Kingswood Iris

In February 2019, I started preparing some canvas pieces with a view to creating some smaller works in the Memory Is My Homeland series. Further details and images related to this series, including additional links, can be found here.

As usual, I applied a ground coat of quinacridone violet acrylic paint. My plans were to do a piece using oilstick & graphite, so while ensuring that the canvas ground was protected with gesso, I also expected some colour may show through and I wanted colour as opposed to white.

This particular canvas piece was long and narrow and I knew the finished work would be vertical rather than horizontal. After finishing the large painting, Kingswood, I was leaning towards making hollyhocks my subject. However, other flowers in that painting, which are meaningful to me, are the purple iris, a clump of which were situated by the steps at the front of the house for the duration of my growing-up years. This summer my daily coronavirus short walks take me past some beautiful iris in my current neighbourhood and I decided that I preferred to make them my subject again (iris have appeared in MANY works over the years).

Work-in-progress in the studio.

Kingswood Iris
oilstick & graphite on unstretched canvas
approx 87 cm x 30 cm
2020

Preparations for new work!

In addition to the work that I'll be doing for Precariat Press (details here and here) and the writing during the annual NaPoWriMo beginning tomorrow, I am also getting ready to embark on further work for the series Memory Is My Homeland (details of other work in this series here, here, here and here). I primed some small canvases last year, stretching them on wood, which have just been patiently waiting for my return to them.

As with most of my work where the surface has been primed, I always put a ground coat of quinacridone violet over the entire surface, before I begin the painting or drawing. I have plans for both these small formats, likely to be completed with oilstick & graphite.

Before I could prepare for another large piece (Knockeen - my second home in Kerry - is taking shape in my head) I had to take down Kingswood. It was interesting to see the reverse side of the pressed cloth painting, where the "watermark" is more apparent. This is actually the front side, had I used it for its true purpose, a roller blind, but this design would have repelled the paint too much.

I needed a bit of help to affix the large piec of pressed cloth to the wood beam on the wall.

I decided to cut the piece from the roll, weighing it down a bit with another beam of wood. Almost ready to begin!

Kingswood - large painting

Last spring I started a new body of work based on memories of the homes in which I have lived. I discussed the beginnings of this project here and here. I wrote further about this work in relation to printmaking here and again more about it here. But in the summer I began work on the large painting, Kingswood, representing the house in Toronto where I lived for about 18 formative years. The ground is not canvas, but a type of pressed cloth used for domestic blinds, so there is a type of floral watermark design throughout.

I had a lot of research pix on different flowers (hollyhocks, lilac, apple blossoms, and the tiny white hedge flowers whose name I don't remember) as well as floral sketches, and the main composition sketch that I worked from.

I quickly found out that the ground behaved very differently from ungessoed canvas - REALLY soaking up every drop of paint. I worked loosely and thinned the paint out with water and medium (a mix of matte and gloss).

I had already decided on the 3 figures representing various stages of my life: my very young self on my Communion day (though I neglected to include the bridal veil I wore, I was more interested in the fashionable purple cape made for me by my Mum), my teenage self who spent most summers reading on the front steps of the house. and my young adult self who left home. 

This is a large painting, so it was necessary to use the step ladder to reach areas at the top and I had a cushion to kneel on when working in the bottom areas. The composition sketch was affixed to the wall the whole time I was working.

Any marks made would be visible in the finished painting. This whole painting would also be about process, and I was pleased that nothing would be hidden

There were several lilac trees in the backyard - purple and white lilacs - but my especial interest in the lilac in my painting was the heart-shaped leaves. The crabapple tree bore inedible fruit, but provided great ammunition in our "wars" with neighbourhood friends (a laneway between streets was adjacent to our house, so it was a great fort from which passersby could be pelted),

A plaid shirt and "painter" pants were my favourite clothing articles for a few years in my late teens-early 20s until art school got the better of my fashion sense and long flowy skirts were replaced by punk and neo-punk black.

As planned, I finished and signed the painting by mid-December.

Kingswood, acrylic on pressed cloth, approx 228 cm x 200 cm, 2019

Home Project - Memory is My Homeland

Last spring I finalised a title for the body of work, which I had been alternately thinking of as "The Home Project" and "Stories of Home". I finally settled on "Memory is My Homeland", a phrase which I extrapolated from a quote by artist Anselm Kiefer. The beginnings of this work can be seen in previous blog posts here and here. The third small piece in this series is based on the view from my window, from the first time I moved from the family home - I lived here for one month, and almost would not even include it in thinking of my various homes, but for the number of stories that I associate with this one month. I think this work gives an indication of some of these stories!

Dunn Ave, oilstick & graphite on wood, 25.4 cm x 25.4 cm, 2019

In July I did a sketch for a larger work related to the house that I grew up in. I would describe it as being about "growing up, leaving home, and trees & flowers". Kingswood, in the east end of Toronto.

I finished the large painting before the end of 2019, but that will provide a blog post on its own. I used the image from the corner of this painting (a memory of my Communion Day, though for the painting I removed the veil) to feature in some prints.

I previously blogged about going to the Trinity Arts Workshop to learn about carborundum (which can be found here) and it was after printing out the carborundum prints that I decided I wanted to include some linework in the final print. I returned to the TAW to etch a corresponding copper plate and was shown how off-setting a print from the carborundum would facilitate a perfect correspondence. I had never encountered this process before, so it was like magic!

While I was resident at Signal Arts Centre at the end of last year, I did a few more test prints of the carborundum plate. I still have access to a small press and plan to finish the copperplate in drypoint before combining the plates for a final print edition.

I used the Communion image again for a monoprint, but unfortunately I think I applied too much pressure when running through the press, and the ink stuck to and ripped the paper. This is the actual plate before I put it through the press.