The Naked Silo

Pearls of Wisdom Five years ago I made perhaps too much of a muchness of my 25th anniversary of painting (I began in 1988), but now that series of posts serves as my autobiographical origin story. This year –my 30th anniversary– I'm not making as much of a muchness since the occasion, like my birthday, only has any real meaning for me. I did a celebratory painting (above) but there's no party, no huzzah...no big deal. I am feeling quite reflective, though (as usual, 'round this time of year), so this post will simply be a look back at the past five years. Almost everything is here; some things I've left out for various reasons, some things I'm sure I've just forgotten. Click on the titles of each item to find out more... ––––––––[    2014   ]–––––––– To the Sound of Trumpets Cheers! Kodak Duaflex IV ––––––––[    2015   ]–––––––– Jetpack Mark 2 George Meanwell (Banjo) George Meanwell (Concertina)

11" x 8.5", digital, 2018. Some time in the late summer of 2018 I was approached to provide a poster design and illustration for an event intended to raise some funds for the expansion of the Picton Library here in Prince Edward County. Having done an ink painting of the front of the library at night as part of my County 101 series a while back, I had an immediate vision of what I thought the poster image might be: a head-on view with all the windows glowing as though something extremely bright was inside the entire building. Illustration pre-installation. Using a photo as reference, I built an elevation view of the library in CorelDraw, concentrating on the building and the front steps, ignoring details like the benches and trees out front. I then exported the drawing to Photoshop where I added the glowing effect. Then it went back to CorelDraw for installation into the poster design where I added the text afterward. A digital expansion. Of course, I on

2018 theme: SPACE. This year is the sixth  Firelight Lantern Festival  here in lovely Picton, Ontario, and I'm happy to continue the motif of silhouettes of people on parade with their lanterns changing each year to reflect the current theme (here are  the previous five posters ). As with the others, this is a combination of ink and digital illustration. Even though there are probably less than a dozen examples of my extreme love of science fiction and real space exploration in my paintings, this affinity is clearly represented in many of  my scale models . 2014 Lantern Fest theme: AIR. This year I'll be once again strapping into the Mark 2  jetpack I built a few years ago... Upgraded. The Mark 2  was created in time for Kingston's Skeleton Park Arts Festival in 2015 and used the same fabric flames as the Mark 1, but everything else was built from scratch. Flight mode in Kingston.

14" x 11" (x4), oil on wood panels, 2014, one is in a private collection. I explain in my post for my Armistice Day Anniversary Cake the meaning and relevance of the sprinkles being called "hundreds and thousands," so I won't repeat all of it here. One cupcake for each year of the war; each year, hundreds and thousands died. Sketches. I think the simpler, unadorned way I finally painted these works better than adding the growing pool of blood or the second variation which "zooms in" on one cupcake as the candle melts.