FH414 Simple Gifts VII (lady among trees)

FH414 Simple Gifts VII (lady among trees)

10 x 8" oil on panel

This experiment is a coloured version of the Black on White sketch, BonW11.  I wanted to try white outlining as a way to expand the line techniques for a projected large work. The white drawing in oil certainly adds another dimension, and perhaps satisfied my occasional need to scribble on every bit of the panel.

FH413 Simple Gifts VI (lady with lotus)

FH413 Simple Gifts VI (lady with lotus)
10 x 8" oil on panel

An experiment in brush drawing. I am trying to emulate the feel of the Black on White sketchbook drawings, very freehand and full of lines and patterns.

FH412 Simple Gifts V (green)

FH 412 Simple Gifts V (green)

10 x 8" oil and collage on panel

Another experiment, using ink drawing techniques with brush and oil.

FH411 Mary's world

FH411 Mary's world
768 x 1024 pixels digital drawing iPad Sketchbook Pro
 
Using my photos in my drawings fills me with nostalgia. These are my trees, my flowers, the ferns and lichens in the woods behind the house, the plants by the lake. This is my sky, my coffee cup, and these are my patterns. I return to them again and again, my life designs. My little character treads lightly in this world, enchanted. My creatures leap from real world to dream world and back again. Every new dimension is a description of an idea, the record of a peripheral glimpse of the complex glory of life.

"Ah," my little character says, "the teacup tips and fills again again. Who will join me?"

FH410 Noah's Fish

FH410 Noah's fish
1024 x 768 pixels, digital drawing iPad Layers

For me, the success of this experiment is tied to the child figure.  On a whim, I used a photo I took of my grandson Noah on a camping trip.  Noah's rapt attention to the world around him reminds me that this very idea...seeing the world again through innocent eyes...is a key theme in this series.  Of course I turned turned Noah into one of my characters, a fate most of my family and friends have come to expect and, I hope, tolerate with good humour.

I have been using kaleidoscope patterns for clothing, and my photos for background areas. In the last sketch, I used the picture of Noah instead of a Poser figure as a template (surprisingly with much the same results), then added four layers as horizons. Using various photos for each horizon layer contributed to the varying viewpoints, even though the composition is the traditional flat view.

FH408 Simple Gifts III (brush, mug)

FH408 Simple Gifts III (brush, mug)
10 x 8" oil on panel
$70

Lately I have been scratching white lines into my little oil paintings, and laying contrasting lines of colour next to each other.  It has a flickering effect, as the colours change before your eyes, coming forward one moment, receding the next.  Yet the technique is flat and graphic, every line and area laid out side by side.  Each line takes the brain somewhere else, though, pushing and pulling.

I made a list a while back, of all the things in a single day that I enjoy, and I was surprised at the length of it.  Almost everything on the list is a simple thing, or a momentary thing...coffee in my favourite mug, the lovely flower blooming in the kitchen window, my brushes and paints always ready for play.  Simplicity is freedom.

FH406 Four Horizons XIII (red flowers, green leaves)

FH 406 Four Horizons XIII (red flowers, green leaves)

12 x 12" oil on panels

$80.00

After completing FH406...I wondered why I had done a picture of just flowers and leaves (the under-painting was done last year). Then I thought about the secondary theme of the series…simple gifts. Although I do not often paint pictures of flowers, they are an important part of my life; there are always flowering plants in the house, and my half-wild perennial beds are bursting with them. Flower motifs appear in many of my designs. When desean and I get together, we are constantly taking photos of flowers and leaves and plant forms. We set up our favourite china, a take photos. It is our delight in the smallest, simplest things in the life that give us joy…the lovely curve of a plant, the beauty of the teacup we drink from.

These things…and if we begin counting them, there are many in our day…make up the sum of our pleasure in life. They give us pause, in our hectic schedule. The make us pause, and appreciate the fact that happiness is an accumulation of small things, most of which cost nothing and take little time. We have only to pause now and then to acknowledge them, drink them in. They are simple gifts bestowed by life. And they are the very essence of happiness.

FH404 Four Horizons XI (think)

FH404 Four Horizons XI (think)
3090 x 2320 pixels, digital painting using Adobe Ideas on iPad

FH401 Contexts I (patterns)

FH401 Contexts I (patterns)
7 x 5", markers on digital print

FH400 VIII Second Thought

FH400 Four Horizons VIII (second thought)
14x10" collage, markers on board
Private collection


Part of the collage is a print of A344.

FH399 Four Horizons VII (furls)

FH399 Four Horizons VII (furls)
10 x 8" Prisma Colours and markers on panel
Private collection

FH398 Four Horizons VI (change)

FH398 Four Horizons VI (change)

10 x 14" acrylic, ink, collage on canvas

Private collection

While cleaning out the studio storeroom, I found a large box of old sketches on scraps of paper, and decided to use them in my collaged paintings.  The central figure is a tiny pencil sketch, done several years ago, and some of the other areas are collaged with patterned paper.  As always, a random arrangement of shapes and suggestive patterns challenges me to makes something out of it.  File under 'fun'.

FH397 Four Horizons V (bird & scrolls)

Fh397 Four Horizons V (bird & scrolls)

1200 x 900 pixels digital painting on photo

FH396 Four Horizons IV (fish & leaves)

FH396 Four Horizons IV (fish & leaves)
640 x 480 pixels digital painting on photo

FH395 Four Horizons III (Companions)

FH395 Four Horizons III (Companions)
3000 x 2400 pixels digital painting on photo

FH391 Four Horizons II

FH391 Four Horizons II

12 x 12" mixed medium on panel

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