I'm a 'Wonder Woman Artist' tomorrow night LOL!

Here is a drool-worthy detail of one of the pieces I'll be exhibiting tomorrow night at Arlene Paculan's 'Wonder Women.' If you'd like to get a sneak peak of what will be in the group show at Arcadia in June (with Philip Cairns and David Bateman, two accomplished artists, writers, playwrights, actors), come to Hirut Restaurant Friday night! I'm the Wonder Woman Artist of the night supporting Super Wonder Women musicians, Arlene Paculan, Cheryl Beatty, Cindy Bray and Kel Alex with a colourful background.

8PM, 2050 Danforth Ave, Toronto, by Woodbine Sbwy Stn and lots of street parking.
Facebook event page.
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Arabesque, spiraling, undulating men

Arabesque, spiraling, undulating men, © Brenda Clews, 2016, Windsor and Newton professional watercolours, some Daniel Smith Extra Fine watercolours, a little mixed media, all permanent pigments, 5'5" x 2', on Canson archival 140lb watercolour paper.

While still untitled, this painting is finished. It took about 2 weeks. I photographed the painting in direct sunlight to get the colour as accurate as possible. I prefer a photo taken in full spectrum light, of course, even if a watercolour painting should not ever be in direct sunlight. Out of direct light or in artificial light, the colours are deeper. This painting has 5 layers of various archival varnishes that are recommended by Golden to protect the pigment and which also help provide some UV protection for the painting.


Here is the original, untouched photo - I shoot in raw. The colours captured by my Canon 60D are surprisingly good, except the blue, which, while it is ultramarine, should be more towards the cyan range because it's watered down and other colours were mixed into it in parts. All the cameras I've used have problems with blues, I've found.

I tweaked some areas in PSE for the final version: the blues I shifted towards the cyan range, toned down the yellows and pushed them towards a orange-cadmium yellow a touch and slightly darkened the overall painting as it would be in a room - in fact, I always colour correct with the painting beside me to calibrate the colours as closely as I can. Still, in direct light, what you see is very accurate (though one would never keep watercolour paintings in sunlight - rather, on a north-facing wall or where sunlight doesn't reach). Taking the final photo was the one and only time this painting will ever be in sunlight.
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I Am a Watercolourist

I am a watercolourist, and have known this for years, and for years I have been trying to mimic my watercolour techniques first in acrylic for a very short while and then for years in water-soluble oil paints. Returning to watercolour for three of the four rolls that will be in the group show I am in at Arcadia Gallery in Toronto this June, I find an old joy. I bought a not-too-expensive roll of Canson Monteval watercolour paper, 140lb, and cut 4 strips of paper, 6' long and 2' wide. The drawings or paintings on each strip should be 5' long, but I have not been strict about it. I dug out Windsor & Newton watercolour paints that are 30 years old, and still going strong, and bought a few new tubes of Daniel Smith, and gave in to an old joy. This week of painting has been nerve-wracking, getting the anatomy right in my own style somewhat gruelling and requiring intense concentration (gone are the even bland colours of Conceptualism), and ultimately very satisfying. I am still exploring my preConceptual Art stage, having returned to my style as a teenager and allowed what has been developing under the consciousness, at the depths, to inform the painterly choices of form, colour, brushstroke, etc., in paintings now.

Photo of 'Paint Pans' for the three figures in dance (still untitled), Roll 4, that I've been posting the progress of this week. My cat drinks paint water, hence the torn metal lid of the canning jar (too narrow for her) and the covered water glasses. I also keep a few jars of pennies nearby and give them a good shake if she tries to step on the painting - she races off at the sound and I keep them like spells around paintings and the threat of their sound has kept her off wet paintings for the 5 years I've had her I am happy to say. I keep the sable brushes overnight wetted in saran wrap (some of those brushes are 40+ years old). The Sushi dip plastic containers come in handy, huh. I use cheap cafeteria trays to keep my palette, paints, brushes, water and towels on - they are easy to move to another table for working, or another room if there is better light. In this photo, you can see the entire palette for painting the figures in over a background that had been previously prepared with all the same colours, except for the sienna and umber, that I have been posting this week.
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Roll 4, anacrusis #6

They are dancers, but still no title. iPhone photo taken at night, so colour corrected and upped the exposure, right side catching a bit of light-glare, so the 'burn tool' applied to the right (@ 13%), probably giving it more contrast than the real piece... which is about 5'5" long (as tall as me) and 2' wide. Been working on this for a week, ok, really, in concept since last Fall, think it's just about 'there.'

The figures are composed from a film, Test. I saw Test on TV last November (2015) and fell in love with the dance sequences. So I ordered the film from Amazon and studied it, watching the dance sequences over and over and over. I cannot afford a model, let alone models. In a film, I can study the figures in motion and get a sense of volume in space as they twist and turn and as the camera views them from different angles. I know these figures from all sides and could paint them front or back. There was not a moment in the film where three dancers looked like this. The painting is my own composition as are decisions about lighting. Of course, I took some liberty with the facial features, changing this and that, and the anatomy, the anatomy which is such a challenge and so rewarding after the years of Conceptual blandness, is in my own style.
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Roll 4, anacrusis#5

This painting is now close to completion. The guy on the right took most of the afternoon and evening. Painting with watercolour is nerve-wracking. Much easier if it was acrylic or oils – one could just wipe off any changes. This is not possible with watercolor.

You can lift watercolour paint from the paper by wetting and blotting it - not fully, but usually enough. But when you add wet paint on top of dried watercolour all the colours re-activate. I'm using a nearly drybrush technique with the whitener - and hoping to keep the colour underneath. Any mistakes and I have to wet and blot and it goes through all the layers and I get a 'hole' that is very hard to fill to look like the original layers again.

Anyway, that said, the guy on the right is currently dominating the painting. I need to do the shadows on his face and hair, and the highlights, and then see. The guy on the left has trousers on, and his hips are in deep shadow. But if I do that, all of the figures will lift off the background and not be integrated into the swirl of blue.

My daughter, who's only seen the image here, thinks maybe to leave the guy on the right 'faceless' and so I am considering that too. Then the painting is about the central figure, and the other two are half-formed, sinking into a background that they are emerging from.

(iPhone 6s+ photo late at night, colour corrected for the exposure and the blues but the oranges became muted)
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Roll 4, anacrusis #4

Progressing slowly, slowly... took this in the bright light of late afternoon sun and a daylight bulb, so the photo may be a little paler than the painting is.

(By anacrusis I mean the poetry definition: "one or more syllables at the beginning of a line of poetry that are regarded as preliminary to and not a part of the metrical pattern." Which, I think, is from Webster's dict.)
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Roll 4, anacrusis #3

While this painting awaits a title, I am going to number the images of its slow, incremental, and often for me somewhat torturous, development. It is 'Roll 4, anacrusis#3,' and by anacrusis I mean the poetry definition: "one or more syllables at the beginning of a line of poetry that are regarded as preliminary to and not a part of the metrical pattern." Who knows what the final iteration of this painting will be - while it is going in unexpected directions, I am on a discernable painterly path now with it now and will see what is developing through to the end. Another iPhone 6s+ photo, untouched.
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