Painting Bird Specimens at the Biodiversity Museum

'Owl' 24½"x18½" Oil on canvas

A sketch of a stuffed owl that I painted at the UBC Beaty Biodiversity Museum. I seem to have done a huge number of studies from mounted bird specimens that are stored in the back-room study collections of the museum.

I must admit that this little fellow had a lot of charm for a stuffed bird, he just sits there so co-operatively! I just have to remember not to let my equipment spread out onto the "Fish Guy's" work benches....

Underpainting

'You Don't Say?' 20"x26" Oil on canvas, underpainting

A painting that I'm currently working on. This is the umber "Dead-colour" layer of a portrait of an artist friend, with one of my studio-mates' spaces in the background.

Although this is a small painting for me, this is the standard way that I typically produce paintings (well at least it's one of the ways in which to fashion a painting that I was trained in).

I will be working this up to full completion over the next week or so, and might well post further images of the work in progress as well as the final piece.

'Men I Know' part 5

'Ken' 24½"x18½" Oil on canvas

A painting of fellow artist Ken Gerberick, another in the ongoing series of "Men I know".

Ken as an artist is very diverse, producing paintings, collages, and particularly assemblages - for which he is best known. These carefully built collections are made up of items and materials which society has used, often abused, and then discarded.

Most of the source materials and items that he uses Ken finds in Vancouver's laneways or Vancouver Island dumps. These he builds into sculptures that pretty wittily dig at society and its often warped ideas and sensibilities.

Ken has by far one of the most interesting and bizarre studios I have ever been in... The City of Vancouver really should turn it into a museum.

Dirty Welder Girl

'Dirty Welder Girl' 24"x18" Oil on canvas

A portrait of fellow artist Melanie Davies, an old sculptor friend from way back. She is "dirty" as she had been "metal-bashing" one of her steel sculptures and is covered in steel scale and clouds of soot.

This is actually the second version of a portrait of her. The first iteration, which I painted over a decade ago, was a piece that I had never really been very happy with... so I used that as a starting point and painted another. Luckily I also still have a pile of drawings that I made at the time (although stupidly I did them on thin cheap coloured paper... I'm never going to do that again), so it wasn't too hard revisiting this image.

'Men I Know' part 4

'Sean' 24½"x18½" Oil on canvas

One more in the series of paintings of 'Men I Know'. This one is of Sean (otherwise known as 12 Midnite).

An artist and musician who specialises in "low-brow" pop culture, particularly the sleazier, more brightly coloured, loud, and slightly damp corners of Americana.

Flowers

'Flowers in a Glass Vase' 10"x8" Oil on board

A small oil of a bunch of flowers that I painted one night by artificial light. I don't often work on board, much preferring canvas, but at this tiny scale boards are far more practical.

It reminds me of a lecture about still-lives at college in which the tutor finished off by stating: "Don't trust anyone who doesn't like flowers! They have no appreciation of beauty... and are probably psychopaths." It was a weird thing to say, but is sort-of true.

'Men I Know' part 3

'Rob' 24½"x18½" Oil on canvas

Another oil brunaille, this time of my friend Robert Lutener. A very erudite and charming man able to quote large chunks of Greek literature, although with a "gruff" facade... but once passed that, he's a big-hearted softie.