33 on 33: Day Twenty

When you head out tonight
In your quest for excellence in theater
I won't be there
I slammed my finger in the car door by accident
But I salute you in your ongoing quest
For excellence in theater
–TMBG, "Towson"

Today's stop for 33 on 33 was at Fields on West Lake, a stunning location made no less impressive by today's dreary weather. I managed to take a few photos of some of the buildings on the grounds (apparently in the midst of Mosquito Fest) before finally settling on a subject to paint (and before the rain started).

My subject: The Osterhout Henry Hall.

Their website claims it's "one of the most photographed barns in Canada" and I don't have any trouble believing that. My painting's composition is not from this angle, however. I was parked in a spot just to the right, enabling me a good view from inside the van since rain was forecast. Every day that I passed this majestic place I grew more and more certain that I would stop here for this project (here's my Map of Progress).

Carriage House.

A contender for Painting Subject of the Day, this cute little matching building dates back to the 1860s.

A triplet of silos.

I like silos and this view would have been an interesting painting for today, but I felt it too subversive to paint this while at Fields on West Lake and ignore the beautiful buildings available there.

Neighbours across the street.

Farm House Inn (from the side).

This view was a very strong contender also, especially because of the foliage obstruction in the foreground, but I already did a house-obstructed-by-tree composition on Day 17, so I walked around to get a better view of the house...

Farmhouse Inn (from the front).

Still a strong contender from this angle, it's simply a gorgeous building and I love all that ivy, but my mind kept going back to the big red barn, so that was that.

And here's the painting.

Comments

Axel Foley's Chevy Nova (1/25 scale model)

Multiple tributes, here. I remember first seeing Beverly Hills Cop on video at my friend Chris K's house, 'cause his family had a VCR and we'd watch tons of movies (and record music videos) together. The summer of 1984 was a special time for us (having created a strong bond in school since Grade 6 a few years before), going on biking adventures around the 'burbs and into the city, etc., and home video played an important role from then until I moved to the opposite end of Scarborough just before we started high school. We liked the movie a lot, both of us fans of Eddie Murphy from his Saturday Night Live days. I don't think I'd seen the movie since then (it would have been 1985, probably summer, since the movie came out in late 1984) and I became curious to see if it still held up. It did. It does. I found Murphy as charming as ever and the comedy (and even the action) holds up very well and its very re-watchable and very entertaining. Beverly Hi...

Small Pond Arts Puppet Wagon (1/24 scale model)

I dreamed up the Small Pond Shipyard for my fanciful scratch-built sci-fi airship creations (which still only exist in sketch/Photoshop mock-up form (and boxes in my closet) for now), but more and more ideas kept coming ( this wind turbine , for example, will be part of a rather elaborate diorama I'll be working on this winter). But the Puppet Wagon was a sleeper surprise, to be sure. [Really, though, I don't know why I was so eager to build this right away since I was planning to slowly develop my modelling skills with simpler builds first and the work my way up to more complicated projects.] Not all parts were used/needed. Most of these ideas have come from watching modelling videos online, and when I saw a review of this sweet little Japanese "Ramen Shop" food truck by Aoshima (right-side drive!), my brain started making jokes about customizing it to the weird food truck ideas I'd been posting on Facebook. But the more I thought about what the co...

City of Angels

17" x 11", watercolour and digital, 1999 Ah, City of Angels . I thought I was getting cool film noir but got a cheesy musical instead (Google it if you must). Still, it was fun to make the poster and associated images, mostly because the research consisted of watching real films noir and buying a great book on movie posters of the genre. I made tons of sketches and a few digital mock-ups. For the final poster above, I made three separate watercolour paintings (one of the couple and one each of the two black and white heads) and composited them in Photoshop, where I also added the text. In true movie poster fashion, I wanted the actors names to be the top two names, but I lost that battle and had to use the characters' names instead. It looks fine, but it implies that "Kingsley and Stone" are the lead actors in the show. Oh, well...it's only community theatre... By making the "angel" above half black and white and half colour, th...

The Naked Silo

Search This Blog