Working on a painting series – part 5

This is the fifth of a series of small contemporary forests I am working on.

Le pic
©2017 Suzanne Bélair
Acrylic and Inks on canvas 10 X 10 in

The previous painting of the series can be viewed here.

As mentioned in my previous post, after these paintings, it seems like I’ve run out of ideas to depict my contemporary forests in primary colors. Despite wanting to, I won’t give in and change either my subject or the colors I decided to use (how tempting).

On the contrary, now is the time to keep going and explore the “old” idea and see if a new original way comes to mind. So this is where I am today with this series as I am starting numbers 7 to 12 of the variations.

Surprisingly, as I aim to simplify the subject, I find myself adding more and more details with each painting and increasingly defining the trees, thinking of some of the abstractions not as colors and shapes but as clouds and background grasses. I see figures popping up in most of the completed paintings and I find myself wanting to emphasize these and characterize a story.

For some reason, my wanting to take a more abstract approach to painting seems difficult for me. It’s hard to take the realism out of me!

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Working on a painting series – part 4

This is the fourth of a series of small contemporary forests I am working on.

Lumineux / Luminous
©2017 Suzanne Bélair
Acrylic and Inks on canvas 10 X 10 in

The previous painting of the series can be viewed here.

So how did I start this series and how can you start a series? It all sounds quite simple: all you have to do is pick an idea or subject and paint it repeatedly in as many ways as you can or choose a set amount like I did. Put your imagination to work and don’t let anything stop you from starting another painting and then another until you feel you have exhausted the possibilities or you’ve reached the amount you set for yourself.

At first it will seem like there are hundreds of possibilities and combinations and these are indeed endless, but at some point you find yourself getting bored and feel you’ve run out of ideas.

I must admit after six paintings, I have already hit “The Wall” and would be very tempted to quit if it wasn’t for the commitment I’ve taken about the series. I could easily switch to a new and fresher subject but I won’t. Like everything else in life, when it becomes harder, you can’t quit for this is often when a breakthrough is around the corner. So I won’t quit and continue, I will…

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Working on a painting series – part 3

 

This is the third of a series of small contemporary forests I am working on.

Faisceau bienfaisant / Beneficial beam
©2017 Suzanne Bélair
Acrylic and Inks on canvas 10 X 10 in

The previous painting of the series can be viewed here.

Like the two previous ones, I took inspiration from a previous painting for this one but reworked the composition by turning it around. I find this one quite exciting and love the way the background turned out.

 

After working on realistic and hyper-realistic paintings for years, the new venture of painting more abstractly is turning out to be interesting to say the least. By limiting the pigments, I thought I had the elements to easily create this series into a more personal style.

 

What I found out was that is was not as easy as I thought, where I believed I was moving towards simplicity and abstraction, I found that each painting demanded more details and I could not get away from spending hours playing a little more with each of them. Where I thought it would be easy to develop different compositions, I found myself struggling to find ideas and relied more than anticipated on some of my previous work.

 

Where I thought of using different approaches for the backgrounds, I found I moved more and more towards one type of background I favoured.

 

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Working on a painting series – part 2

This is the second painting of the series of contemporary forests painted on 10 X 10 canvases.

Indomptable II / Indomitable 2
©2017 Suzanne Bélair
Acrylic and Inks on canvas 10 X 10 in

The previous painting of the series can be viewed here.

 

As a painter of realistic still lives and other subjects, I found the exercise of painting these contemporary forests very inspiring at first. What interested me most in doing these was to create something visually harmonious as well as exciting, pushing the boundaries of realism into abstract art.

 

While a series of paintings is often elaborated through different treatments of a same simple subject, I decided to vary the rendition of the subject while keeping basically the same treatment, i.e. same colors, same technique and same materials.

 

This, to me, added a certain level of difficulty since I was limiting how I could change or improve the paintings.

 

Next week I will post the third one of this series.

 

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Working on a painting series – part 1

I have been working on a series for a special exhibit that will take place in November. I need to paint 12 profile canvases sized 10 X 10.

Instead of painting different subjects, I decided to paint all of them of the same subject and with the same primary colors, in effect creating a series.

I am painting contemporary forests. I started a larger series of these in January and I am still fascinated by the effects and the look of each different painting. Starting with a loose background of warm colors, I play with the paint until I am satisfied with the result. I let this dry and put the canvas aside until I start to see things surfacing.

In some cases, it is almost right away, sometimes, it takes weeks and the canvas sits waiting.

This is good for a medium to large canvas, but I have found working on smaller canvases to be a challenge. The surface is too small for the paint to move the way I like it, it reached the edges too rapidly and the subtlety in color and value is often lost and needs to be rebuilt.

Over the next few weeks, I will present the first six completed paintings of the series. I must say in tackling numbers 7 to 12, I find myself getting bored with the subject and already running out of design ideas.

To start the first six paintings, I observed the designs of some larger paintings I created over the last months and looked at how I could improve on these concepts.

So this is the first painting that was completed:

Veille dorée II / Golden Watch 2
©2017 Suzanne Bélair
Acrylic and Inks on canvas 10 X 10 in

Over the next few weeks I will post the other paintings along with my thoughts about painting a series.

 

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Tuesday Morning Adventure

This morning, toc toc toc on the gutter, I thought a woodpecker sent its territorial signal but I do not see it. A large blue jay arrives in the shrub nearby! Surprise! The blue jays are very active and vocal this morning …

And then, I see them, it is a whole family of yellow-bellied woodpeckers in the middle hemlock. They fly from one tree to another and follow each other in a winged dance.

They play, chase each other, vocalize, follow each other more and more quickly, twirling between the trees, from one trunk to another, they land for a short time, go up the trunk and take off again. Excitement for this beautiful sunshine maybe… The race accelerates between the trunks and then between the trunks and the house. All this morning joy of the young birds on this sunny day becomes contagious. They are fascinating!

Then the noise! One of them has just hit the large window while the other has narrowly avoided it by turning at the last minute. The first one is projected with the momentum and ends up 16 feet from the impact, on the wood of the gallery.

His wings open, he is rattled but will survive, his eyes open, he waits to recover. His head is leaning on the wood but quickly enough, he able to put it up. His friends in the trees all around call him, encourage him, vocalize more and more loudly, perhaps to scare me, who just came out with my camera.

I speak to the little wounded in a reassuring voice, I gently stroke his back, he is not trembling, he is not afraid of me.

I watch the little one, the thing is, there is a cat that always prowls around here. After a few minutes, he closes his wings on his body.

A little more time goes by and he opens his wings to put them back against his body while he settles on his legs without getting up yet, then his head turns to one side and the other.

He looks at me, looks at the trees, wonders if he can take off, he gets ready, he believes it. That’s it, he takes off and returns to the safety of his favorite hemlock. What an adventure for this young woodpecker on a sunny Tuesday morning!

Animation of the small yellow-bellied woodpecker before taking flight

He and his friends are now calm and fly away gently.

Everything returns to silence. The sun is now higher and warmer, all go about their business. The small woodpecker had quite a scare!

©2017 Suzanne Bélair photos and text

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Invitation to Art by the Lake Event

This is an invitation to come and admire the works of close to 40 professional artists, members of the Lakeshore Association of Artists, on the shore of Lake St-Louis during the week-end of September 9^th and 10^th, 2016 during the “Art by the lake” event.

I will be happy to welcome you on the beautiful site that is Stewart Hall, where I will be exhibiting some new 2016 works as well as other favourites. My site # 31 is located on the higher part of the grounds, near the front parking area.

 

A portion of sales will go to On Rock Community Services and Food Bank.

 

The show still goes on even if it rains. The exhibit will then take place inside instead of outside.

 

Please forward this invitation to your family and friends.

 

I hope to see you there!

 

Suzanne

 

 

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