After Covid and the struggle of trying to get my designs out into the world again, I realized that I needed to return to the basics… to make art with paint.
So I upgraded my watercolor palette and played with new paints for awhile.
Then I went to a wedding in Windermere, where a tour of the local art galleries led me to the work of David Langevin. I was immediately drawn to the bold colours and Suessical feel of his acrylic tree paintings.
Thinking I’d create a series of my own, I took dozens of tree photos and purchased acrylic paints.
The first four images in this lineup are versions of one of the many drive-by photos I took during my B.C. trip in the summer of 2022. The first is the original. For my painting subject I settled on one particularly dark and moody digital tweak (image #4). Image #5 is the resultant acrylic painting. To this day, it remains unfinished. Ironically, the only thing missing is the tree.
Acrylics: A Lost and Found Story
For long-forgotten reasons, early-years attempts at painting with acrylics were abandoned for other mediums and other modes of expression. My last session with acrylics until recently, in fact, was on a warm summer day at the cabin with my mother, about 25 years ago.
I’d brought along a copy of The Acrylics Book: Materials and Techniques for Today’s Artist by Barclay Sheaks, and we set out try an exercise in acrylics on wet canvas. The results were good but I was exhausted and convinced it wasn’t for me.
I had, actually, already fallen deeply in love with the unpredictable, fluid characteristic of watercolor.
Roots and Wings series 4 3, watercolor
Roots and Wings series 4 2, watercolor
Fast-forward to my more recent plan to paint trees with acrylic paints…
As illustrated in the series of blue tree images above, the attempt to paint trees was somewhat successful but ended in frustration. Not wanting to give up entirely nor waste the materials I’d invested in, I experimented with various acrylic painting techniques.
"Imagining Mama (Out There Somewhere)"... Painted in 2022, the year my mother died. I could not sense her presence the way my siblings were at that time. It felt as though she were lost. A couple of years later I realized it was I who was lost. Mama loved to paint flowers. Her favourite colour was pink. A psychic once told her she was destined to travel and, years later, she travelled quite a lot to be with her grown children. I hope that, somewhere out there, these things are still true. Perhaps that is what I was feeling deep inside when I painted this.
"Prehistory", a dark acrylic pour, private collection.
"Prehistory Red"
"Low Light", an embellished pour.
"Under Water", a small and early experiment with skins, private collection
"Smoke", an ambitious layered project with skins on two adjoined canvases. The black and white overlay is one piece from a single pour.
"High Society". Plant life rules and is abundant in my collections.
"Borealis". Playing with light curves and tree skins.
These experiments were fun and productive but I eventually became frustrated again. It was then that I realized that what I really wanted (and needed)—no matter what the medium—was to paint in my own style, to reconnect with what it is that makes art-making magical for me: losing self-consciousness through the process, and interacting with the painting as I build and discover…life.
So I reached back to the time of intense watercolor painting and the emergence of my painting style.
Using some of my previous watercolor paintings as patterns of a sort, I began a series of bold, textured acrylics. The motifs within these paintings aren’t necessarily new but they have a new intensity, a new life.
It’s like falling in love all over again.
"Solstice"; 2nd rendering of Roots and Wings series 5 2, acrylic pour and skins, 10" x 20" wrapped canvas (1.5 inch)
Signature on the side
"Leave My Leafs!"; 2nd rendering of Roots and Wings series 4 3, acrylic pour and skins, 9" x 12" wrapped canvas (1.5 inch)
"Thin Disguise"; 2nd rendering of Roots and Wings series 4 2, acrylic pour and skins, 9" x 12" wrapped canvas (1.5 inch)
"Moon Walk", acrylic pour and skins on 12" round canvas
"Along Tere Road", acrylic pour and skins, 12" round wrapped canvas