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this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Synaptic Composition No. 12 July 28 2010  11x 14in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas with glass drop and pencil. I like to turn  in  a new  direction sometimes and this is one of those times. It explores an apparent disorder within an orderly framework.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Synaptic Composition No. 11 July 27 2010  14x 18in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas with glass drops This is basically a Magic Eye Composition.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Synaptic Composition No. 10 July 12 2010  14x 18in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas with burlap, sand and glass drops This painting has a highly reflective silvery surface which makes it difficult to capture. There was so much texture in this work that adding colour variety would have caused too much eye movement. Simple non colour against coloured glass droplets made it more acceptable. It is interesting to note that in place of two glass drops I could have used two coloured letters of the alphabet without significant change to the overall composition.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Synaptic Composition No. 9 July 5 2010  16x 20in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas with Ottawa Senators Fan Flag I found this Ottawa Senators Hocky fan flag wet and muddy by the side of a road in 2007. It took three years before I felt it was the right time to do something with it. I had no idea what the finished work would look like or what colours to use when I started. It was colour over colour over colour until I hit the right combination. It started flat and ended wtih a bubble. Part of the creative process is recognizing that some accidents are compositional improvements. The fan flag is a graphic symbol which for its owner  is charged with emotional reality. It was driven round by a fan in all kinds of weather until it disloged itself in the wind and was found by me. I could not let it die so it lives on in acrylic as a work of art.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Synaptic Composition No. 8 July 4 2010   16x 20in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas Major jump into new textural areas. Most of my rejected ideas are reentering my consciousness as groups of relationships. This work is both visual in the sense of texture and philosophical  in its idea. Interesting to note the spacial relationship between the A and e. We generaly are aware that art is an illusion but it is very difficult for us to realize that words are also illusions. Paintings can look very much like real flowers or real landscapes but they are not real flowers and landscapes. Words can trick us into believing something is true when it is not. The world of reality as illusion or 'reallusion" can be very interesting.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Synaptic Composition No. 7 June 25 2010 24 x 18in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas Reworked an old painting which was very geometric with strong colours and separate shapes. This is more unified and transparent. Art school taught me not to get my effects from glazing. They are a little too dogmatic in their ways. It merges a variety of separate ideas that I have played with over the decades into a more comprehensive whole. Note the red jewel like focal point on the lower left.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Synaptic Composition No. 6 June 23 2010   20x 16in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas Day of the 5.0 earth quake in Ottawa. I was working on this painting when the earth quake hit. The entire house began moving so I left. Continuing my experiments in composing with different materialss and textures fused together with acrylic.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Synaptic Composition No. 5 June 18 2010 14 x 18in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas This painting was a struggle between toss or keep for most of its creation. It forced me to ask the question: 'what is the subject'? Is it a composition of shapes, colours, tones etc? The answer from somewhere in my head came back ' the subject is texture'. Composition is an eye engaging arrangement of textures that satisfies whatever it is in my brain that goes off when its right. it is interesting to note the changes in my approach as I struggle to find what I realy like as opposed to my programmed cultural likes and dislikes.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Synaptic Composition No. 4 June 16 2010 14 x 18in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas I seem to be developing an interested in the picture not as window in the traditional sense but as an opening into another dimension. Very much like the self looking out into the world. My deteriorating vision which sees sharp parts of an image between light neutral grey clouds may have something to do with this growing interest. Maybe a part of me is trying to deal with these visual changes by defining them in paint.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Synaptic Composition No. 3 June 14 2010 16 x 20in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas The impetus for this composition came from a trip to market where I encountered the interior of a sliced in half Papaya. Through the process of composing, the red orange, orange and  orange yellow of the Papaya meat, was replaced by a soft netural yellow. The dark seeds became different sized coloured disks. The Papaya shape was morphed into my memory of jugsaw puzzle like pices which suited my composition.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Synaptic Composition No. 2 June 13 2010 20 x 16in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas A silver and Copper line dance together sensually.  Their interaction highlighted by chromatic yellow, red and blue that transforms their interaction into a simple anamistic figure. A masculine textured back ground sets the stage. I am getting used to the personal compositonal freedom that comes wtih abandoning the subject. My paintings no longer have to look like something. They are in a sense no longer paintings that copy but have become paintings of personal emotive experience expressed without the use of object based  metaphors.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Synaptic Composition Series June 12 2010 20 x 25in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas This painting combines both male and female emotive elements integrated through the merging of ideas from Kandinsky, Mondrian and Nicholson.  The artistic decision making process depended upon sensing which combinations of elements my brain found more pleasureable and which were less pleasureable. This required that I recognize and accept some emotive elements my brain found pleasurable as opposed to rejecting them based upon a cultural bias. That was the hardest part. What do I realy like as opposed to what do I think I like?

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Flowers 2 June 2010 24 x 18in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas I repainted the background of Flowers painted in Jan 2010 and shown below. Working with close tone painting and mica pigments  give it a more subtle effect. There is more focus on surface texture to create unity .  It is a more texturally integrated approach as opposed to balancing a multiplicity of shapes and colours. Many of these ideas come from playing with the two abstract paintings below this one.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Bytown Raftmen June 2010 16 x 20in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas I was raised on a cliff above the Ottawa River.  My early memories include  water noise; water life forms; boats ; boat houses ; boat docks ;sheets of rain dancing on the river and the daily rhythm of the morning to evening setting sun The river and the people who depend upon her - both intuitively dance to the life cycle of birth and death. I chose a background of close tone painting and layered  over it symbols of predictability and sudden unpredictability. Using mica based pigment in glazes causes  changes in colour which cannot be seen in photographs.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Early Spring 2010 May: Ottawa Canada 16 x 20in Acrylic on Stretched Canvas The colour doesn't do it justice - those cream coloured quadrilateral shapes are more white. The center is empty of action which takes place around the center but not in the center. Two large whitish shapes one upper right and the second lower left maintain the strong horizontal axis. The ends of these two dynamic shapes are locked to opposite  sides as they each try to stretch past each other as they try endlessly to cross the canvas. Red seeds,  floating seed pods and small insect like shapes symbolically reflect springs reproductive energy.

Head Study 2 2010 Mar 12 x 10 Stretched Canvas Back to playing with portraits again. Trying to keep them light and non-dramatic. Think I am trying to be to arty with this one. Next one will be back to the old clasic standard head size (smaller ) and without the usual dark dramatic approach.

Still Life with Red Circle 2010 Mar 11x14in Stretched Canvas A further development of the style mentioned below results in an Art Deco feel. The normally graded background is replaced by size diminishing bands of cool flat colour. No matter where you look your eyes always return to the red circle. Shadows and blending are replaced by warm colour shapes. This is a classical  architectural approach to composition. Linear, colour, and shape relationships are the dominant theme.

Still Life with Coffee Server 2010 March 14x11 in Stretched Canvas Experimented with this cutting up the figures and background into connected shapes in 2005. This composition contrasts warm figure shapes  against cool ground shapes.

Head Study 2010 Feb 11x14in Stretched Canvas Playing with portraits again. The next one will be an extreme close up compaired to this one. Traditionally the portrait was viewed as an object that represented a person as a subject of interest. The portrait painter endowes the subject with interest by recording his or her image. This approach caters  to the personality cult and presents the self to the viewer as separate from other setting up  a dominate subordinate relationship between self and viewer. My objective in moving in ever closer to the facial features is to eliminate the image of self as separate from others and the viewer by reducing attributes of separation the portrait  becomes a portal  to the life force  within the subject  yet belonging to  all. Very much similar to our infant view of large close faces communicating universal emotion as a unifying force of belonging.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Bird Island Cove NFLD 2010 Feb 16x20in Stretched Canvas Certainly not dull and gloomy. We spent a few days at Bird Island Cove and surrounding area. I am only beginning to explore the hundreds of photos taken. The problem is eliminating the detail from the photo and regenerating my visual sensation memory into a composition that says " I am made of paint". Some artists become addicted to colour and that is a more beneficial addiction than many others.

this painting contains mica based pigments which cannot be photographed

Peggys Cove N.S. 2010 Feb 14x18in Stretched Canvas Of the 50,000 or so Peggys Cove Lighthouse paintings my intent was not to paint just another one. Wanted to treat it differently more feeling impression and less documentary. It has a glow  similar my visual memory experience at first viewing the scene impact on a bright sunny day. I quit smoking a number of times over the years. After being away from a cigarette for a while the first drag stimulates your whole body from the inside out. You keep smoking to get that first stimulus back - but  its gone.  Nothing left  but the empty hope that the next  drag will bring  it back. With painting there is a positive chance of getting the visual stimulus back.

London Parliament 2010 Jan 14x18in Stretched Canvas Going through my old sketches i decided to work this one up in an impressionistic style. It does remind me of a Monet.

Red Church 2010 Jan 20x24in Stretched Canvas Decided to play with a winter scene. My painting class needed a subject so I painted the same view using a slightly different approach as shown below. Details are more concentrated in the middle area. Foreground and sky are more open.

Red Church N0 1 2010 Jan 16x20in Stretched Canvas Notice the differences between the two paintings of the red church. Details are scattered over the picture field.

Flowers 2010 Jan 24x18in Stretched Canvas Played mainly warm against cool colours on this one.