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Kokanee studies

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This is a detail from a series of mixed media paintings I'm working on for my forthcoming exhibition at The Foyer Gallery at Lake Tahoe Community College. The theme of my show is inspired by the spawning Kokanee Salmon, found here in Lake Tahoe.

Mixed media works are great fun, as they allow me to experiment with marks and colours in a more immediate way than oil painting. I use watercolour, pastel, inks and charcoal on heavy watercolour paper - which I stretch in advance to avoid buckling and to create a uniform, stable surface to work on.

Many of these Kokanee paintings have a metaphorical significance for me, and I find the repetitive nature of the designs liberating. There's so much energy and movement in the images, which makes for a dynamic which is visually exciting, as well as thought provokingly open to interpretation. On a pragmatic level, the images are dealing with the life cycle of fish. The kokanee return to the same place they were born (Taylor Creek), to lay eggs and then die. During the spawning they change from silver with a blue stripe to bright pinky-red with blue heads. The spectacle of hundreds of brightly coloured fish 'treading water' in a shoal just beneath the surface of the clear Tahoe water is breathtaking.

The poetic nature of this visually striking display is hard to dismiss. The joyous writhing is soon replaced by death. The luminous colour turns to grey, upturned fish litter the stream - a hearty meal for the bears, beavers, coyotes and birds who inhabit this picturesque landscape. The fertilised eggs are buried in the streambed, and hatch 100 days later, to start the whole cycle again.

More Bedtime Stories!

More Bedtime Stories
Oil on Canvas Panel
10x8"

$79.99
Click here to purchase

I got a nice big delivery of art supplies yesterday from Dick Blick, so I was really excited to try out my new canvas panels for these studies. I also ordered to big roll of canvas and some 60" stretcher bars, so that should keep me busy for a while!

This is a painting I've had in mind for a long time, and has a lot of meaning besides the subject for me. Most things I paint end up having some kind of personal metaphor embedded in them, whether or not I realise it at the time I paint it.

Sometimes I have to sit back after I've finished a big painting, exhausted, and just stare for hours at it. I'm becoming familiar with it, which I know sounds weird because I might have just spent a few weeks being obsessed with it while I'm structuring ideas, making drawings, stretching canvas or preparing a panel, and then actually painting it.

Sometimes it feels like someone else painted it, and I just came along at the end and decided on a title. I think that's when I know I've really allowed something subconscious to drive a piece, and so the emotion can be somewhat raw and challenging. I used to be fairly spiritual, and imagined that someone was channelling though me in some way. I don't feel that way any more. I know it all comes from me, from my experience, from my body, and my mind. It's not always an easy thing to accept.

Bedtime Stories

Bedtime Stories
Oil on Panel
5x7"

Click here to buy this painting for
$49.99

Ellie was actually 'reading' to me at the time this was taken. She was illuminated in a really pretty pink light from her string of flower lights hanging over her bed. I'm planning a larger version of this, taken from further away. She looked so tiny in her bed, surrounded by lights. It was a perfect composition - atmospheric, emotive and nostalgic.

Award-Winning Documentary 'High Art' included on showreel!

David Jinks of FridgeProductions, a UK film company, made the award-winning documentary 'High Art' about my work in 2005. My little appearance on this showreel is taken from that movie, filmed in Fontainebleau and Wales. He is currently making a feature film called 'The Impossible Escape' about a group of prisoners who escape and brave the wilds of Siberia.

White Earthen Pitchers

White Earthen Pitchers
Oil on Panel
7x5"

Click here to buy this painting
$49.99

Great news! I found out yesterday that I've won a $1000 Jackpot Grant from the Nevada Arts Council to take a painting course with Daily Painter Carole Marine at the Andreeva Portrait Academy in Santa Fe! I'm so excited, I love Carole's work - in fact it was her who inspired me to take up daily painting - and I love Santa Fe too.

A change to my selling practice too - I'm moving my business away from Ebay. After a few weeks of no sales I found out there's been a massive Ebay boycott which has apparently cost Ebay $13 million a day, and god knows how much to artists and other sellers. I'm trying out a few different online auctions - starting with eCrater...so we'll see what happens.

Sand Harbour on a Sunny day

Sand Harbour (iii)
Oil on Panel
5x7"

I wasn't quite as pleased with this painting - I'd had my heart set on another view but the Hilfiger shoot was being set up in the area I wanted to be - typical! Anyway, I can always go back there again when the weather gets better again. It's snowing now, and is forecast for the next few days, so I'll just have to wait.

I did enjoy the contrasts of the snow sitting on top of the dark rocks though. It created some interesting shapes, so the design of the rocky area became quite abstract.