As a kid, I did build a few model kits. It was there that I first fell in love with the box art and the diagrams that made up the instructions. When building a model I could explore the freshly opened box of pieces attached to the “tree”. Plus the sheet of decals to apply. Oh joy! Youthful ecstasy.

Later while attending an open house at the Alberta College of Art & Design I saw a number of technical renderings done by graduating students. I loved what I saw! Later while attending the ACAD, I encountered many alternate influences. The combination of design & art still informs my work to this day.

Bull Pin;
The two tiny items hung around my desktop for the last couple of years. As I looked at them from time to time they drew me in. The plastic manufactured quality of the bull. A bull that small, it made the pin look large. Thoughts about bull fights where the bull is killed by stabbing it. To stab a bull that small one would only need a pin?.... Bull Pin not bullpen.....the black of the bull with white horns & a red topped pin. The red a foreboding?…..Why did I painting this?..... freedom to entertain my non linear thoughts..... seven has been considered a lucky number, but maybe not for this bull...... structural drawing & painting to support an open ended entanglement of two random items that have fermented in my thoughts.

Recent observations with a little carpentry. I still have all my fingers.

My inspiration for working on the Suzuki motorcycle piece titled “Gixxer” is from model kit box art, and the love of process. In developing my drawing for the final art I have been frustrated at times with the drawing process being lost under the painting. The thinking and construction lines are a layer of record that can add a depth. I’ve used an approach in constructing my own panels for years in this piece. It’s a laminated panel that layers-in my original drawing with a top coat to seal the drawing. In painting colour I want to capture the drawing and painting in equal parts.

I've been exploring my own framing the last few years. I see some very interesting history on the backside of framed pieces of artwork in galleries. The handmade craftsmanship that went into some of the older pieces has been inspirational for me to take my own thoughts into framing my own work. It's an extention of my interest and thoughts about materials. Also frames have provided a bit of protection from the enviteable shuffling of paintings in a gallery setting. Kind of a merging of a subtle intention of the artist in materials, presentation, and practicality.

And on another note;

I do really enjoy working with vector based graphics. My old Mac was eight years and could not be upgraded. Thank you Apple. So after recently updating the OS on my new refurbished computer, I had to deal with the inevitable fallout of solid running hardware(Scanner, printers, tablet, optical drive, monitor…) being turned into landfill by software “upgrades”. It was a lot of work, and frustration, but it’s all hanging together. I do not enjoy pouring my funds into a computer. They hold their value like a bucket full of holes. I’m running the latest OS now, but I had to do a lot of research to keep my version of Adobe CS6 running. With Adobe moving backwards to a 19th century feudal payment system where workers no longer own their work. Like serfs working the land for the lord(corporation). Never mind the sales pitching from their website(how great the new CC is…blah blah), and being squeezed with updates into a forced obsolescence. So I recently took the step and purchased new Affinity software(Photo & Designer). It’s been a learning curve, but I’m really starting to enjoy some of the new attributes of what I see with their offering. Not to mention a MUCH more rational cost of ownership. That’s right you own your own copy. Still lots to learn though.
 

Driving through southern Alberta last June, I stopped to use a public washroom. Another road that I’ve been over what seems like a hundred times in my life. Highway 2 the longest highway in the province. The highway splits into two roads in the town of Nanton. Each road has 2 lanes in one direction. The east side road going north, and west heading south. This image is from the west side road looking east. One of the few remaining phone booths still in service. The assumption of a world full of iPhones is somewhat a sad joke, but it grows.

Another roadside artifact that I've driven by many times. The sign and others like it brought back many memories of late nights ordering in and childhood holidays. Also even the effects of the morning after having food in the fridge to reheat for another day. Order in or take out? The take-home boxes of leftovers or doggy bags also come to mind. The sign itself is a leftover as the restaurant behind it was demolished long ago. It now sits on an empty lot full of weeds with an old concrete slab. The text on the sign is a throwback to another time, a near recent past still with us today.

While driving through the southern interior of British Columbia last summer I noticed an unusual type of machinery parked off the side of the highway. The day was overcast with light showers, and the result was that the colours in the landscape all seemed heightened. The machinery was a combination of an open top boxcar with what looked like an excavator grafted on top. I pulled over and trudged back through the wet grass, and took some photos. From what I'd gather, it was machinery for removing old railway ties. The old ties are stacked at certain points, then lifted up into the boxcars. The tags on the sides were a record of urban stops, now parked out in a forested mountain valley.

Another trip had me looking at a tree that extended over the road in a very sculptural way. The road was a sleeping secondary one out on Vancouver Island. It was a three way intersection that seemed almost forgotten. I explored a looser approach in painting this one.

I'll be showing some paintings this June in Calgary, Alberta. The show opens June 6th at the Midtowne Gallery. For those in the area I hope you can make it.

Out on the newsstands now for Cycle World magazine;

I've been working on a few more pieces for exhibition. Looking to have them up for the first of March at my local gallery. The show is of a smaller number of my recent paintings. The opportunity to show is welcomed, and yet it seems to focus my schedule in a way that can be a little stressful/negative. I'm use to the deadlines in my illustration work, just not something I want too much of in these paintings. Working with a heavier weight canvas on these. The canvas suface had me doing some subtle shifting in edges.

After scraping and heat gunning the old paint from some of our old house last summer, and then prepping, and painting, then going on a road trip to help in painting some rooms at my in-law's, I've noticed a theme in my life; walls, walls, and some stairs. In my studio I've been painting with doing another gallery show in mind. The feedback from the gallery has been positive, but the request for larger scale work has been made several times. Working with different scales, and surfaces. Some of the surfaces have been light weight finely woven cotton canvas, contrasted with a heavier duck for larger canvas, as well I still enjoy the panel boxes which I construct. As the scale goes larger the panel paintings seem to run up against the issue of weight, and being somewhat cumbersome. I've done some painting on linen as well. I do enjoy the attributes of each. As the scale has increased, I've experienced a new physicality in my painting(not to mention the house painting). It's demanded a different approach in how I literally must stand while painting. I understand it's good for digestion, ha-ha. It's possible to sit for intervals while working on appropriate sections. Well the studio, and house painting has me thinking of buying an old used panel van. It'll help transport materials as well as larger paintings.

The following painting was subject I gathered several years ago, but always stayed in my mind. I photographed the subject on a hot day. The pavement had a bleached quality. The painting was again on a cradle box I made. The smaller size felt appropriate, and I wanted the scale of the object to be more intimate when viewed. It's a common urban subject, but by making the painting smaller, I felt it drew me in.

In my own work my sketches, or drawing ends up gone. Wallpapered over with oil paint. I've had a passion for the idea of edges , whether soft or hard in painting. The purity of drawing is something lately I've wanted to feel again. 

My neighbour across the street has an old homebuilt utility trailer. It's used to carry old furniture, soil, building supplies, and any other thankless tasks. It follows an old Ford, and it reminds me of one my Father had. Although my Father's was a weathered box off an old Studebaker truck. The main frame of this trailer is from an old truck too. The sides are angle iron, and 3/4" plywood. All the metal is painted black, but it's the custom plexiglass fenders that give this trailer it's own look. The plexiglass is old, & cloudy, probably quite brittle now. Still there's no cracks in them. Oh, yeah that spare tire is probably quite old too! The battle ship grey paint job seems to have been refreshed recently. When it's parked across the lane, it just makes me smile, as it sits under the dappled light of the oak trees. I suppose this image is more nostalgia in tone than I first intended when started.

3 East is the name of my latest gallery painting. In my gallery work, I've been trying to deconstruct the subject matter from my own personal engagement. As an illustrator, I'm asked to interpret other's thoughts. Also a stepping out of my heavy use of line in my illustrations. Line is a construction of the mind to explain something in a subjective manner. Our brains are doing the "seeing", not our eyes. The eyes when allowed to see with a purity that quite often is forgotten as we age. In seeing the shapes of what I'm looking at, it's been an exercise to put down my visual prejudices, and just look for a time. In closing, a book I read years ago now, had a title that has stuck with me. The title is "Transfiguration of the Commonplace". Yes, also I very much enjoy working with line, but I'm exploring elsewhere lately.

Had a holiday break for a spell in late January. After that in February I've been working on several charity based projects lately. Still one to go, and a couple of illustration assignments. The one I'm posting is for the St Louis AIGA chapter, and the American Heart Association. The Heart, one of those two special organs. I leave the second to your choice. I've painted the heart a couple of times before, and wanted to try push another direction. This painting is oils on wooden panel, with gold leaf on the sides/edges. The heart is supposedly the seat of love, maybe it's the love of life. Hope yours keeps pumping.

I've finished another canvas. The subject was a photo I shot out the window of an airport while waiting for our flight. I developed my sketch from elements in my photo. The tarmac/concrete had subtle bands of tone. I worked up a pencil, and did a colour study in vector. The most time consuming part feels more like the stretching of the canvas, and pencilling in the base drawing for paint. The opacity I want takes about 2-3 coats per colour. The final canvas is 24 by 40 inches. The colours in the photo of the canvas are somewhat too vibrant, the final painting is a little more neutral than the image on the monitor. I painted the sides of the canvas as well. The depth of the stretcher gives a feeling of object that I wanted. The painting has a quality the digital colour study just does not have. I do enjoy them both for different reasons. And yes Mr. Rogers, no masking tape was used.

I finished this painting about a month ago. I was out and about in an industrial part of my home city. The infrastructure of cities does interest me. The unobserved is interesting to me for it's unassuming aesthetic. The wires, and neutral tones struck me. The linear qualities of the cables have direct abstract qualities. After developing a sketch, I did a color study in vector. I decided to drop out the sky for a more graphic feel in the cables. The painting is 30 by 40 inches, oils on canvas.

Recently finished gallery work. Oils on wooden panel, 24" by 12". I'm looking toward a subtle level of abstraction. I'll being pushing in that direction with a more reductive look on my next one.

Still working on my illustration assignments, but stayin' up a little later to do some of my own stuff. I painted a grain car that was parked on the rails in my home town. I was back visiting family in Alberta. The western prairies are home to a lot of grain, barley, flax, and canola. The cars wear the markings of their journeys. I wanted to distort the car, and get that big sky. It's oils on a wooden panel. Horizontal formats are my favs, and usually don't fare well in the print world, or on monitors. I added a detail to try, and offer a feeling of the surface.

Outside of my illustration assignments I've been doing some personal directed painting. I feel as though I'm working back, and forward to a point in my past when art was about the process, not a paycheck. I've gotten some thoughts, and still working on more. Small post.