Anonymous Archive part 2 of 2

I blogged last week about anonymously and unexpectedly receiving some of my old work and you can read about that here, because I am now continuing from where I left off.

This print I was very happy to have back, as I do not have any other copies myself, but had never forgotten my work on it. Based on a sketch I did of one of my young nieces asleep, I wanted to recreate that variance in pencil linework and spent many hours of class time in the print room with my zinc plate in an acid bath to create this variance. I remember, in 1981 (my final year at CTS in Toronto) being so pleased that the test print showed the lines as I imagined.

My printmaking teacher convinced me to fill in my minamilist approach with aquatint, which I had never tried before. Although I took a similar attitude with the aquatint - giving it many "baths" in order to have a variance in shadow, I remember being hugely disappointed in the resulting test print. I thought the aquatint overwhelmed the linework.

I am not so disappointed now, though, as I think there is a good contrast between the lines and the shadows. I know I only made a very small edition, but since I have no idea of the provenance of the others, I am quite delighted to have one of the final prints in the edition.

After I finished at the Special Art Programme at CTS, I carried on with my own work as a developing artist. That summer I was very interested in specific flowers as representative of my self. I also made many monoprints, using the backs of zinc etching plates. At this point I do not recall whether these represented red tulips or rosebuds...

 

In the fall of 1981 I started working as a temp in an office in downtown Toronto. Because the employer had a policy that encouraged "staggered hours", I ended up starting work by 7.30 am so that I could go home in the afternoon before rush hour. As winter wore on I found myself at my desk watching the sun rise through the office blinds. I found this broken cityscape view quite inspiring and later did quite a number of sketches of it. I only finally did a large painting in 2015, Fractured City, which was inspred by this time and the sketches I did back then.

I was surprised to see this slightly later work in the Anonymous Archive. Still from the 80s, I did this mixed media piece as part of a series that ended up being exhibited in Winters Gallery at York University (while I was in my final year there in 1986) and then at Charyk Gallery in Downsview. At the time I was very interested in metonymy, visually as well as verbally, where part of the whole represented the whole. In the case of this series, the hand represented the body.

Signal Studio - winding down

At the end of the seventh week in the studio, I finally finished my paintings. I was able to sign the larger one below a bit of scrim on the front, but for the smaller paintings I just signed the back as it would be impossible to paint my signature on the heavy texture which covered the canvas.

On the Monday of week 8, I used the last piece of grey paper on which I had been doing pastel drawings. Though I could have brought more of that paper in, I decided that it was a good time for me to refocus. Besides, all the pastels needed a spray of fixative - so I did this at the end of each day before I left.

I took down all my reference photos and pastel drawings and hung up the finished paintings (and the canvas on the right, which had not been painted!).

During the final three weeks I decided to stick to my routine of at least having three things that I would focus on daily. I continued doing a self-portrait in the morning and started a series of tiny watercolour pencil drawings. I had a small pad of Strathmore watercolour paper postcards.

I was thinking of doing a series of drawings where I would use an eraser to draw on a ground of graphite. However, the toothy Fabriano paper I was using did not allow for a solidly dark ground and made it impossible to erase back to white. Though I was happy with the final drawing of persimmons, I decided not to continue with a series at this time.

Instead, I decided my time would be better served by doing sketches for possible lino block prints -- a projected series for 2019. In order to get started, I taped several sheets of paper to each drawing board.

For the most part, I fitted two to-size drawings on each page. I realise that the more detail that is in the initial drawing, the more successful will be the final print. I am looking forward to continuing this work in the coming year.

Signal studio - works in progress

I set up a mirror in the studio, so one of the first things I did every morning was sketch a self-portrait while drinking a cup of ginger tea. I took this picture recently, so a full studio is behind me. As well as a selfie, for the first seven weeks of the residency I did a pastel drawing and worked on my "Antibes Paintings" daily.

This is a November self-portrait in watercolour pencil. I have a tendency to squint when I attempt a smile at myself.

Before starting the residency at Signal Art Centre, I had prepared a number of canvases in advance with a heavy scrim texture and applied an undercoat of quinacridone violet. So I wasted no time in blocking my canvases once ensconced in the studio!

My paintings are always a slow build up of colour.

The largest canvas has its place on the large easel in the studio, but the small canvases would be on the adjacent table or hand held when I was working on them.

Signal Studio Residency - working away!

I am having a very productive studio residency at Signal Arts Centre. One of the first things I did, on a sunny morning, was cut some paper, put on my boiler suit, and head outside to do some rubbings of the metal utility shores on the street. I taped these rubbings to the wall near the door and they have stayed there for the duration of my stay. A few of them can be seen in this picture.

My painting station, which takes up half the room, also provides me wall space to affix reference pictures and some finished pastel drawings. A moveable surface under the paints table provides a space for my pastels and I sit in a chair near the window when working on pastel drawings.

This area by the sink is also the selfie station. There is a mirror leaning agains the wall and every morning I do a self-portrait sketch in a sketchbook. I have been using a variety of media for these daily selfies - soft pencil, charcoal pencil, conté, pen, inks, watercolour pencils. I especially enjoy painting selfies with ink washes (I am limited to several bright colours and black) as I have to be loose in the execution. I also really like using my watercolour pencils for selfies and other small works. 

Every day I spend most of my time painting, with breaks to work on a pastel drawing and to do a self portrait sketch. I had prepared all the canvases in advance of arriving at Signal, applying scrim texture and a quinacridone violet groundcoat. At Signal I began the blocking in of the paintings in my first week there.

Although I placed the large canvas on the easel, I simply lay the small canvases on the table or lean them against the wall and pick them up when applying a specific colour. Here are several of them in progress.

pastel drawings

I have been busy with a lot of writing lately (poetry, short stories, art criticism). At the end of January my short review of William Crozier: the Edge of the Landscape at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) was published as part of CIRCA magazine's This Matters Now series. I saw this exhibition a few months ago, and blogged about it here, but you can read the review here. I was also delighted that my short story, Prayers for My Children was published a few days ago in the online journal, Tales from the Forest; you can read it here.

Last week I decided that, even though I hadn't finished cleaning up the studio, I wanted to do some visual work, other than ceramics. I pulled out some chalk pastels and heavy grey paper and began drawing.

As may be apparent from my prints and handmade books over the past year or two (see here, here, and here), I am inspired by my times of "shinrinyoku" (walks in the woods for good health)

and by walks along the seaside where I become obsessed with pebbles at the shore (also see here and here).

I really enjoyed drawing with the chalk pastels as I was able to lay down shapes and colour to effect quite quickly.