Mitchell Collection
A few years ago, I rekindled my passion for painting by enrolling in courses to reignite my creative spark after my artistic muse had left me. I was fortunate to have Robin Mitchell as my instructor at the Oakville Art Society, a member-owned club with its own building and a self-sufficient environment. The paintings below were created with his hands-off encouragement. I share some commentary on each image below. The biggest surprise for me is that I'm starting to enjoy the process again.
Portrait
Many of you will recognize this painting. It is copied from a 1648 portrait of Juan de Pareja by Diego Velazquez. I finished it in Oct/Nov 2022 using the classical method of first applying a burnt umber monochrome underpainting in oils and then glazing with multi-layers of finished oil colours and opaque whites on this 16"x 24" canvas. The course I was taking was to paint in the style of the Old Masters. I was pleased with the end result.
Of course, I have not signed it and attached to the back of the canvas is note stating that it is a copy.
Sunset
This is from a second course by the same instructor, Robin Mitchell, at the
Oakville art Society.
Robin set us a task of working from a photo of an old oak tree at sunset he took in the local area.
I basically hate painting landscapes, but after his in-class demo I decided to take up the challenge. I was intrigued by his alla prima approach, and the way he painted the negative spaces between the branches of the tree. I was pleased with the vagueness of the brush, but bored with overall subject. To give the painting a little lift I added a red fox making its way across in the shadows.
Lighthouse
A 24"x 30" work initially using a glazing technique and later finished with straight oil painting. It is a modified copy of a painting by Charles W. Hawthorne. I was rather put off by the clouds used by the original artist and played around with them extensively until I finally settled on whispy high level cirrus clouds.
Blue Heron.
It is a small, 8"x8", painting based on a stock photo taken from the internet. It was a class exercise in painting water. The original photo did not have the heron. As with any landscape I'm inclined to add a central focus, or an animate object into the locale in order for it to tell some sort of story.
The blue rock scree is true to the photo, but looks a bit odd.
I found painting the small detail challenging me outside of my usual comfort zone, but enjoyable.
The next series of paintings are on small scale 11"x 7" canvasses with the course description being about putting people into landscapes. I chose to add another dimension of having someone pointing a finger in each painting. Hope you can spot those fingers.
Left Bank
Taken from a photo taken by Robin on the left bank of the Seine in Paris, France the photo shows one of the vendors selling paintings. I elaborated by adding a bored book seller next door. The relaxed Parisian smoking a cigarette watches a couple with a dog having a discussion. You can choose what that was about.
Not Every Day is Sunny
Again from one Robin's photos this shows a rather boring view of the entry of Sixteen Mile Creek into Lake Ontario in Oakville. The challenge was to populate the landscape with some people that conjured up a story. I made the painting into a rather a stormy day with a habitual runner out for his exercise, a hardy local with his dog watching the choppy lake and a couple stopped to look at the lake and an intrepid fisherman trying to catch something.
Love Boat
The starting material for this exercise was a choice between photos of a man lounging back and a seated woman. I mirror flipped the image of the guy, gave him a sun parasol and have him leaning against the railing of the cruise liner Navis Amoris. He is being eyed by a maybe single woman, more appropriate dressed for the surroundings, as she wonders if he is for real with his thick black coat, even if he is not bad looking.
The Meeting
The challenge was to take a market/streetscape photo taken by Robin in Italy in which the image is backlit and push our own vision onto the surroundings. I chose to have a woman meeting a man seen in the distance (he's waving) as he walks towards her. The woman's suitcase is intended to raise questions about her situation. Is she leaving something behind or moving forward to a new phase of her life?
Bordello
We were given a rather boring facade of another Italian street. I decided to liven it up by making the building into a bordello with all that implies.
The paintings below were developed in another course given by Robin Mitchell. The course's intent was to convey personal meaning. This is not easy. The pieces I developed into paintings are accompanied by a short commentary to explain my, usually obscure, intent. The fact i have to explain makes me wonder if I failed in actually producing meaningful works. You be the judge. They are all 10"x8" canvasses except the last on which is 12"x12".
A Good Life.
This a self portrait of my wife of 62 years and myself looking back on our life. The gold pathway, or is it a tree, not only denotes the positive experience and good fortune we have had over the years, but also signifies the family we have raised. Each fork in the path, or new branch, represents our two children, our grandchildren and one grandchild. The retrospective gaze is pleasant and satisfying.
Irrelevance.
This is very personal. The diptych reflects my impression of how the world sees me. Basically, old. As an 88 years old, I have faded from sight. But worse, my perceived relevance to society has diminished to a point whereby I am seen as what I show in this painting. Grey and obscure. Certainly, I rage sometimes. The response is usually a soft pat on the head, which I have not shown.
A Simple Landscape.
This is an abstraction of a landscape reduced to the an orange hazy sun, a blue rolling sea and a green foreground obscured by a generic shield with a tiny point of interest in yellow. It was an exercise in composition and line. After it was completed and sitting on a shelf visible from my comfy chair, I realized that a Freudian interpretation was also possible. Nevertheless, I like its balance and simplicity. The photo renders the background as being an almost buff colour, whereas it is quite a pure white.
Climate Change:CO2>1400ppm.
It concerns me that the climate change issue has disappeared from the front pages of the newspapers. I bothers me that future generations will suffer more and more from the wrong-headedness of our leaders as the planet's carbon dioxide levels increase. If matters continue then I am predicting the extinction of humanity. Hyperbolic, certainly, but can you see any other outcome?
I used the image of the famous The Great Wave off Kanagawa woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai as my inspiration and reversed and reduced it to a simple spiral pulling the sky into the sea and then into the cataclysmic inference of humanity's demise.