This is one of the new paintings I'm working on. I thought I would post some photos as it progresses.

First, the basic underpainting to cover the canvas.

Then adding colour and detail a bit at a time to build the image. I'm working on the rocks in the foreground and will have it nearly finished before I go back to complete the water and sky.

I'll add more photos as I go along. I am working on 6 paintings at the same time, and I rotate through them so they progress simultaneously. When the foreground is all in, this one will be on the wall for a few days to dry while I work on bringing the others to a similar state. 

Moving

Having spent much of the last month moving out of the space I had occupied since 1994, I am slowly organizing so the house doesn't remain a holding area forever! With the help of a crane, a U-Haul truck, and two determined gentlemen, everything was moved. February is not the best time of year to be moving presses on salt-covered roads, but everything arrived in one piece. The last time the C&P was moved, we (meaning 2 friends and the 2 owners of the printshop who sold it- I watched and prayed) got it into and out of the truck from street level with a come along. I thought I would have heart failure watching that top-heavy thing sway as it was ratcheted up the ramp. The crane operator was fabulous, and the process of hooking up the presses and moving them was slow and graceful.

Two flat files and the Kensol are in the living room, there are boxes everywhere, and I have about 4 square feet of wall space for painting, but I can reorganize a bit at a time.

There is progress on the book front, but I will save that for another post!

As for my method...

I work from photographs. I have tried keeping a sketchbook, doing working drawings and preliminary paintings on canvas, but those things don't work for me. My field photos (taken with my trusty Nikon FM2) record what I found interesting and serve to jar my memory. I draw loosely, directly on the canvas, with thinned paint and a brush, and in the process of mixing and applying paint the paintings take on a life of their own.

For this series, most of the iceberg photos are from my 20-year collection, mostly taken along the Avalon peninsula. The bird's-eye-views come from the archives at Provincial Aerospace, the company that does observation for Environment Canada and the offshore oil rigs. Friends who have photos have generously offered them to me, and I've found a few on the internet. The photos get cropped, reversed, changed in scale or colour in the painting process; sometimes an iceberg is moved to a different coast or sent to sea to make the painting work.

I love the bird's-eye views. Early in my career, I did a series of still life drawings and paintings from objects (often fruit on a plate or in a bowl) which were placed on the floor by my feet because I didn't have a table in my studio. Periodically I go back to that set-up. The slight feeling of vertigo, the out-of-kilter-ness of seeing something on the wall that should be down, is interesting to me.

Off to walk the dogs and greet the day!