The Playing Field

The Playing Field, 2012, 20" x 17.5", mixed media on 90lb archival paper.


Pierre-Marie Cœdès commented at Facebook: 'It is funny you name it The Playing Field, since I see them hesitating and very much interrogative ...'

Ah, I answered, that's what the playing field is like, then, Pierre-Marie. I would like the title on this one to be interpreted however the viewer reads it and sees the painting. This series seems, for me, to have resonances with Tarkovsky's "Zone" in his movie, The Stalker. It isn't really anything, but it represents what you see and perceive about who you are, and it changes you, that process of realizing more of who we are. Now, yes, you are helping me to say what these paintings of the men mean in the way I think about them. I like the way you think about them and I especially like that you share your thoughts, for I always learn from your kindly perceptions, Pierre-Marie.



The whole album, with original sketches, may be viewed here:

Figure Drawing at OCAD

The Men Who

The Men Who, 2012, 23" x 18", 58.5cm x 45.6cm, mixed media on 90lb archival paper.

If I can, I like to finish my life drawing sketches. These were one minute poses - which I tend to place all on the same page (being into doubles, doppelgängers, clones). I have to consider placement on page, how the gesture of that pose fits into the overall rhythm of the figures, and the particular anatomy of that pose in a nanosecond and hit the track running, like, Draw! :laughing:


The whole album, with original sketches, may be viewed here:

Figure Drawing at OCAD

Figure Drawing at OCAD

After a poetry meetup group friday night, with an open mic, and a post-poetry pub visit, I dragged myself off to OCAD (Ontario College of Art and Design) the next morning for a drop-in figure drawing session. I carried a large board with a canvas sheet taped to it, my large drawing pad, 2 sets of paints, watercolour and acrylic, brushes, water jars, palette, etc. since I had been unable to determine in Internet searches if OCAD offered a long pose or not.

Unfortunately, it was a typical life drawing session, beginning with half a dozen 1 minute poses, then onto 3 - 5 minute ones, a few 10 minute, and ending with two 20 minute poses. A format I do not enjoy, and I would not have gone if I had known. So many poses of such short duration do not work for me, and I now look for sessions with longer poses.

Because I had a few things to do downtown (like visit my favourite art store, Above Ground Art Supplies), I ended up walking home, trudging 4km loaded like an elephant. All in all, very exhausting.

Still, in the posts to follow, you will see that I am working very hard to turn these pages into viable paintings.

These were all done in charcoal on 18" x 24" 90lb archival paper.

(ps. The paper is bright white - I took the photos late and it was cloudy, not enough light for my iPhone camera.)

Charcoal Sketches

Right before going to bed last night I grabbed my charcoal pencil and began a few 'tests' - all tiny, like 6" x 8" - watercolour brushed in afterwards. The self-portrait done in a dark room is overdone but you can't undo charcoal; the woman in the middle, well, what can I say, the pencil is clumsy to use, it needs larger paper; and the final one is exactly what I wanted.

Though I drew her last night, I wrote a poem for her 6 years ago:

Gaze

Yesterday,
the bus stop,
all the people's heads
turned, watching.

Gaze of anxiety.

The blind woman tapping
her way forward.

Little Magnolia Tree That Is Now Blossoming

Little Magnolia Tree That Is Now Blossoming, 2012, 6" x 10", conte, watercolours, Grumbacher acid-free journal paper.

Just a little experiment... I found a dozen or so tubes of watercolour (Windsor and Newton as well as their Cotman line) in a dusty old box under my desk, tubes that must be 25 years old. Some of them are still usable! A quick watercolour sketch of an even quicker street sketch a week or two back.