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.

Incognito begins!

I started the small pieces for "incognito", this year's fundraiser for the Jack & Jill Foundation (supporting children and families). As I mentioned in my last week, I will not post finished pictures until after the final event a few months from now: the finished pieces will only be signed on the reverse so that buyers will not know who the artist is until after the sale. All pieces will cost the same price.

Because I wanted my paintings to be textured, I decided that, even though the cards seemed robust, it would be better if I did the paintings on canvas and then affix them to the cards when finished. I used tissue paper and pva glue to create texture.

The pieces are so tiny, it was easy to find a leftover piece of pre-primed canvas that was suitable to staple to a board. I marked out the sizes so that I can cut them when finished, After the texturing dried, I used a pin to prick any air bubbles and then painted my signature undercoat of quinacridone violet. 

Without giving too much away (especially as I don't really know what will happen when I start painting!) I can say that I have been looking at some old sketches.

These cityscapes are from 1981 sketchbooks, inspired by watching the sunrise through blinded office windows in downtown Toronto.

This sketch was inspired by a visit to Rome a few years ago.

I have a fair idea what all three pieces will be and how they will relate to each other, but this is all I will tell about the "incognito" project until the end of April, when the event will be over!

Fractured City - painting finished!

As I posted in early February that I was going to paint a cityscape on the large composite canvas, I got to work on it! Here it is in the early stages with the composition blocked out.

I applied metal leaf at an early stage of the painting.

I really enjoyed painting this cityscape, for the most part quite loosely. There is some randomness in the way the drips reacted around the various bits of texture which I had applied before getting into the swing of painting (newsprint, cloth, string, rough burlap and metal leaf). You can see some of this in the detail -- here is a detail from the bottom right corner of the painting.

This is a detail from the mid-left side of the painting.

This detail shows some of the rough burlap texture in the sky area.

This is the finished painting: Fractured City, mixed media on canvas, approx 122 cm x 169 cm, 2015.

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday was my 20th wedding anniversary! It has been a great 20 years, and has just flown by. Our wedding date was chosen haphazardly as a day to correspond with a party my husband had in the 1980s, which was also close to Valentine's Day. So making a card for our anniversary doubles as a Valentine's Day card. Am I lazy or what? For this year's card I used some paper that I had picked up in Chinatown in Toronto on my first visit back there in 1995 (I moved to Ireland in 1993). The bundle of Chinese paper squares already had applied metal leaf and some paint on them; I used a piece as a backdrop for my abstract cityscape of ripped blue card. The additional heart and gold leaf is like a sunrise. 

In the spring of 1988, I started going out with this young man (the host of the above-mentioned party!). This portrait is from one of my sketchbooks of that year.

In 1991 we were living together in Toronto, and my job at the time allowed my spouse, including common-law spouse, to avail of my dental plan. It was a good time to get needed work done, including the removal of wisdom teeth. He was very smart, taking all the dental surgeon's advice seriously. My partner James is not holding a heart to his face, but ice packs to ease the swelling after surgery, and he is smartly wearing gloves so that his hands don't get cold!

In this portrait from a 1994 sketchbook, I suspect James was reading as he is looking down. Because of the colouring, I think I was using a conté pencil to do this sketch.

This drawing of James is from a 2001 sketchbook and I know he was reading because I have written "James reading" on the left page!

In this painting, Daddy Kiss, from 2012 from the Moments series, I have painted James with our new-born baby. Our baby is now heading for 13 years old so it is high time I did some new sketches of my husband!

Eureka!

After spending all last week with blue painter's tape experimenting with various compositions before starting my final Fever Afterimages painting on the composite textured canvas, I woke up on Sunday morning with a lightning bolt inspiration. The textured canvas would be ideal for a cityscape painting that has been hibernating for more than 30 years!

In my minds eye I saw the starting point for this painting as a tiny doodle in a tiny sketchbook. The doodle was from a period of time where I was temping at an office in Toronto. I worked "staggered" hours so that I started before 7 am and finished by 3.30 pm. In the winter it was very dark in the morning when I came to work, the office was empty and I got a view from the windows of buildings gradually appearing as daylight took its time dawning. I was searching through my box of old sketchbooks and couldn't find the doodle of my mind's eye, but found this tiny doodle (about 2.5 inches high) taped into the tiniest imaginable sketchbook. The doodle is from 1981, view from one of the office windows, so it is most likely the doodle I had in mind even if my memory had changed it's appearance!

From that same period, I found a number of tiny doodles taped into a half-size sketchbook (imperial equivalent to A5). I know I was looking out a different window in the same office; the vertical lines represented the lines made by open vertical blinds.

In a larger 8.5"  x 11" sketchbook from 1981 I found some ink sketches of sunrise through this second window which I obviously thought was more interesting!

Was I thinking of a shaped canvas?

The whites scratches were drawn in chalk, sometimes on wet ink.

 In another full-size sketchbook (8.5" x 11") I was working on the same cityscape theme with pastel.

By 1982  I seemed to have more plans to make paintings. These two ink & wash sketches are from a full size sketchbook that year.

This painted and scratched sketch is also from a 1982 full size sketchbook.

This sketch, from the same 1982 sketchbook, only covers about half the page. I used some silver paper and gold tape that I had found in a factory dumpster; the black is burnished crayon. It is this sketch that I am probably most thinking of as suitable for a starting point on the textured composite canvas. Time to get to work1