A Bit of a Tumble

I am hoping to start painting again on the weekend.

Last week while walking dogs, I got knocked over by a couple of rambunctious young dogs (one of them I was walking). They were coming at me full tilt, and I thought that they would go around me but no, they (collectively 125 lbs.) ran straight into my left leg. I have a fractured tibia. Luckily there were lots of people around, one of them a man who is a fireman, and knows how to deal with emergencies. A couple of the other dog walkers acted as crutches for me, and I hobbled closer to the parking lot. We were still quite far from it, (of course, we were at the far end of the 25 acre field when I wiped out!), and Scott the fireman went to get my car to drive into the field to get me. He put the dogs in the back of my SUV, delivered them to their respective houses and gave them each a cookie. Then he drove me home, parked my car in the garage and called an ambulance. Caroline, another dog walker came to my place to take Scott back to his truck.

The bottom line is that I have to be off my feet for 6 weeks. I will start doing some painting over the weekend, after I have had a few more days to get used to being on crutches, and have had a chance to reorganize my studio to accommodate my leg which needs to be elevated. Hopefully I will be able to take advantage of this time to paint!
CG

Palace Motel

This is from a photo that I took in the 80's before there was a lot of condo development on the Toronto waterfront. This motel looks like it's from the 30's or 40's - kind of art deco style. I could have corrected the distortion that makes the telephone wires and the sign to lean to the right, but I thought it added some interest to the composition. You wouldn't believe how I struggled with the clouds, and in fact this painting took me a lot longer than normal.

9x12" Oil on Raymar cotton panel

Golden

Summer is just a memory now, but I will reach into my vacation photos as the weather becomes more inclement.

6x8" oil on Raymar cotton panel

Contemplation

A couple contemplates Lake Ontario.

6x8" Oil on Raymar cotton panel

Back Door Sunrise

Every once in a while, as I am letting my dog out early (6am or thereabouts), there is a miracle in progress, and I am lucky enough to witness it. Even though I live in a large city, nature is still very much in evidence. I dashed in the house to get my camera, and thankfully it the battery was charged up, and there was space on my memory card. There was no time to fiddle around, and this beautiful sky had changed within 3 or 4 minutes!

6x6" Oil on gessoed masonite

Carousel Horse

I thought it would be interesting to include the reference photo that I used, so that you could see my process, and so that I can document this for future reference. I used to be really literal about my interpretation from photos, painting every detail that was in the photo and I found the results from these paintings were sterile and had less of what I wanted to express than I would like. I have had to make a really conscious effort to eliminate distracting and unnecessary detail, adjust tonal values, and work out the composition.
I do a grid of four squares on my photos, usually. You can see the blue lines on the photo, made with a blue Stabilo pencil (an indispensible tool from my sign painting days). This way I can gauge where lines should be without looking too static, as if I was following a join the dots picture.

I tried to emphasize the horse in the foreground, tone down the lights above, and eliminate distracting detail behind the horse, while maintaining a feel of the carousel. The photo was taken at night, so the colour balance was incorrect, but I thought that I would keep that in the painting to give it a kind of old fashioned look. I would go on this ride!

6x6" Oil on gessoed masonite

Crazy Mouse

This is a midway ride at the "Ex" called the Crazy Mouse in which people zoom around tight corners and steep inclines in a tiny cylindrical car. No way would I ride on one, but I am happy to paint it.

Actually, it was one of the most difficult things I've painted lately. I liked the image, because of the graphic quality of it, the high contrast and it's clean colours. And as an ex sign painter, I thought it would be a piece of cake. But there is a lot of distortion in the letters because of the perspective, and I struggled with it for ages!

6x8" Oil on Raymar cotton panel