Fish--God's eye view

Thought for the week: The shadow does not belong to the object which casts it, but to the light which creates it.

This is a 5x7 inch oil painting on paper.

Still life with pitcher

This still life is a 10x12 oil on stretched canvas.

guacamole pre-constructed

This 9x12 inch oil sketch on canvas is part of what I call my 'pre-constructed' series. The notion of pre construction comes from watching the Food Network and the trend of serving food in a de-constructed state. The best example I've seen of this is the chef who served a 'deconstructed' lemon meringue pie--On a long shallow plate he placed a wafer (to represent the crust), a serving of lemon pudding (to represent the filling), and a meringue based cookie (to represent the meringue)--voila! lemon meringue pie deconstructed. A bit too precious for my eating tastes, but the genesis of an excellent idea around which to build still life portraits of the everyday.

Fantasie still life

This 9x12 inch oil on canvas is made up of what I call 'invented objects' which bear no relation to any objects in reality.

Still life with sunflowers

This is a 9x12 inch oil on canvas. Even on canvas, sunflowers always bring with them a hint of late summer, and always evoke thoughts of sad, bad, and quite mad Vincent van Gogh.

The Tiger

This 7x7 inch work is done in oil on black paper. It makes me think of the William Blake poem:


The Tiger

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?


In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?


And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?


What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?


When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?


Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

"Ken Danby, recognized as one of the world's foremost realist artists and best-known in Canada for his iconic hockey painting, At The Crease, has died at the age of 67 while canoeing in Algonquin Park." Globe and Mail 24/09/07

http://www.kendanbyart.com/

Mountain majesty

This 11x14 inch graphite drawing took several weeks to complete, working only a few hours at a time, because of the effects of eyestrain. The area shown in the detail (below) was done with a magnifying glass.





detail of Mountain Majesty

Still life with harvest

Thought for the week: It is said that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for only a day, but if you teach that man to fish, you feed him (and his family) for his life. This is true. But you must also consider that, having taught him to fish, if you poison his rivers, you haven't helped him at all.





A 16x20 pastel still life on sanded pastel paper.

Salsa and copper plate II

This 16x20 inch pastel work on sanded paper is the full color version of the greyscale one I posted on 15 September. It's not quite identical, but its close.

snowbound

This 9x12 inch oil sketch on canvas is loosely based on a photograph of an abandoned boat taken in northern Ontario along highway 11 east of Nipigon. Over the years the boat has slowly lost ground to the elements until it is now just a pile of wood that could have been pretty much anything in its better days.

bread and jam

I'm thinking of turning this 5.5x8.5 inch graphite drawing into something more colourful.

The Fiddler

I did this 10x14 graphite drawing several years ago.

Intimations of summer

This 11.5x16.5 pastel on sanded paper is based on the sketch I posted a couple of days ago. I'm surprised at how well the glass of the window turned out. It's the first time I've tried to render window glass in pastel. The berries look rather yummy too.

Merci pour les fraises Margo.

Omelet pre-constructed

This 11x15 inch still life is done in charcoal and graphite with a touch of white pastel for the highlights.

strawberries on a windowsill

This is a 5.5x8.5 graphite (3B) sketch on 60 lb Strathmore windpower sketch paper.

The Red Towel

Thought for the week: Do no harm to the earth nor anything in it, for you are only the guardian and not the owner of that which you have borrowed from the future.

"To the Lighthouse"

This is an 8x9.5 inch greyscale pastel on sanded paper that I did as a preliminary to "The Red Towel" which appears below:

This is a 16x20 inch pastel on sanded paper. The greyscale (above) was invaluable as an aid to getting the values the way I wanted them in the final work.

Salsa and copper plate

This is a greyscale soft pastel done on 16x20 sanded pastel paper. It was done as an exercise to see if I could render the highlights on the copper plate with black and white pastel. I think it worked out rather well.