Jasmine and Daly

 

8.5" X 11" Oil on Birch Plywood

I haven't worked with too many cats before, and these two were an interesting challenge, as the painting was built almost as a collaborative between myself and Jasmine and Daly's owner.  B. worked to compose the piece from different photographs, and I did the painting and tuning-up of the color and background.  This is a painting which had to be of a particular size to fit inside of an incredibly beautiful frame, and I think that some of the rough, chunky brushstrokes are going to work really nicely with the ornate frame.  This was also one of my first experiences doing a double portrait, and the way that it turns out is that all the attention to detail that you put into the features of one cat, you spend an almost equal amount of time on the other one.  It is, however, cool to see all of these eyes looking back at you when you catch the painting in your periphery.

Abby and the Chewed-Up Tennis Ball

14.5" x 16" oil on masonite

OK, here's one that I like a lot:  A recent commission was to capture Abby the (Golden/Lab cross) for the client's husband's birthday.  S. is coming into town Thursday to pick it up, and I'm really excited to hand it off to her.  As per usual, I waited until I had just enough time to complete the painting, let the oil and varnish dry before delivery, but that's just how I roll.  I like to work with a bit of anxiety nipping at my heels.  It lets me know I'm alive, and it makes the little decisions more crucial, and I think it makes me a better painter, when I'm under the gun, and I have to perform, and the painting must get done this long weekend or I'll ruin somebody's birthday.  Anyhow, here's what I like about this painting: Again, a lot of color to describe a light dog, and a really wicked tennis ball.  The expression on Abby's face asks to play ball in any language on Earth, and I really worked the reflective, glistening quality of her eyes, and the little bits of light falling on the deck in the background.  This commission is for a Gulf Island home, and I know it's going to be just stunning with some dedicated lighting and some appropriately scaled wallspace.

Otis and the Birdhouse

13.5" X 20.5", oil on masonite

You'd think that with a black dog, or with a white dog, or with a black-and-white dog you would just  mix up a bunch of black and squeeze out a bunch of white and get to it-  And I suppose that would be mostly true if your subject was lit with pure white light against a black background, or a white background, but as soon as the subject, (in this case, big handsome Otis the Great Dane) starts hanging out on his big ol' bed with a big ol' hardwood floor underneath, warmed by a sort of  light umber wall and lit by light bouncing off of a windowsill which has already gone through the trees, you start talking about more than straight black and white, and you get all these nice blues and greens and yellows and pinks everywhere-  And compositionally, sticking a big ol' Great Dane foot right out in the very foregroundmost part of the painting underscores the size of this guy and made me very happy.  It was therapeutic for me to spend several hours over a few days looking into the handsome face of this handsome dog and trying to get the painting just right.

"Lavender Blue Dilly Dilly"

8"X 8" oil on masonite

I was thinking about Francoise and le fromage bleu, et cette petit chien bleu, Dilly, and being fascinated by my extended French family actually eating big chunks of ripe/fragrant/slightly (and maybe this is my imagination) petulant blue cheese, and what's more, appearing not to be faking their pleasure when they'd say, "That cheese really tasted good."

Because for me, I was always really faking it when I'd say, w/r/t foul-smelling cheese, "Oh this Pont l'Eveque is just fabulous!" And then I'd privately spit it out into my napkin, as I naturally assumed everyone else was doing too. This was all before Natacha gave me the simple excercise of taking just a bit of blue cheese, on top of a wedge of butter, on top of a cracker, and eating that, and I've got to tell you, it felt like the way I felt the first time I rode a bicycle without training wheels- I was like, "Holy crap! I'm actually doing this! I'm eating and enjoying blue cheese!" And now, I don't understand how anybody can really have any particular aversion to anything culinary anyhow. It's all just a big fetid playground; and for me, the world is now full of food I don't like yet; I just need some time to figure out the secret way to eat it. (Additionally, I'm always kind of laughing whenever I eat cheese now anyway because I'll invariably think of last Christmas when Mireille referred to cheese as "stool hardener," which is hilarious.)

And by the way- I'm also going to be showing some paintings at the Oceanside Gallery for the month of April with my friend Tony Kirby. We're each showing some recent paintings, and although we work a bit differently, we've got a collaborative piece that we've been trading off to each other every week for the past few weeks, and the last time it was in my studio, I must admit, the painting was really starting to take an odd, if not entirely unpleasing shape. But anyway we've got another couple of weeks to fix it up before the opening reception, which is on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 7PM- and I certainly hope to see you there.

"Grace and the Persian Rug"

8"X 8" oil on masonite

I'm just now getting into painting on a rigid substrate with a dark ground, which makes a huge difference w/r/t how I've always painted. (i.e. scrubbing away at a bouncing canvas trying to fill up white space and making these little depressions on the surface of the painting itself -because I'm all concentrating- but then instead of getting mad you just incorporate the depressions into the work anyway, as if they were purposeful, and find that you're making maybe even a bonus sublimated commentary or something like that.) Anyway, I feel like with a dark ground one gets to make more decisions instead of just trying to knock out white, is what I was trying to say; but then again, the title, "Manet's Sandwich" just popped into my head- like it always does- So what does that tell you?.

This is a painting of Gracie, for M.S. and A.N. in Parksville, B.C. They were the type of people for whom I love making paintings. We got together at their place to talk art a bit, and give Gracie some scratches, and take some pictures of her, and get an idea of her favorite area of the house: Which turns out to be on her bed under a window with September's anemic light coming in, right by a colorful rug. Nice for painting, eh? I'm really pleased with how it all worked out, start to finish.