-conceived idea of a process, colour palette, or texture. I feel that because of this, I may have made something more interesting than other parts of this work.

"Bookshelf" is a painting by Chelsea James, a US painter who toggles between still life and landscape paintings. Her still life subject matter is concerned with relics and traces, much like mine is. What I find curious and exciting in her work is how it seems to give the viewer two experiences. When looking closely, the loosely finished drawing and impasto brush work take hold but when you take a step back, the blocking and colour work resolve to make the image come to life in a way that is soft and secret. I also like the patterns she creates.

Boat boy

I began work on the image for my most recent plate this week. I'm still fully developing my ideas for a series of work , but this is the first sneak-peak of what's to come.

Time to get cookin'!

Well clearly it's been a long time... in fact one might have thought we were  done!   It seems that both of us got way too caught up with life and making things that there simply wasn't any time left to get on here and blog about it all, but guess what!... we're back, and have lots of things in the works for the winter months.

I'm going to hold out on posting anything about my current project because it's actually a V 3.0 remake of my Tortoise-hare mezzotint from about a year and a half ago.  Long story short was that it was completely botched from the way I originally prepared the plate, and subsequently that showed through in the final print.  Currently I'm in the final stages of getting the image scraped out onto a newly prepared plate and should have some better results and some images soon.

It's funny how such epic failure (maybe not so epic, just time consuming) can be a great point to make some major strides.  I realized that I needed to get better rocking on my plates and it needed to be even, and a strong, and save my wrist from strain.  I devised this little device to help me out from here on in.  It's actually a very simple construction but it works like a charm and not only saves my wrist, and gives great texture to the plate,... it cuts my prep time in SIGNIFICANTLY!  

I'll leave on a hight note with lots more to come as we push towards the colder months, and the new year!