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Denizens of the Peaceable Kingdom

20/10/2022

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PictureAutumn in the back Garden 2022
As the woodland becomes more and more established in our back garden,  we are renewing old friendships and creating new.  

2022’s sentimental favourite is Peach, whom we call Melissa for short.  She is a large and regal American toad who shows up here and there, but seems particularly drawn to the old stone steps at the front door.  Let it never be said that Melissa lacks grit.  Literally.  She methodically removed six linear inches of mortar to make herself a little cave, which proved less comfortable than predicted and was promptly abandoned.  She is phlegmatic, except for a marked dislike of Skye terriers, and quietly allows herself to be carried to a safer location if we deem her at risk of death by tire or tooth.  We are fond of the old girl.

It is harder to love cherish Barn Door, the garter snake who lives on the other side of the garden.  I am generally fond of snakes but this guy is a pot-smoking recluse who spends most of his time on-line.  You wouldn’t take him for alt-right, given his pot-smoking habit but Barn Door dabbles in politics even if he draws the line at political pins over an inch wide.  Just don’t get him started on mask mandates and vaccines.  If he were a mammal he would be a hot-head.  We sincerely hope that he and Melissa never meet.

There’s also a green darner flitting around from time to time. I admire the elegance of her composite-eyed helicoptered grace, reminding myself that dragonflies are one of the markers of a healthy environment.  Our absolutely favourite insect, however, is  an annual visitor who shows up  in late autumn.  Looking like a piece of modern sculpture in need of a good meal, Fats the Walking Stick seems to park in or about the garage;  as much as we love the old stone structure, it’s not much use for parking anything post-millennially automotive so she’s welcome to couch-surf with us.

Today's pleasant surprise was the arrival of two young bucks, who ate maple leaves and could be overheard brain-storming about how to interest a female.  Jon and I agreed that their diet was less than optimal for hopeful suitors:  the drought has made food scarce and the deer herd has already finished off our hostas and started on the euonymus, which normally doesn’t get stripped until March.  Unfortunately we can't help much;  our venture into supplying food went south the year we bought them a bale, realizing too late on the way home that we both have classic hay fever.   

But the prize for comedy has to go to the coyote pack behind us in the river valley.  This week the adults were initiating the teenagers into choral singing.  Those kids have a long way to go.  Far from here I hope.  My hair stood on end.  Let's just say that nobody's Met material this year.

Farewell gorgeous autumn!  Hello home-comforts-winter!




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At Last!  Colour!

20/10/2022

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The value underpainting has dried and for the next three days I got to swathe my baby in transparent jewel tones!   First came the ultramarine blue, present on every square inch of the painting in various amounts.  The berries received a deep toning, the leaves less, and the unripened fruit only a touch, but what I was looking at started to feel more real.  Once the blue had thoroughly dried, the next transparent pigment on Day saw the emergence of leaves — I use “Stil de Grain,”  a rich deep yellow which lightly coated the ultramarine to produce a clean soft green.  The final primary - red - enriched the blue berries, ripening the berries into a purpled richness.  We are six layers in and….

I have painted with artists who fall in love with the underpainting and stop there.  It’s certainly a temptation but now the pace is quickening, as is my pulse.  But only when red, the final primary, has set  do I get to lay out my whole palette to include all of the pigments which did not merit a layer in the underpainting.  The sky’s the limit.

Now I can start to paint!!!!!!!
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Sexy Stuff

11/10/2022

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Picture
"Pagoda Tree in Autumn" Oil 30 x 36
PictureValue Study for "Mom's Saskatoons" Oil 24 x 24
It seems to me that the artist's trip from conception to delivery is a mirror image of the more familiar arc of  pregnancy.  Artists usually have to get past the really hard part over FIRST;  but we endure it in the hope of experiencing that same frisson of pure pleasure! 

Let me explain.

Let’s begin with the First Labour : speed-dating, which amounts to  sorting through what Yeats termed the “foul rag and bone shop of the heart” for “WHAT TO PAINT NEXT???"”  There is way too much to choose from:  for one, my iPhoto library is closing in on 30000 now.  Whitman was referring to the same mental crowd scene when he said “We contain multitudes.”  However we characterize it, hundreds of images argue their merits in a brain-deafening cacophony, each waggling a gam swathed in fishnet.  But, as in a biological pregnancy, only one can win (though the odd zygote does bring a twin. Artists dub them diptychs).   Frankly, I’m always incredibly relieved when the short list finally spits out a winner.   this momentary relief is somewhat undercut by the recognition that there is a boatload of work ahead and I’m still a bit nervous that I’ve chosen badly and won’t be able to do it justice.  But a shot of ripe Saskatoons has spoken to me; its deep blues, purples and subtle greens kaleidoscopically excite my eyes; AND it wonderfully supports the series of beautiful native plants  so the choice is confirmed.  And zap, like that, Art Labour #1 is complete!  We have pregnancy.

There being no rest for the wicked, Labour #2 follows immediately:  if McLuhan was right and the medium is the message, then choosing the right support  becomes fraught.   Not to be terribly original, my large outdoor scenes flatly demand large canvases -- up to 4’ by 5.'  Small animal portraits on the other hand ask me in a whisper for a panel between 8 x 10 and  12 x 12.*   Botanica, my current obsession, falls into the sweet spot of  the middle:  “just right” — not too big, not too small — just big enough to suggest the tangled loveliness of Goldilock's  garden while giving me enough spatial freedom to do a deep dive into the intricate detail of a leaf or petal or fruit.  In “Pagoda Tree in Autumn” I was looking for something like a William Morris pattern or a Kaffe Fassett needlepoint.  It goes without saying that I’m not to be trusted with needles and such,  but intricate detail has always called me if I can savour it without blood loss.   So I answered the call of Mom’s saskatoons by traipsing down to the basement  to fish a 24 x 24 gallery panel out of my artist’s cache (we all have them — even if the world comes to an end, we can die painting).   Labour #2, check.

It’s the Third Labour where I really start gritting my teeth.  At this point it feels like “I’m committed to the stake and I must stand the course”.  Okay, okay — I’m not poor blind Gloucester who feels like a bear about to be torn apart by pit bulls but that’s the line my brain offers up. And the bloody panel just sits there panting, waiting for its saskatoons.  Can you sense how much I  always  dread the painstaking drawing of the complex subject matter which of course I have willingly chosen.   As I feared, it took almost two days to complete the detailed line drawing before I put even dipped brush in pigment.  And another two days were spent rendering the value underpainting in burnt umber and white over the mid-tone provided by the wood tones of the panel.  

Day 4 I finds me cross-eyed, cranky and and with a sore back supported by two flat feet.  The dogs tiptoe around me, whispering “Avoid eye contact.” to one another.

I console myself with the certainty that it will get better… if I can just stay on the rails....   At this point I make a special effort not to get hit by a bus. After all, the hardest work is done!  Now I can start to enjoy this!


​*One of my favourite painters is Tom Forrestal, who not only paints sublimely in egg tempera but plays with canvas shapes.  Many many years ago I saw  a work of his which consisted of two large circular views of the same mature tree.  One looks up at laughing children in the branched canopy;  the other shows what the children can see on the ground;  I think there might have been a dog.  Mine certainly would have.   To complete the magic, both are mounted on ball bearings and can be rotated.  Both masterful and playful.


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