A Contemporary Realist Show at Loch Gallery in Toronto

Beginning March 15th, there is a realist show featuring some of the represented artists' work, at Loch Gallery in Yorkville, Toronto, Ontario. My partner John has two pieces in it. I look forward to heading down with him Saturday, seeing some of his friends, and seeing the works in person (though I've seen his :-)

CONTEMPORARY REALISM GROUP SHOW MARCH 2014 TILL APRIL 2014

Detail of Large Pencil Portrait

Three weekends in a row I have gotten in about 6 or 7 hours all together so far on my large drawing. The drawing is 22x30. It is on illustration board. The old illustration board that was my very favourite back in the late 80s while at art college, Crescent Board, is long discontinued, much to many artists' chagrin as it was awesome. I found Strathmore illustration board 300lb a few years ago that I ended up liking a lot too. However, funny enough, I could only get it at Michael's of all places, no art stores sold it. The board I bought at Curry's is Peterboro though. It is fine for pencil, not an over crazy tooth, but for watercolour I would only use Strathmore as it holds up much better to scrubbing back pigment, a technique I loved in watercolour.

This is a detail of the whole drawing, the face and shoulder beginnings. This pic was shot with my cell phone so of course the resolution is Not ideal, it is quite compressed, more contrasty than the original drawing, and smooshy looking. I do not smudge when drawing, I layer and I scrub back a lot with a soft eraser. I have never liked the look of smudging, I find it has an unreal looking feel, and it always struck me as having that "amateurish looking beginner artist who draw glitzy plastic repros of stars from published photos" sense, especially when you see it inconsistently mixed with non smudge areas. I like visual texture too so maybe that is why smudging is too polished a finish look for my taste. I know my views are probably unfounded since I am sure a lot of accomplished draughts persons use smudging, I just don't care for it, nor the feel of doing it physically.

I have just under 1 year to complete this drawing, and it is daunting, especially the figure part, but I am confident I will finish.

To work, I sit cross legged on the couch, putting my one foot to sleep (not all artists have studios), with my drawing propped up against a large board, and my reference image on my screen, and me a few inches from both so I do not need my glasses. This is a good thing because I would need bifocals and I don't have them either. I will most likely pay for this when I am 70+ as my back and shoulders also kill after the couple hours I work like this but I just ignore it. Anything one has enough passion for, one is willing to take a little pain for lol!

Starting a Large Drawing

This weekend, I will be beginning what is the largest drawing I've ever taken on. Not usually did I ever use the medium of pencil or graphite to do a finished piece of artwork. Maybe only twice to three times over the last 35+ years of drawing and painting. I did one of my daughter as a toddler, playing with an antique Fisher Price Farm set on an old wooden cereal crate my Grandparents gave me years ago. The second one I recall is a commission I completed. I expect this drawing to take over a year to complete. It is 22x30 inches.

Originally I was going to do it on a tinted surface in charcoal and white pastel pencil but I would have needed to work much larger even to avoid the surface texture inhibiting my ability to get into fine detail so I changed to use graphite pencil. I need a sharp sharp soft pencil in many instances and charcoal is just to fragile and difficult to get to such a sharp point as well. My reference will be images I took of a friend's partner.

Unfortunately, I took these images Before I had the where with all to set my SLR on RAW so the images are only jpgs and at the time, not very easy to correct much in the way of contrast, sharpening, etc. to be able to see well enough to do a detailed painting like originally planned. I know better now, mainly with the help of my own partner who is much more knowledgeable in the areas of camera settings, working with images with digital software, etc. Not to mention my eyesight is not what it used to be. So, a drawing will be what I will be tackling. My original motivation for having taken these references images of my model, in the environment I did, was to complete a large finished painting that was destined for entrance into a prestigious Canadian portrait competition that runs every 2 years. I planned this back in 2010 but I did not get off the ground with it. This time I will. I look forward to it! The work will be challenging but I relish it. A while back I had wanted to try a silver point. On further research, I realized that the ground for silver point needs to be specifically prepared so since I don't want to be getting into that nonsense, having only one prepared surface available to me that comes from my partner, one he prepared years ago and never used, silver point for me would be a one off. Also, I relish dramatic lighting conditions and silver point does not lend itself to that. Darks have their limits in silver point. There are some deep darks behind my figure in the scene I have chosen so silver point is out as well.

Maintaining my artist side, working full time, as well as the expense of some of the materials, is not an easy pursuit. But just thinking about beginning an extensive project already is uplifting and positive! Nothing worthwhile comes easy. If one really loves something, a way will be found to pursue it in some capacity. Even if my piece does not end up selected, and truly I don't expect it to, mainly because it is pencil, I will still thoroughly enjoy doing it!

a warming up pencil portrait of my partner John - from life

The Guildwood Inn - Had No Idea!

Ok, it was news to me that the Guildwood Inn was long abandoned, and not recently either. I myself have never been there, open or closed. Never attended a function there, never set foot on the grounds, nothing. My boyfriend's daughter was the one from whom I learned it was a closed up place. I know that you had to have money to have your wedding there at the time it did exist, it was a "ritzy place". This made it seem even more impossible that it could have been abandoned.

It's actually quite something to walk around there. There are all kinds of huge salvaged sections of stone, pillars, walls, ornaments, from the early 20th century Toronto buildings. Lots of cliche shit for photographer's to take pics of lol! Much of it is quite fascinating. Structures in marble and stone from another time and space, dislodged from their original environment, from their long ago everyday presence, now surreal, wondrous and out of place seeming in their permanent home by the Bluffs. The surface texture alone on many of them is fascinating and gorgeous.

The sounds we heard as well were amazing. An owl was Definitely heard! As well, my favourite, the distant call of the Long Tailed Ducks out on the lake.

We hope to go there again in spring and summer.