Just in Time for Spring

"Spring, Camosun College" 18 X 24" Oil on Canvas.

Phew! What a job this one was. I shot the photo at exactly this time last year on a beautiful golden evening. I had been hiking around Mt. Tolmie, and brought some good field sketches back with me. The light of early evening can be truly incredible, and I will probably spend the rest of my painting life diligently chasing it with a brush. Coming home through the backstreets, I took about a dozen photos of this, standing in the middle of the road to frame it properly.

Besides the light on the interesting architecture and the great diversity and richness of colour, it was the leaning pole at left that intrigued me, which creates a tension with the verticals of the building.

I have been accused at various times of being a Realist, or an Impressionist, but those are both superficial assessments. (I'm too loose and happy for a Realist, and too structured and methodical for an Impressionist.)

Compositionally, this one is a study in opposing diagonals--which are essential in establishing pictorial depth. So that this depth does not get out of control, I employ several devices to preserve the integrity of the 2-D picture plane (as in Cezanne). The Impressionists taught me that to create light, one needs to use colour ,and to create internal unity, break up colour--but that's about it. I really don't care about atmosphere and the effects of weather, other than how they contribute to the composition. Low light or falling rain are useful only for the diagonals they create, and how they contribute to the picture. I'm not interested in "capturing" anything, really, but finding devices in the image to project emotion for me.

There were passages that really frustrated me, but plenty here simply fell off the brush. I am learning to anticipate the overpainting I will do in the latter stages and this is allowing me to proceed more intelligently in the early stages. The underdrawing is done in blue and violet and then I did a light wash of red-brown over everything before starting with the body colour. The blue creates some fascinating edge effects.

It's funny how a painting gets smaller the more detail I try to pack into it. And, since the devil was very much in the details, here are a few close-ups for you of some of the finer bits.

A shout out to Nona, the scheduler at work, for all her encouragement, and for spreading the word.