Some New Stuff

"Christchurch Cathedral from Vancouver Street" 14 X 18" Oil on Canvas.

L-l-love this little piece. 3 colours, baby, and all the mixes are spot-on. Love those coppery greeny-oranges, dark turquoises and strange purply pinks. Yeow! OK, I think the paint-quality could be a little bit tighter. But I did this one in a single shot, with a little bit of retouching, but not much. tho only thing I should not have done is put that white in the foreground. Oh well. I do like to leave some bare canvas in the foreground.

Focus is a conscious consideration for me. I deliberately leave the corners and the foreground of some pieces unfocused/ unfinished. I am not a realist in the strictest sense, but I do this because I want the eye to not get hung up on those bits, but to be drawn into the picture, and stay there--hopefully for more than .003 nanoseconds ;)

I like the contrast of sharp and shallow diagonals, and the repetitions they create, and how the whites step into and then condense into the center.

The details of the tower are a bit sketchy, but it is not the focal point of the thing. Almost by accident, the two shadows on the background "rhyme". Nice. Art happens.



"Ruthie" 14 x 18" Oil on Canvas.

It even looks like her! I am happy with this one in that regard. My friend Ruth is visually impaired, so her face is is grayish, and there is a riot of colour around her as a matter of subtle symbolism. The composition is decent, and there is lots of overpainting that seems to work OK.

I'm not 100% happy with it, though. Ruth's likeness was a bit more accurate in the underpainting. As usual, I can muck it up a bit by putting paint on it. I painted the underdrawing and the face in two sessions. Ruth had a hard time sitting still the second time, though.... the corner of my desk and filing cabinet are not too worked up, and I have left Ruth's sleeve and hands deliberately unfinished. Like Hemingway said, the stuff you leave out is as important as what you keep in. Same applies to painting as to writing.

Ruthie looks a bit sad here, but she has a bright, sunny personality, in spite of ill health and personal tragedy. She's my hero, and this is meant to be a tribute to her.

08/20/07: The more I look at this piece the more I like it. Well done Nicholas (great cheers and hurrahs).