Farewell to Nova Scotia, the sea bound coast...

Every time I return from a trip to the ocean I find that my landlocked house, which I usually love, is missing a crucial dimension and I long for the sea.

Owl's Head at high tide, oil on panel, 5" x 7"

We kayak around this rock formation called owl's head every year, but only this time did we really see the owl--or what we think is the owl.  It's really only obvious from a kayak's vantage point between the cliffs (and is not visible in this painting of the spot).  Last time we were lucky enough to see Black Guillemot chicks high on a rock ledge keening their raspy calls and getting ready for their first plunge into the sea below.  This time we didn't see or hear any of the Guillemots, although I did spot a solitary chick swimming in the cove where we stay. 

I keep venturing into landscape in small ways, but I think I might paint a larger studio version of this painting sometime in the future, if only to conjure up the ocean from my land bound studio.

On a day like this,

Fallen leaves, watercolour in sketchbook

even with the sun streaming through scarlet leaves out my window, the studio seems oppressive.  So out went box of paints, sketchbook, and me.

Fallen leaves, watercolour sketch, detail

Summer, We Hardly Knew Ye

I can't quite believe you're gone, so soon.  I'm not willing to let you go, though.  I have a few more beaches and gulls up my sleeve, to try to call you back.

Beach and gull, late afternoon, oil on panel, 6" x 6"

This one is from the wonderful beach and dunes at the Pinery Provincial park, but could be anywhere, really.

Sky Sea Rock Gull

I've returned from another inspiring trip to the East Coast and am hoping to conjure some of the elemental experience of sea, sky, and land in some new compositions.  At the same time, I'm continuing to take a portraitist's approach to the wildlife that seems as archetypal as the landscape.

Solitary Great Black-backed Gull, oil on panel, 12" x 24"

While gulls, genus Larus, are found almost everywhere in the world, I associate the Great Black Backed gull, Larus marinus, the largest gull in the world, with my trips to the Nova Scotian coast.

For all of its imposing size, this a shy bird, and never allows me to come very close however stealthily I paddle my kayak.  It seems to sense, with a predators keen eye, when it is being looked at with intent and abhors my paparazzo efforts.

Incidental landscape

This landscape painting is not mine, which is to say I painted it, but it’s a copy. 

 

Incidental landscape (detail), oil on canvas

I’m painting a corporate portrait in which the CEO, an avid outdoorsman and art collector, is posing in front of a landcape painting which hangs in his office.  The original is a highly finished instantly recognizable Ontario landscape conjuring Muskoka or Algonquin in a familiar language we know if not from actual experience, then from Group of Seven paintings.  I had to stylize it significantly for the background of my painting. As a portraitist, I’ve only painted a handful of landscapes but hope to paint more.  In this case, freed from considerations of composition and subject, I could enjoy sketching the landscape, without being a slave to accuracy (unlike the portrait part in which likeness is my necessary preoccupation).  Here's a larger view, with telltale ear and suit jacket shoulder:

Incidental landscape with telltale ear (still a detail), oil on canvas

How easily a wind twisted pine against pink tinged clouds against a blue sky evokes the northern Ontario (okay, northern, southern Ontario) landscape.  Made me want to trade my brushes for a paddle.

Summer gone but not forgotten

Here are some small gouache landscapes from my summer vacation spot.

Sea cliffs, gouache on art panel, 5" x 7"

Southwest Cove from the water, gouache on art panel, 5" x 7"

Owl's Head, gouache on paper, 5" x 7 1/2"

Muskoka Chairs...or are they Adirondacks?

Either way, they always look like summer to me. 

Muskoka Chairs, 12" x 12", oil on panel

The egg-run

About once a week I drive to a gorgeous family farm to pick up eggs and greens and various items of seasonal bounty they offer at their farm store.  It's a bucolic place and always makes me feel fortunate to live in an area where the mixed family farm is still flourishing.

The last time I was there this dog and cat were having a standoff.  The dog seemed to want to play, but the cat was having none of it.
 

August 28

SOLD
Dunes at Bayswater
oil on canvas panel, 6"x 8"

August 27

Private Collection
Sea Wench and High Clouds
oil on canvas panel, 8"x 8"

Home and land locked once again. I feel I've been robbed of a dimension. Although I haven't been much of a plein air painter I bought a portable easel and paintbox to carry with me on vacation. This is the first painting produced on my new contraption. This view, although it changes all the time with the weather and the presence or absence of boats on their moorings, is one slice of the panorama that greets us whenever we look out a window or step outside our once a year home away from home.

April 25

Golden Gate

oil on canvas panel 3" x 5"

I fell in love with San Francisco and, although I left with my heart intact (a narrow escape), I have to pay a little homage to a very beautiful and livable city. I guess this is a landscape cliche, but what landscape hasn't already been seen? In a superbly curated exhibition of Vivienne Westwood's fashion career now at the de Young Museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate park, the designer is quoted as saying something about how we react only to what we already know. Somehow, seeing something already known, but experienced in person for the first time is very poignant--perhaps all the moreso for the accompanying recognition.