October 27, 2010

Ottawa; Almost there!

Yeah, I know, I know, I am supposed to create two pieces in two weeks and I'm working on this Ottawa piece for at least three weeks already. It has been a tough ride this one, somehow it took me a bit longer to get into it this time, life just seems to be getting in the way. I haven't had many days to spent solely in my studio, something that usually really helps a piece along. I haven't been sitting still though. I have done a lot of resin work on some of my older pieces and I'm looking into building my own website so I'm doing some workshops and researching the different possibilities. Currently I'm looking into the difference between Squarespace and WordPress.org and I'm not sure which way to go yet.
I'm also working on getting a solo show going for april 11-24 in downtown Montreal so that is taking some of my time as well, funny thing is that I decided on my two pieces a week schedule because of this solo show in the first place. Oh well, I'm sure things will work out, April 2011 is a long way off still. 
For now Ottawa is getting along nicely, I'm in the finishing staged of the 'puzzle' phase so soon I will be able drive the girl at the copy shop crazy again. I already have a nice big canvas waiting for 'Toronto', which will be my next piece. I'm very excited about that piece, somehow I think Toronto will do very well for me! I hope to be able to start that one by the end of this week. Next week will be a difficult week for artwork as well because I'm going to do some game testing for Ubisoft on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, fun but not very productive art-wise. So as you can see, things are moving, they are just a little bit slower going then I would want them to be. 

October 21, 2010

Ottawa; Now I'm happy!

Today is definitely my turning point on Ottawa. It has taken me about a week of complete misery and moping around, but I think I've finally reached the top of the mountain and can now start enjoying the ride down. Now, to be fair, I didn't have a whole lot of time this week to enjoy creative time in my studio which kind of added to the misery, because in the back of my mind 'Ottawa' kept nagging at me.
Last night I had to go to a gallery show opening with a friend of mine and when it was time to leave I was so miserable that i just wanted to crawl into bed with a book and not go out at all. But since I was to meet up with this friend of mine I kicked myself in the behind and went anyway. And I am so glad I did because it was a great show (Obsolete idols by Jono Dotion @ Ctrl Lab) and I met up with some great people which pulled me out of my funk pretty quickly. And then, when it was time to go home, I realized that I would have the next two days to completely focus on my art which lifted my spirits even more. So this morning I was in a great mood when I got up because I knew I was going to find the top of that Ottawa mountain today!
I started up the computer, changed the size of my starting picture and reached the top of the mountain! and now it's time to enjoy the rest of the ride! Ottawa here I come!

October 13, 2010

Aaaah, to many great pictures!!!

I've been sorting through all my Ottawa pictures and there are just so many good ones I don't know where to start! I have to pick one as the starting point for my piece but I have 531 picture to choose from! I'm trying to make a selection of the ones I definitely want to use so I can narrow it down a bit. That usually ends up being a bit useless because I go back to the big stash anyways but somehow sorting them at this stage helps me focus. By the end of the piece I will have seen all of my pictures a gazillion times and know exactly what's in that Ottawa folder on my desktop. But for now that folder is still one big challenge. 
I thinks it's part of my creative process to have one or two days at the start of a piece where I just don't know where I'm going or even where to start. I know that it will figure its self out in my head after some time and that at one point the piece basically creates its self. But at this point in time that moment seems some distant future that might never happen. 
People often ask me if creating my pieces is difficult and usually my answer is no because in hindsight it always seems like the piece created itself. But now that I'm at the start of a new piece I realize that maybe next time they ask me I should say yes, because it is difficult. I go through this creative process that has a lot of ups and downs, mainly downs at the moment, and it takes time and patience and a lot of guts to see it through to the end. And then I haven't even considered the knowledge of composition, light, color and technique that is involved.
Right now I'm feeling like I have to climb this impossible mountain but I know that I will reach the summit somehow and that it will be in the near future. It would help if I didn't have a cat sprawled all over my keyboard though. 

Time to start a new piece!

So, today i is time to start a new piece, I have decided to take Ottawa as my next subject so now I have before me the enormous task of sifting through my pictures and selecting some decent ones to use. I am basically typing this blog because I am stalling, haha, caught myself there! I had already made a start at cleaning up my desktop, something that should be done, for sure, but not now! Do you hear me!? NOT NOW! Ok, stopped myself doing that, now to stop myself typing this blog.... Someone told me recently that you have to focus on the thing that you are doing at that moment and not get distracted by all the other stuff that needs doing otherwise you might as well go and do the other stuff because you are going to get no where. So this is me, stopping the typing and starting the sorting and printing and cutting and puzzling...

October 12, 2010

Montreal 2 is finished!


This past weekend I finally finished Montreal 2, my second piece on Montreal. It took me some time to get all the images on the canvas and paint everything together but now that it's finished I have to say I'm very pleased with the result. So now it is time to start something new, I am still deciding on a subject for my next piece. Things have been pretty crazy around here the past two weeks. But now that everything with the gallery has been arranged and my weekend show is over and done with I can go back to normal and just concentrate on painting for a while. Although this is not entirely the case because I am also looking into changing my website and maybe doing a solo show in the spring so I will have plenty of other stuff to distract me. That being said I am going to make an effort and try to still finish one piece a week, I know its ambitious but I am going for it!

October 05, 2010

Finishing Montreal 2

Tomorrow I will finally be spending most of the day in my studio to finish 'Montreal 2'. I've already started taking the paper of the gelled pieces and I am certain that I'll be able to get most of the pieces on the canvas tomorrow. So I should be able to finish the piece by the end of the week. 
Other good news is that I've signed a contract with the Viva Vida Gallery in Pointe Claire today so some of my works will be on display there starting this weekend. So things have been going well lately although it has been a bit to busy to really get some painting done. But starting next week things should be starting to quiet down a bit so I should be able to spend most of the week in my studio catching up.