[Adding the original dream & something on the process of what's appeared in this preparatory sketch for a possible painting, if you'd like to know what it's about.]

Original dream
…red spots develop under my cheeks, and as I powder them, they become raised wheels, one on each side, which the thick powder whitens, six spokes, a central hub and an outer wheel, a relief sculpture perhaps, like something from myth, an archetypal symbol, which the attempt to hide with powder only accentuates. I feel no horror, or pain, but awe as I brush the powder on skin become wheels and spokes. Sculpted like Medieval cosmological wheels, alchemical wheels of transmutation, the configurations are mysterious, almost reverential, an embodied reference the Wheels of Ezekiel, but also to the powdered faces of highly-stylized Oriental performance, and somehow the magnificent coiled antlers of Bighorn sheep… (2008)

Process of charcoal sketch:

Friday, I decided to try a charcoal drawing to see how my dream of the alchemical wheels appearing in my face, rising in my cheeks, might appear. In the dream, I powdered them as they rose sculpturally. But here I hoped to let my 'unconscious' take over and I did go into a light trance and even worked with my eyes shut at times. At the beginning, I used a sponge and charcoal powder that I then sprayed with a fixative, and kept working. There are distinct shadow and light sides. The wheels are dark - to me, the one in shadow looks floral; the one in light, ocular. The hair fed snake-like into the wheels, which seem almost to be whirring and that is unlike the dream. And I see four eyes!

I find the drawing a bit scary, actually. There's psychic progress for sure. Self-portrait after an alchemical dream. 20"x26", charcoal on Yupo paper.
___

She was drawing me while I was drawing her. Last night, our Thanksgiving, here in Canada. It doesn't 'look' like her in a photographic sense, but she said I could post it. Photo taken on iPhone4 with daylight bulbs. Charcoal and water-soluble oil pastels (cretacolor aquastics) on 11" x 13" canvas sheet.

Basically, she sat in this position for maybe 5 minutes, long enough to do a quick charcoal sketch. Then I had to imagine the way her body was. Though I did get the terrific colours she was wearing, that green sweater and those red tights, smashing, really, and perhaps something of her spirit, when she is pensive, that is.




 

Midnight Sun, in-process, 2012, Brenda Clews, 28" x 22", 71cm x 56cm, oil on canvas.

A painting with a textual history, meaning a history of texture. It was another painting before. On my wall for half a year, and I couldn't look at it anymore. Deciding not to sand the canvas, or even prime it, I began painting over the original painting this afternoon (see the album of what is underneath here: Midnight Sun). It may be done, not sure. The true test is, how liveable is it?

(The colours are pretty good, but the main figure has pink in her body and that is not appearing.)

I drew two poses of the same model on the same page, and she is holding a mirror in which she is reflected. Gazing upon the self. Selves who witness each other. The multiplicity of the self. I've called it Harvest Moon to celebrate the model's pregnancy of 6 months.

Last night I went to a Keyhole Session, great models, wonderful crowd of artists, and I'd had a difficult day, emotionally, and somehow every drawing just wasn't right. Not sure if in future that particular kind of stress means stay home, rest, recuperate. My daughter, bless her, likes this one.

Finally, went to a life drawing session at TSA (Toronto School of Art) last night, and only because my niece (who's 20) said she'd go with me. She found the short poses difficult and erased all her drawings but three! Oy! She is very talented and wants to do an art degree.

The model was older, I estimate about 70. I don't aim for a likeness, rather looking intently at the form and letting my hand draw. Anyway, thought I'd share. First session since 2006!

The room was packed, nearly every table taken. While I hadn't planned to create backgrounds for my sketches, I found myself hurriedly sweeping coloured conte crayon over the next page in between poses. Then quickly rubbing with a paper towel to blend and wipe the excess pigmented dust onto the floor behind me with paper towels!

The conte crayons are similar to chalk pastels, brightly coloured, though a little less dusty.

These are the sketches as is, untouched, simply photographed in late afternoon sunlight, and slightly colour-corrected to more closely match the originals . There are more, some I don't like, some awaiting colour.

All Life Drawings, 28cm x 35.5cm, 11"x14", India ink, conte crayon, 100lb archival paper.

direct link: Parchment Figures: Doubles, Doppelgängers, Clones

A painter on painting. Or, I'm painting again! Yay!

Wasn't a planned video, rather, thinking, many artists are showing themselves painting on-screen, let's put the camera on and get some footage, but I got talking, you know how it is, at night too though I managed to boost the light when I edited it, and now it's a bona fide video.

Enjoy. Hopefully you will find inspiration here for your own art, and might consider posting your own video.


Note: click on the base of the slideshow
to start the slideshow (or in the middle to
go to Picasa and see larger images).

This is what awaited me this morning after the painting in the night that I put whitewash all over and then rubbed out. I can't say which I prefer, though I am tempted to go over to the art store and buy a canvas and paint a larger version of last night's colorful rendition while the energy is still hot.

This painting is part of my landscape as figure, or figure as landscape series, which I will upload to my life drawing page soon.

In my last painting I had returned to the style I developed in high school. Before the Fine Arts degree, before the style that developed through the Birth Paintings and that became my signature afterwards. I had gone back to re-find who I was, and to see if I returned to that point if my art might develop in another direction. I'm still working on the painting; I seem obsessed with either it, or the process it represents. Working on that small painting is like scraping memory and habit off to get to the back of the cave and seeing what the first marks were. Success is not important in this endeavour. It's all exploration.

So what happened tonight took me by surprise. I am posting the images up to the point where I painted everything white and then proceeded to rub the painting out. It would be an easy piece to re-do since it was from a sketch from a life drawing session which I still have and can reproduce on another canvas.

Who knows, I may re-paint these figures and leave the painting at the point I'm showing you here: unfinished, but still kind of raw, perhaps alive. There is an artist, an Expressionist perhaps, or Post-Expressionist, who this painting reminds me of and when I think of his name I'll pop it into this post (if you know please leave a comment).

It's two figures in contact dance. Actually it's one model in the life drawing session in two poses that I drew on the same page. We do what we can to get the poses we'd like. Because I sought the tensions of the connection point of contact dance, the flow and the seismic lines of energy, I used small lines, a loose construction.



The sketch was done quite awhile ago and the ink had set. Click on the images for larger size.



There was no plan for the painting of the sketch. Lines followed lines; colours suggested colours. I used a plastic egg carton and each colour had its own 'egg nest' and its own brush - 10 all together! This system kept the colors pure, but was akin to a stick game as the brushes often entangled and kept falling!



Click on image for a really large version. 'Contact Dance,' 2009, 14"x10.5", 35.5cmx26.5cm,  India ink and oils on a primed canvas sheet.

Perhaps I should have stopped here. Instead I continued painting, covering the bright colour with a white wash, and then throwing water all over it which got wiped off along with most of the colour. What's left of the painting (see next post) can probably be taken in another direction, and I can re-do what I did here, using this image as a study. Oh, the delights of art-making!

Julie McGregor is a Toronto artist and jazz singer.