Painting

“Pup”. 10″x10″. Acrylic on Cradled Wood Panel. Painted October 2022. Seemed like time to do another dog painting. My usual approach is to do a graphite drawing first to work out composition and relative values. In this case I did two drawings ( faster sketch and a slower more accurate drawing of the dog). The […]

“The Sentinel”. Painted September 2022.  48”x24”.  Acrylic on Canvas. About 50 feet above the shoreline, at the top of the bluff stands several stately Douglas Fir trees.  One, standing particularly straight and tall, has great sweeping branches that reach out in all directions.  This tree has been able to handle the full force of the South-Easterly

“Early Morning on Powell Lake – preliminary painting.” Painted October 2022. 20”x30”. Acrylic on Canvas. This painting is a study to explore some of the colour choices and consider textures/techniques for painting this particular landscape. The ultimate painting is going to be a a much bigger painting (3 feet x 5 feet).  The view for this

“Water Lily”.  Painted July 2022.  12” x 12”.  Acrylic on Canvas.   I try to challenge myself with each new painting, either a new style, subject matter or technique.  However, we’ve been so busy lately with the builders on the house, showing visitors around the coast, or simply travelling between Twin Eagles and Vancouver, that I haven’t been able to

Preparatory Drawings for “The Sentinel”.  Drawn July 2022.  Graphite on Paper I’ve been planning a large painting that I want to complete in the next couple of months.  This will be my largest painting to date – six feet tall and three feet wide.  I plan to hang this painting at the end of the main hallway in the

“La Oscuridad”.  Painted June 2022.  36”x24”.  Acrylic on Canvas. On both our visits to Buenos Aires, we were fortunate to rent an apartment on the top floor of a condo on Calle Ayacucho in the Recoleta neighbourhood.  It had a large wrap-around deck that looked down on the street and out across the rooftops.  During the day it was a

“The shape of things”. Painted February 2022.  11″x14″. Acrylic on canvas textured board.  Day 23 of the Opus Daily Practice Challenge.  Prompt word “Transformative”. Yesterday’s exercise was all about discovering and abstracting shapes.  Today’s prompt word was “transformative”, so I spent the day transforming the ideas I explored in yesterday’s drawing into a painting based on the same

“In the moment”. Painted February 2022.  10″x10″. Acrylic on cradled wood panel.  I’ve been doing a month long challenge sponsored by the local art supply company Opus.  Today’s prompt word was “present”, which I interpreted to mean “being present” or in the moment. True to my Scottish heritage, I can’t stand wasting paint, so when my stay-wet

Sweet Reflections.  Painted February 2022.  24”x24”.  Acrylic on Canvas. Just a few hundred meters away from the Bluff is a heron rookery, so it is very common to find a heron standing motionless on shoreline rocks near the bottom of our ramp in a perfectly transcendental state.  If an animal can exist totally in the moment, at one with

“Set Fire to the Rain.”  Painted January 2022.  30” x 24”.  Acrylic on Canvas. Almost three years ago, I did a painting of a family in New Zealand playing in the water at Muriwai beach (famous for it’s black sand and large colony of gannets).  Although I liked that painting, it wasn’t quite where I wanted to go.  I knew