ghostwise - blog

February 14, 2009 - Valentinki

Blue & Red Heart on Pink – Acrylic on 6”x8” Canvas – a007

ghostwise twitter: a007. love the fan brush, texture, fast, flowing, wide & pinpoint. red & white went best. adding blue was hard to blend in.
a007. white kept saving the day, made varied textures w/ red & then a sweet light blue brush stroke. heavy paint use worked best w/ white.
a007. bright. brightest so far. almost out of white.

This was a present for my Mom. She loved it. I loved making it. The fan brush was very versatile. Sometimes I’d use the whole brush but other times I’d use parts of the brush for different colours. Lots of good action and energetic brush strokes with this piece. It’s always nice to feel fast and alive with a painting.

Blue & Red Heart on Pink

Blue & Red Heart on Pink - close up 1

Blue & Red Heart on Pink - close up 2

Blue & Red Heart on Pink - close up 3

Dark Red Heart on Deep Purple – Acrylic on 1”x1” Canvas – a008

a008. my 1×1. went very heavy and wet. purple & red. it’s too dark. no contrast.

This is so dark in real life. The photo makes it look nicer than it is. It’s just a heart. The only good part is that it reminds me of candy or icing sugar.

Dark Red Heart on Deep Purple

February 13 & 20th

Mint Green Mountains Grass & Red Sun – Acrylic on 6”x12” Canvas – a006

ghostwise twitter: a006.rv1 salvaging with mint green. overdid the red but like the 3D feel with green contrast. next yellow maybe. many more layers to go.

a006. rv2. added yellow daubs & shading, raw. 360 turn w/ blue & white. thick paint mixing. going surreal w/ an elephant. lots more work.

a006. ps i have no idea where i’m going really. just going with a colour or two and just layering down and seeing where it takes me.

There’s parts of this painting that feel just right to me. The green and the mountains especially. The grass doesn’t mesh but I don’t want to change it. I like the painting half finished and unperfect. A diamond in the rough forever. Or maybe I’m just scared to mess with it.

Mint Green Mountains Grass & Red Sun

Mint Green Mountains Grass & Red Sun close up of grass

Second painting session.

Mint Green Elephant Range

Mint Green Elephant Range close up of grass

February 8, 2009

Garden Flowers – Acrylic on 8”x10” Canvas – a005
Grey Washout – Acrylic on 6”x12” Canvas – a006

ghostwise twitter: a005. co-painting w/ sasa. liked the yellow strokes the most. the most dauby work so far & the most literal. mixed feelings but fun time.
a005x. the science of mixing colours is tough! sasa often got muddy results. mixed too many colours together.

a006. this was a dud. interesting to see a thin, over watered acrylic wash. watching and learning from mistakes, will return to this canvas.

This was such a different experience! My friend Sasa visited me and offered to assist me with a painting. I was the main painter but after a bit, I invited Sasa to join in. I would also ask her sometimes to choose the next colour and she did most of the mixing.

Her input definitely affected the direction of the painting. I doubt I would have done a flower garden on my own. My Mom loved the result. I’m not sure I like the painting so much. It’s a bit too dark and sloppy for my taste. It definitely looks better photographed. The camera makes it look much brighter and interesting.

Best parts were painting with the fan brush. It was instrumental in creating interesting textures with the “poppies” and light touches with the yellows. I like how I could have multiple colours spread out across the fan. This allowed me to use it like multiple small brushes. Very quick and convenient especially since I don’t have to change my grip by changing brush handles.

(No photos of the Grey Washout of a006)

Garden Flowers

a few closeups..

Flower #1 close up

Flower #2 close up

Flower #3 close up

February 7, 2009

Blue Sky, Red Haze, Yellow Square – Acrylic on 8”x10” Canvas Board – a004

ghostwise twitter: “acrylic 004. hate painting on canvas board. hard to move it around. had a nice thing going w/ just blue & white. red & yellow ruined it.”

“acrylic 004 PS. taking another look, a few hours later. turned it horizontally. i’m now liking the reds & yellows more. the whole works.”

The twitter thoughts explain everything really. The canvas board was a pain to work with. It’s so flat that it was difficult for me to move it. So far all my paintings have been done with the canvas lying flat. Having an easel would be kind of complicated. In general laying the canvas flat allows me to move it around and position it on the fly, but not so with the canvas board.

I mixed the blues & white directly on the canvas. It was a lot of fun mixing them straight up like that, made it very organic and quick to find desirable results. I started with a 2″ wide big brush but then really got going making lovely flourishes with the fan brush.

The 8″x10″ canvas was also the largest surfaced I’d used so it was nice to have more room to work with.

The red and yellow are interesting parts but I’m not sure if they really bring something extremely worthwhile to the piece. If I had to do it again I would probably skip adding them. All in all though I like this painting and had a very positive experience painting it (aside from you know what).

Blue Sky, Red Haze, Yellow Squar

close up of Yellow Square

February 4, 2009

Grey Field with Yellow Square – Acrylic on 6”x8” Canvas

ghostwise twitter: “acrylic 003. frustration. didn’t know what to do. tried drawing but covered it. did grey texture. have permission to use paint freely.”

This painting session was very frustrating. I wanted to do something lighter and less abstract. So I started drawing a figure sitting on a bench reading a book. I quickly felt all too aware of my lack of technical drawing skill. My hand doesn’t hold the brush at the same angle when I paint so it is difficult to make uniform and even lines. Plus looking down it felt like I was looking at the painting sort of cross eyed and having trouble to balance proportions and perspective.

I decided to cover the figure drawing with a grey field. This used up a lot of white. I felt guilty using up so much paint. Frustrated and not really having a plan anymore, the painting session fizzled. As an after thought I added the yellow square to brighten the canvas and give it an anchor. It sort of salvaged it.

There’s a simple elegance to the piece that I like. Like a textured postcard with a yellow stamp. On the other hand it’s almost too simple and I’ve been tempted for weeks to paint over it. Still not sure what I will do.

The best thing that came out of this painting session happened afterwards. I talked to Mom about how I felt about using so much paint (even though I really didn’t use all that much). Mom encouraged me not to worry about how much paint I used. This put me at ease. I felt like I could use paint whichever way it fit the painting process. It was all good in the name of creativity. I needed that breakthrough.

Grey Field with Yellow Square

February 2, 2009

Multi-coloured Door on Purple Field – Acrylic on 5”x7” Canvas

ghostwise twitter: “acrylic 002. anal about paint consumption. tried to be brighter. contrasting. still dark. less heavy. off balance, smudgy.”

This one turned out interesting, mainly for its psychedelic feel. Had too much green paint left over. Used it up to build texture.

Multi-coloured Door on Purple Field

Close up of a002

January 31, 2009. The first time on canvas.

Yellow Door on Purple Field – Acrylic on 5”x7” Canvas

ghostwise Twitter: “acrylic 001. want the colours to pop. want to feel less restricted by limited range of motion. eyes hurt from looking down so much.”

The colours in this painting are so dark. The doorway gives a gothic feel. I could picture the painting right at home in a Sandman comic.

It was fun creating the textures with the palette knife and brush. Lots of pent up focus in this piece. I was definitely going somewhere.

Here’s a photo (yes, it was taken with the painting upside down):

For the last year or so, I’ve wanted to paint with real paint. As opposed to how I normally paint with Photoshop or Corel Painter on the computer. I wanted to get away from the unlimited choices of digital creation. Paint is finite and the tools and canvas place limits on the creative process. There’s a different sort of commitment involved. I wanted to have a physical creation at the end of the day, for better or for worse, instead of a folder full of files waiting to be printed and framed.

Throughout 2008, I would often visit the art store and look at tubes of oil and acrylic paint but I couldn’t take the leap. I worried if physically I would be able to do it. Whether I would try it once or twice and then move on or give up of my body’s limited strength and range.

In early January 2009, I finally made the plunge and bought a set of acrylic paints. It took a couple weeks but in late January I started painting with acrylics for the first time. The first session was a major baby step, just mixing colours and seeing how the brushes applied the paint. Instead of canvas I used cardboard to paint some shapes.

Here’s a little photo of one of my first baby steps:

When I rain I pour. Today a letter of mine was published in the Ottawa Citizen. It was in response to this editorial - Dying Of Hopelessness. The subject is heavy as it deals with depression, health care and assisted suicide. I’ve been full of nerves putting myself out there like this but I can only hope I am also speaking out for others in tough situations.
Here’s my letter (btw I didn’t choose the title) Society decides how much support disabled can get to make life bearable

Today was also the deadline to make a video for the In My Name campaign to end poverty by 2015. There’s a great post on the YouTube blog about the campaign HERE.

This is my contribution:

Where have I been? Home. A summer spent in the park reading. And one trip to Toronto for the 888 YouTube gathering in August.

I’ve noticed in my life that I go in big waves. Large high dips of activity, intense periods that last half a year maybe a year.. and then months, a year comes by, where I drop down, dip pretty low. This body and isolation helps form these big waves of mine. Judging from the posts below and my sparse video output on YouTube, the last year has been a dip. Lots of dark days, lots of thoughts. A time to recoup and regroup slowly.

Fall has been busy, pulled me into a higher gear. Pressure is building again and it feels like the wave is starting to rise.

I also had a nice surprise recently.

Daniel Gardner, a YouTube user, included a video response of mine in a compilation video of his. Subsequently his video was featured on the front page of YouTube. It surpassed 1 Million views in the few days it was featured. None of the participants were cited in the video so it was amazing to see a surge of traffic to my videos. I guess enough people went back to watch all the original video responses to Daniel and happened to find me. It’s been nice to receive so many friendly and sweet comments. I guess that’s what a smile can do. :)

And here’s my original smile video.