Blog

I have 2 pieces in the Visions Show, which is being put on by the Central Ontario Art Association (COAA). It's in The Link @ Innovation Park, in Waterloo, Ontario. Please see my Events Page for the full address.

I helped to set up the show, so I saw all of the art that was entered - absolutely fabulous. COAA is full of very creative, established and well known artists. The show is well worth a visit.  

It's actually been been more than 2 years since there has been an opportunity to be in a LIVE show.  Finally it's happened!  The Central Ontario Art Association (COAA) has organized an exhibition.  Take a leisurely drive to Dundas, Ontario, and visit the Perceptions Juried Show at the Dundas Museum and Archives.  I'm flattered to have a black and white pen and ink drawing of the Aberfoyle Mill in the show.  The art is amazing, so please go and have a look.  While you're there take a stroll around Dundas, a wonderful small Ontario town.  

It's been a long time.  Something about being locked down for so long makes for a lack of ambition.  However, I have just finished a painting commission, soon to be delivered to an overseas customer, and now it's time for 2 outstanding requests for pen and ink drawings (with water colour).  The water colour aspect is new to me.  That's what I have been doing - as lazy as I've been - at least I've concentrated on one new skill - water colour.  It's a wonderful medium, very vibrant; and it lends itself to a loose application.  That's something that I need more of, as I tend to start loose but then tighten up and become more figurative.  Abstract is hard!

Let's just hope that all those vaccines roll out sooner, rather than later, and then 2021 will be a year that allows us all to open up.  In the meantime, please take care and stay healthy.

I finally finished (really?) a painting of my three kids which was taken from a photo that I took in my backyard the day of my middle daughter's First Communion.  I told the kids to all look in a different direction - at least two of them did!

It was a few years ago that the photo was taken, seeing as my middle daughter is now in her mid thirties.

A big thank you to the team at Sula Gallery for the excellent Ring Tower exhibition that has just finished.  I believe in total there were 41 entries, many of which were featured on a daily basis on the gallery Facebook page.

However, just because the exhibition is over doesn't mean that you should abandon the gallery.  If your're lucky enough to be in the Channel Islands bubble - then head over to the gallery and say hello for me, someone who is stuck in a much smaller (8 people) bubble in Ontario.   

I added an image of a commission that was recently completed just so you can get a look at a future print that will be available once all this shutdown necessity ends.  It's a companion piece to High Street St. Peter Port and it's called The Pollet St. Peter Point.  It's painted from a number of images that I took while standing at Boots at the bottom of Smith Street.  Taken together the two paintings represent the main street that runs through downtown St. Peter Port.  I'll have the painting photographed before I deliver the original so that future prints can be made. 

We're shutting most things down where I live, which is in Ontario, Canada.  Most people are either off work or working from home.  Now is the time to stop the spread of this virus before it overwhelms our health care system.  Art can help to alleviate the boredom of having to stay at home.  So many galleries and museums now offer on-line tours.  Take the time to learn about new art, and artists.  Or start learning a new language using apps like Duolingo - it's free.  There are also numerous university courses on-line - even from Yale.

Look around and see if any of your neighbours need help, especially older people who can't, or shouldn't, go to the grocery store. 

Hopefully soon we can get back to normal.  And maybe, just maybe, it will even be better than what we had before.  Take care everyone.   

The painting has been added to the items available for sale, including the original acrylic painting, unsigned and signed prints on archive quality paper.

I have just finished an acrylic painting called "Coastal Fog from Icart Point".  The starting point for the painting was a photo that I took on a very foggy day in early 2019.  Somehow my inner impressionist took over the creation and I channeled an old french painter from the late 1800's.  A recent exhibition of impressionist works at the AGO confirmed that this style was not only appropriate, but the best way of presenting the view I had in my head.  I hope you enjoy the painting.  The original painting will be for sale as soon as I have time to create an original for future giclées and prints.