Big Day at Riverwood

Yesterday was a big event at Riverwood Park in Mississauga - the official opening of the MacEwen Terrace Garden. This has been a long, on-going project, and the city planners are rightfully proud of the product. Not that it's yet finished - they expect there will continue to be improvements over the coming years.

Visual Arts Mississauga, as one of the partners in the park, was involved in the activities, including several painters on site, mostly doing plein air demonstrations. I was pleased to be part of the crew.

It was an unsettled day here, mostly overcast with the threat of rain and thunderstorms, so I set up under the shelter of the front entrance to VAM's Art Centre. I had a great view of one of the towering Eastern White Pines, over the rooves of the MacEwen Barn and the utility shed. I purposely chose a vetical orientation to accentuate how imposing the big pine was on the scene. Working with water miscible oils I started the way I usually do, blocking in the composition on a toned panel, indicating the general silhouette of the subject.

I generally like to get in the lights and darks early, and that usually means getting the sky area blocked in pretty much right away. Even though it was very overcast, there was a fair bit of variation in lights and darks and warms and cools. Passersby were very interested and several came back more than once to check my progress.

I next worked on the mid tones and shadows of the midground maples. The colour wasn't anywhere near as intense as it would have been on a bright day, and I have dulled it a bit more to keep the interest on the pine.

I reserved the darkest darks for the pine, and had a lot of fun with the shadow shapes. Again, because of the day, the colour is somewhat subdued, but the big, dark shape of the pine against the lighter sky dominates the composition. The rooves of the buildings are metal, probably aluminum, and they tend to reflect what's happening in the sky. Throughout the session, as the light varied, sometimes the rooves were lighter than the sky, sometimes darker, so I had to make a choice about what was best for the painting. My preference was to use the roof colour to help frame the tree a little, and redirect the viewer's eye away from the bottom right corner, at least a little.

Overall, it was a good day, about 2 1/2 hours painting time. I'm pleased with the 12"x16" sketch, but I may tweak it a bit in the studio.

Playing With Oils

I have hardly touched oils in many years, for a variety of reasons. Mostly, for the past few years I have been concerned about solvents, as my studio space is both small and poorly ventilated. A year ago I picked up some M. Graham oils, because the walnut oil base can be cleaned up with soap and water, I thought perhaps a big plus. There were some challenges, from both the aspect of re-aquainting myself with the medium and the the particular feel of these specific paints. But I have managed a few successes, I think, such as "From the Channel." (16 x 20)

Recently I picked up a few water-mixable colours, because I am a bit intrigued, and I wondered about using WMO mediums with standard oils. So I did a sketch, using some elderly paints from my student years and a couple of really cheap bristle brushes that I had received as a gag gift. I used a simple triad palette of Ultramarine Blue, Permanent Rose, Yellow Ochre and Zinc White, with Winsor & Neweton's Artisan Fast Drying Medium and Artisan Safflower oil. I gave an 8 x 10 panel a thin imprimatura with a bit of Fast Drying Medium and a mixture of Rose and Ochre, and let it dry for about an hour. The initial drawing was executed with FDM and a dark dull purple, then all the overpainting was done without any more medium. This is a quick sketch, about an hour. I washed the brushes out in the Safflower oil and then again with mild soap and water, and the brushes cleaned up like a dream. And I got a reasonable sketch out of the experiment.

Back to Class

I statred teaching again last week and had a very pleasant surprise. Winter can often be a tough time to cajole students to get out, and I expected a minimal number of students for the term, but I came in to a class of 15! It's great to see a bunch of new faces, and a few previous students.

We're working on a class titled the Spirit of Seven. It's an attempt to follow in the steps of the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, very influential Canadian painters from the early part of the 20th century. Much of their early work was done in Central Ontario, Algonquin Park and Georgian Bay, and further north, in the Algoma region north of Lake Superior. The focus was very much on the ruggedness of the Canadian Sheild landscape.

My demonstration is from Tomahawk Island, on Georgian Bay. This scene exemplifies the subject matter of a great deal of the early work of the Group, and especially Thomson - the rough granite of the Sheild, Eastern white pine, cold lake water and an often brilliant sky.

 This is acrylic in masonite, 12 x 16. I started with a dull gold wash, or imprimatura, over the entire board. A silhouette of the major shapes was washed in using a large synthetic bristle and a thin ,dull purple. Then, using a similar purple in a thicker mixture, I indicated my darkest shadows. All my drawing was done with brush and paint, a very direct approach. The sky area was roughly brushed in, using some of those colours to help refine the tree shapes. The trees were roughly blocked in with a variety of mixed greens. (I rarely use a tube green.)

The rocks were built up in several layers of various colours. Over the initial wash drawing a more comprehensive  lay-in was done with a variety of dull violet-grays in an attempt to flesh out the forms in the rock face.. Over this underpainting I built up layers of warmer colour, often dragging and scumbling to enhance the texture of the rock. The lightest areas are built up in a more impasto method.

The water was blocked in as a simple gradated shape with a little break-up in the foreground to indicate ripples and waves. The darks here are all the original dark washed in underpainting. The background far shore was initially laid in as part of the overall darkish silhouette, and I simply scumbled a thin pale blue over that area to push it back. Voila! Tomahawk Rocks.