Alec - just a portrait

Anna

If you like milk in your coffee, you'll like Anna's color: a superbe light Burnt Omber. She is a superbe model, too. Not only beautiful but gifted. There are models whom are beautiful but nor gifted, yes. Models who do not know where to put their hands, who just lay flat on their back (I don't say some foot seen in perspective is not an interesting problem to draw but finally all the rest are flat...) So, when you have a model like Anna, you thank God for his mercy (or generosity, whatever) and draw...and paint... I would say such models, rare, are a blessing and get me inspired. I hope you'll think the same think looking at my painting (or drawing, whatever). As usual, it's a 9' x 12' Strathmore paper, acrylic ink and watecolor.

Welsh corgi commission

This is a painting I was commissioned to do by some young friends of mine... I've combined a Québec landscape and the Welsh corgi image (he was the star of the thing; a present for the anniversary of the father who owned the dog...) I've used a lot of "fire orange" and it seems that the father liked the present. Sometimes, I feel like Real Lessard, le québecois who was, along Van Meegeren and David Stein, a grand faussaire... He had a billionaire who quite regularly came to him and tell him his dreams, his visions... And Lessard, who was also a great artist not only a faussaire (it takes a lot of talent to be a faussaire, you know...) put the billionaire's vision on big canvases... and that one paid him 100000 $ or 200000 $... I could do the same, given the right conditions. But ou sont les milliardaires d'antan?

Orange Fire

Do not call for the Firesquad! This is the name of a Daler-Rowney color, a very strong one, a quite devious one... A wonderful one if you come to master it... In this Karin nude I don't really know if I did... But the color is there and I like it. Van Gogh - they say (and he says it himself in one or two letters) loved yellow chrome. Me, I like fire orange or orange fire. Of course, I'm not Van Gogh but in the sense that anche io sono pittore. My paintings are not, in all probability, to be ever sold with the record 75 (or 82 in other sources) millions USD as The Portrait of Dr. Gachet did, bought by Mr. R. Sato (or some other japanese name soundin like it)... By the way, the record sale was topped in 1994 by The Boy with a pipe (a "periode rose" painting) by Picasso... Tough luck!
Even if I will cut both my ears and even do a Bibitt thing, I won't succed in egalizing Van Gogh posthume fame. People are kind of accustomed with all possible atrocities, after the 2 world wars, a Holocaust or two, not to mention the more recent wars and atrocities. A cut ear AND a suicide will bring you, MAYBE, a small article in a local newspaper (about the same attention Van Gogh ear got in Arles). So I better keep my ears and continue to love fire orange... At least, the possibility is not totally excluded I'll "fire"up the heart of some collector...

Sherbrooke landscape

This is the Blanchard Park, where I used to come with my friend Clement to draw portraits... When there where no humans willing to pose I usually exerced my brushes on the surrounding landscape. This is one of the results: an acrylic ink and watercolor, on Arches paper. The season was early spring, on a windy, crisp afternoon...

Imaginary landscape

Why an imaginary landscape when there are plenty of real ones? I don't know. Really. I just feel like "it", sometimes... This is a pretty old one, a 2004 landscape. When I was experimenting a lot (good habit I've kind of lost, for the moment...but it will come again, I hope). I hope also I did not show you this already... I was wondering when it will happen... anyhow, in my opinion it's a nice imaginary landscape. And nice things are rare this day... I used acrylic and non acrylic inks on a highart board. Nothing better came along when I've searched...

Travis & Jackie

It's not often but it happens... We have the chance to draw couples. This time it was Travis & Jackie. To draw a couple - in the same or almost the same - amount of time as a single nude is not easy. II did my best. The technique is the same: acrylic ink on Arches watercolor paper. What should I say more?

Nelida of Ecuador

Nothing more sophisticated that a portrait of one of my "pupils"... To keep it up with the sunny disposition. Acrylic ink and watercolor, of course.Strathmore paper, also.

Just a sunny portrait...

Drawn this summer, when it was warm and bright...Right now I look outside at 20 cm of snow and it gives me the chills... for a moment. White is, finally, a beautiful kind of color... This is Samuel, a nice, talkative young fellow. Nothing harsh, nothing sinister, nothing depressive. Simply a sunny portrait. I'll try to keep it that way. Of course, it's an acrylic ink & watercolor on Strathmore paper. Enjoy!

Just a sunny landscape

No more, no less, as Shakespeare said... Just a sunny, vacation like Québec landscape, somewhere near Baie St. Paul (je crois)... In a painter's cuisine this would equivalate to a "soufflé", quelque chose d'aerien, de light, just a quick watercolor to match a beautiful summer day and a sunny disposition. Since outside the winter winds are hauling, as Sting said, it seemed appropriate to encourage myself a bit with some sunny summer images...The rich québecois are now flying off to Miami or to Caraibes, to Cuba... The ones not so rich brace themselves and "monte le chauffage"... And it seems, the meteorologist predict, that it will be one of the coldest winter in Canada in the last 15 years... so much for global warming...

One eye Sarah

Well, not really one eyed...But it was a windy day out there, near the Lac des Nations, at Sherbrooke, where I was exercising my trade of public amuser (I'm not sure the term is correct; but how many things am I not uncertain (or is it incertain?) these days? You know already, I think, that I like the redhead (to paint, folks, exclusively to paint...), the auburn (now that's a nice word!)... This isn't a very very recent portrait but since I'm not interested anymore in being an (almost) daily painter, it doesn't count too much...

The almost Minotaur

Most things are nowadays, for me, a kind of...or almost...something. This is "almost" a Minotaur - looks like something like that, anyway - since, technically, a Minotaur is half torro and half human... This one seems more like a torro... I can tell you one thing: it must have some devilish in it because a very nice woman (the wife of a friend where I exposed some paintings) just wouldn't have it in the house... and I did get it out, being a well-mannered (when I remember to be) person. The technique used to make it is very special and I didn't exploit it to the full extent. So I won't give any details, Internet being what it is, full of good things but also full of idea-thieves and con-artists...

Very Alive Nude!

Since the "Dead fish" post seem to revulse the readers - my hit counter dropped almost dead! - I must do some-
thing... So here it is, Gabrielle again, very alive and kicking (even if she SEEMS - only seems! - angry with you, turning his beautiful back to you...) It's a not yet finished painting but a complete drawing - and I'm confuse about the frontier - of 38 cm x 28 cm. You can even buy it...

Dead Fish

No mystery that these days everything I write and do (like, for instance, choosing a reproduction for this post)has some dark touch... Even this 2004 fish looks more dead than normal on that plate... But, what can I do? I am who I am and I do what I do... A very intelligent and perceptive Romanian writer (usually that means that nobody but some Romanians have heard of him...)said once: "Do not EVER say something good about yourself because nobody will believe you. And do NOT ever say something bad about yourself because everybody will believe you..." (Garabet Ibraileanu) So, it's not very clever to say that I'm depressed, maybe bipolar? True, almost everybody's depressed these days - c'est "à la mode" - and even bipolarity isn't that rare... So, enjoy my dead fish - if you can - and do not be too harsh with me... Depression is for everybody and one day you'll try it too, maybe...

A Feast for the Eye

That's what Eugène Délacroix said: "A painting should be a feast for the eye." There are a lot of painters who agree with that. Some are great names, like Renoir and Matisse, to mention just two. Some are just quasi-anonymous artists, like myself. But I believe it firmly. Why else should you paint if not to create a joy for yourself and for the eventual onlookers? (Of course, things are more complicated than that... as things have the bad habit to be, but essentially that's it: paintings are - should be - a feast for the eye...) I can understand the experiment and experimentations of the conceptualist and abstract artists but, let's be honest: what joy do you get from looking a black square on a white square?
This nude I post here is an small experiment in overlayered textures, a decoration experiment, if you want. Acrylics, of course.As always, I hope you'll like it. It's intended to be a feast for the eye...

To sell cucumbers to the gardener...

The title is the approximative translation of a Romanian saying. When you put yourself in the ridicule (or, sometimes, favorable,prestigious) position to talk philosophy to Plato or religion to the Pope... The favorable, prestigious position being when Plato asks for your advice concerning the Ideas or the Pope asks you how he should formulate his next encyclical... Well, let me tell a (short) story... a full-time artist, who doesn't have "independent means" has to participate at all kind of exhibitions, symposiums etc. to try to sell his/her stuff... In 1993 (I think, it could also be 1994) I was taking part in an Art Symposium at Bromont (a small turistical town, renowned especially for its Chocolate Festival). All kind of artists were there - from the color photograph reproducers to the gestualist abstract ones... The Honorary President of the event (it was in August and was sleeping in my car, the 2 nights of the 3 days)was Michel des Marais, a very nice painter, specialized in Quebec landscapes with sheep (no sheep, no Michel des Marais original...) He's an artist who do very well for himself (especially since his wife seem to be the financial manager). A Mercedes SUV proved the thing without any possibility of doubt...

And, folks, Michel des Marais, nick-named The "Prince of the Sheep" bought the my above reproduced Portrait of a Sheep! I wasn't expensive, of course, me not being the Prince of anything (and owning, at the time, a 12 years old small Mazda 323) but still: to have The Prince of the Sheep buying from you a Sheep Portrait... not bad, not bad... So that's about it. One of my happy moments... Someday, when I'll be the Prince of something, maybe I can go arround in a new Roadtrack motorhome, doing the art symposiums in the vast Quebec or even in the even more vaste Canada. When I'll arrive in the US (Taos, New Mexico), I'll consider myself the Prince of Everything...

Raw Nude

What a nude of mine looks like before I work it over? I already showed you one or two... Here is another one, of a model called Marie Lise, not a perfect one, physically (some small spine defect and getting fatter) but nice and with sad eyes and a nose that French call "un nez retrousé" (snub-nosed?)... In all, a pleasant enough model to draw - and then to paint...

Right now, I'm experimenting with mixing acrylics, watercolors and oil pastels (I made a hole in my budget and bought a few Rembrandt and Holbein oil pastels) but the results aren't yet that conclusive (they usually aren't at the beginning... You can see one sample at my other site "Danu's Small World" This combination, acrylic colors and inks, watercolors and oil pastels (or dry pastels - but with then it's a bore to fix...) is a very promising one and I think Degas would have loved it. I often fantasize what some great artists like Manet, Renoir, Monet, Cézanne or Van Gogh would have done with today art materials... acrylics especially...

Bloody allegory...

A sample of what I did in "hostile" conditions... I mean, when the model (upon whom I have no control, being just one of the many sketchers...) took "ballet" postures... No comments...Of course, it's an acylic ink + watercolor on Strathomore 300 g.

2005 Nude...the beginning...

Maybe this Nude is not the very first one where I started to mix acrylic inks with watercolor, where I've started to define my technique to paint the nudes... But it's one of the first...Rapid sketching was always, since my childhood, one of my greatest pleasures and if I did not have often the chance to draw after a nude model it's only because there weren't a lot of models in Romania of my youth... In fact, it was a very prude (apparently) country and to find a young, well proportioned "model" was very difficult even for the Art Schools (I remember that ours had to employ one of the young secretaries, who needed badly the money).Here, in Québec, after the "révolution tranquile" doesn't seem to be a problem and the models are almost always good enough and young enough. But in communist Romania, model would very easily translate into "whore" or "person of lewd conduct"...When I was in the last year at the ART School I remember that a group of us, preparing for the University, managed to convince (sacrificing a lot of our economies) a lady to pose. But she was fatish and oldish and not very clean and that wasn't an experience either of us - four boys and two girls - remembered with pleasure. Sure, we laughed a bit (cruel as teenager can be) but it wasn't a pleasant experience... Not even a good occasion to exercise our draughtmen/women talents since the lady was even more jumpy than ourselves and emphatically FORBAD us to draw her face... All we got were some headless (or faceless) sketches of a poor, scared, fatish woman...(Now, I understand her: I wouldn't wish myself to pose for 6 teenagers!!!) Something like the "Sorrow" Vincent Van Gogh did after Christine, the drunken prostitute... I will post something alike and a 2005 nude (where I started to use color in my nudes).

Another nostalgia drawing...

I suppose that everyone has his nostalgia (usually it is more than one...) One of mine is the nostalgia of my children, when they were still children... Less than 8-9 years old... Especially, I have the nostalgia of my daughter when she was 6-7 years old. Very sweet, still willing to pose for me, sometimes (at least for photos) and still unshamed that I am not either rich nor famous... In fact, I do not know (nor have I the courage to ask) what she thinks (or feels) right now. She is a young woman, living her life apart, with very very few threads of contact with me or her mother... I wish I could help her more, I wish I could protect her from the harshness and dangers of life. But I can't... So, every time I draw a little girl of 7-8-9 years old, I think of her... How she was. How she changed... How we all changed (for some of us means growing up, for some other growing down... (Not sure that the expression exists but it's relevant.) This is just a pencil drawing of a beautiful young girl, with that grace and beauty my daughter had also...

I take comissions... I sell paintings...

Not that I want to very much... But, after all, I am a professional visual artist. Capable to do a lot in drawing (story board for cinema included...), painting (portrait, landscapes, nudes, weird stuff. you name it...) or photography and digital art (inclusively combinations of drawing&painting and digital manipulated images...) In a word, I can do a lot of things. I got talent, experience, imagination and plenty of other hidden talents. The problem is that almost nobody seem to care. Or to need my multiple talents... Do I sound to you dissapointed? Well, I kind of AM... there are a lot of other artists, good artists out there... but there are also A LOT much worst than myself earning wads of money... I wouldn't give a damn, in fact, if artist materials would be for free and if I wouldn't feel a bit under estimated, and not used at my true value... Anyhow, this painting was a comission. I just wanted to show you I'm able to do it, just like I did it with the portraits. La bohème continue anyway and, eventually, a new Ambroise Vollard will sign a contract with me the way the real Vollard signed with Gauguin, at the end... And I'll draw and paint all day without giving a rat's ass about whatever... Just pouring my dark soul onto paper and canvas...

Casandra's story

She was a little girl of 12. But when you look at her you wouldn't give her more than 7-8 years old. She was slim (not to say skinny). She had big, blue eyes (beautiful eyes!)and 2 big, too big, front teeth. In fact, she looked just like a skinny, very hungry, nervous she-rabbit. Put some big, grossly rim glasses on her nose and you have almost her portrait true to life... Final touches: a runny nose, a stressed, anguished mother-hen look (she had at least two visible smaller brothers, all ultra-extra agitated and hyper active, all with runny noses and beautiful blue ayes...) And, cherry on the cake, somebody inspired gave her the bad-fated name of Casandra... Finally, she spoke the parisian outskirts dialect - because she, and her brother and her father and mother (those last ones weren't visible for the moment; probably buying - and drinking - beer, somewhere in the Jacques Cartier parc in Sherbrooke, Québec) were Francais de France. She was the in-charge-"mother" and when me and my friend Clement propose her to make her portrait she wasn't sure, at the beginning. She looked for her little brothers and only when we proposed to do their portraits too (which made them less agitated, having on them a ritalin-like effect...) she accepted. To tell you I felt a warm compassion for her would be an understatment... Drawing her portrait - twice, in order to conserve one portrait: the one you are looking at...) we knew a bit more about her life... At twelve, she was remplacing the mother - I'm afraid in more ways than one! - of a large family of poor Frnçais de France immigrated to Québec. I don't think she had a lot of gifts - personal gifts - coming her way, lately (or ever) so she was very glad when she had the watercolor and the pastel portraits we did of her. Especially that I did my best (for once!) to embelish her a bit. Let aside the runny nose, ameliorate a bit her big front teeth and gave all the color to her truly beautiful eyes. That day I was pretty satisfyied with myself. A good deed is a good deed. At the Last Judgement, I hope, the Lord will take it into consideration to balance my numerous sins...

Irises 2

I don't paint a lot of flowers. Not that I don't like them... It's just that I find people (and nude ladies) much more interesting... But this Irises were different: first of all, they surprised me. I know Van Gogh painted some (probably one of the most famous painting of the National Gallery in Ottawa...) and that's really a major challenge and then, I stumbled over some Irises in the parc of the private Institution were I teach "artistical expression". In fact, some pupil of mine, told me about... I took some pictures (and I was surprised that they were living practically in the mud or even in the water)... I've painted a series of 3-4 painting with those photos as an inspiration. I've already let you see one (with a grasshopper in it) and this is another one.... It,s an acrylic painting with a few watercolor touches.

Another type of portrait...

A portrait without model to pose... An imaginary portrait... An evasionist portrait... A portrait called "Mustachioed Dracula", in which the author poured out his anger, his anguish, his fear...You can see that painting has a cathartic function, a letting go function, finally, an evasionistic function... It's a 9" x 12" watercolor and acrylic inks on Fabriano 300 g paper. Collection of the artist.

Marie Lou, the redhead

This is a portrait I did last summer in the main parc of Sherbrooke, Jacques Cartier parc. I confess I like readheads - they are an interesting challenge for a painter. Auburn hair could be quite difficult to paint... Toulouse-Lautrec has a few portraits and nudes with "The Englishwoman from Dover" (the legend says he was totally in love with that one...) Myself, I didn't have the time to fall in love - and neither did I have the inclination (being shamefully monogame - almost 26 years of marriage with the same woman...) but I liked her. Technically, no different than most of my stuff... I should maybe change the materials...?

The nude as caricature

If caricature means "exaggerated" then yes, one can make a nude AND a caricature in the same painting... I kind of exaggerated a bit, in color, composition and drawing of the background figure... Wasn't something intentional, I do "caricatures" almost without knowing it... It's in my artist blood... As usual, a 9" x 12" watercolor and acrylic ink, on Strathmore 300 g paper. If interested, you know were to find me...

Jackie has the blues...

This is, of course, Jackie, and she had the blues (I don't know if she still has it...) Posing for 10 minutes could be pretty tiring and if you are posing nude, in a provincial town like Sherbrooke, it means you really need the money... I'm just guessing... I've tried to "catch" some of this sadness and, surprisingly, I used more warm colors and not really the blue... It's a watercolor & acrylic ink painting, 9" x 12", on Strathmore 300 g paper.

An experiment...

Do we need, as artists, to experiment? I think we do. Even if it doesn't sell too well, even if it doesn't sell at all... I really don't think selling should be our aim in life...

This is a Romanian landscape. The original photo represents a view from Ocna Sibiului, a very old (ancient Roman like...) small village/town near Sibiu... It has some 8-9 salt lakes, one or too so salty you'll be pumped out like a quark and you have to be VERY CAREFUL and to moove VEEERY slowly in it, otherwise you'll risk to drown, face down, like a coackroach on his back which cannot turn... (Technical details: 8" x 11" acrylics and watercolors on paper)

Miss T

Since I'm showing you more than my usual, nice, beautiful, pretty stuff here it is this somewhat weird portrait of a young lady from Romania, the daughter of a friend... She was a very silent creature, gracile, with a long, gracious neck and green-blue eyes... Somewhat weird and not without some (maybe dark) secret... Modiglianesque and dostoïevskian character...It's just a 8" x 11", as usual, an acrylic ink and watercolor on Arches 300 g paper.

Waiting for Dan Quixote...

...some windmills, painted in the same magical forest near Sibiu, Transylvania. That forest really is a very interesting place, where all kind of picturesque characters wander around... Danger and erotica where to be found there... Especially if you are young and full of hormons, such a forrest could be filled with satyrs and fawns and especially with Dulcineas waiting to be liberated... I'm no longer young but I still can remember... 9" x 12" watercolor and acrylic ink on Fabriano 300 g.

Modiglianesque...

Heck of a title, eh? (the "eh!" is my trying to be very Canadian, eh?) The story is this: when I lived in Magog (a little and very nice town, on the lake Memphremagog, about 30 km from Sherbrooke) I use to go to a small coffee shop downtown... order a coffee and sketch everything in sight, for hours... One day, I've sketched this beautiful young lady, with a very long and gracious neck, which, of course, reminded me of style="font-style:italic;">Modigliani's portrait... The portrait you see is what I've painted (acrylic inks and watercolors) using that sketch... Look at the back and you'll see something, maybe, interesting...

Nostalgia

I don't even know if the word exists, in this form, in English... Maybe it's more like melancholy ? (Well, I checked and it exist; meaning homesick...) In my meaning, it's more like a mellow sadness, a resigned regret that time passes and the youth with it... This watercolor (and acrylic ink) is a landscape of a very special place, for me: it's called something like the Village Technical Museum (whatever!) and it's situated in a large forrest near the city of my childhood and youth: Sibiu, in Romania. A great place with a few lakes and a lot of fire trees and oaks, etc. I've spent a lot of time wandering about that forest, in the summertime... Of course, in my nostalgic memories, it is even more beautiful than this painting...

I don't know why but it sems I'm not able to upload an image anymore... I'll try again later... Sorry, folks!

Quebec landscape

I think I would need 2 lives to paint and draw everything worth painting in Québec... I suppose it's the same thing with some of its neighbours... Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire...
This is a landscpe from Gaspesie, I think (I'm not good with names of places) and those two boat "floating" on dry land catch my eye. It's an acrylic ink and watercolor on strathmore 300 g watercolor paper. CAD 250 if somebody is interested...

Sketching could be fun!

I would never understand why people like better "finished" works to sketches! In my opinion (and there are some others, like Delacroix, for instance...) a good sketch IS worth a good painting... I would take every day of the week a small sketch of Rembrandt or Bruegel insteed of 100 big, super-finished paintings of Bougereau & Cabanel.
This is a sketch of my daughter (who was posing for a group of my drawing friends) in acrylic ink where I used as instrument not only the pen but also the "pipete" (the device used to draw and drop ink from the bottle) and a medium brush. On watercolor paper, of course (otherwise imposible to obtain these textures...) I kind of like it myself...

More personal stuff...

This is a 2006 somewhat more personal watercolor. It represents my daughter, Ioana, a young lady now, always in a hurry and with very little (or none!) time to pose for her father, the artist... I have to take spy pictures of her - decent ones, of course! - and to paint her after those fugitive, in movement photos... Neither her, nor my other two children, give much attention or thought to my paintings... Nobody's a prophet in his/her family, eh?..

Digital variants...

It's funny what you can do nowdays, with the digital photography, scanning and such...Since 1998-99 I began to digitally archivate my paintings and drawings... They become, more and more, just pixels on a cd or DVD... A lot of advantages with that: you can have almost instantly the image of your stuff, you can even ameliorate it (usually I don't do more than amelioration of the contrast or a small re-blance of the colors...) And, of course, you can keep and use an imense number of images (yours or others, to use them as visual stimulii... Or you can keep track - in a very detailed manner - of your work, you can transform what will finally be your paintings in a multitude of "variants", of work steps... Sometimes, a sketch can be better than the "finished" work... sometimes (even quite often) what you do "a la prima" is the best thing you do... Here is an advanced "variant" of a painting I sold a few years ago, at the Bromont Art Symposium... It's just a digital variant...

The mean me...

I did not post a lot of drawings here... caricatures even less. This is a rapid sketch taken at a show I've participated. A show for artists 50 years old & +, in the basement of Sherbrooke Cathedral. It was the last day of the show & I was cranky since I hadn't sold a thing, not even to cover the registration fee (and there were some nice paintings there)! I kind of resented all the friends and relatives of some other painters who did go straight for their relatives paintings without even taking a look at my stuff... So I took revenge in drawing their wrinkled asses (sorry!) It didn't help much, but still... I could gather my unsold paintings with resignation... Van Gogh himself didn't sell much either, eh?

A recent nude of Gabrille

This is one of the nudes of Gabrielle (one of the best models I've had...) that I've sent in Romania, to my European agent. Still in sale, I suppose... It's a 9" x 12" acrylics and watercolor on Strathmore 300 g paper. Don't ask me what does mean the Japanese characters... I don't know. But they seemed to be fit there...

Another "Fast Food pit" sketch

For cantueso, G., moonbeam and all the other kindred spirits who like to assist at the spectacle of the world - especially at the spectcle we, humans, are making of ourselves... A quick watercolor and acrylic ink sketch, no more, no less...

Fast food can be good...

... if you are an artist, searching for models, during the Quebec winter... when strolling in the park is not a pleasure anymore an artist like me (and my friend clement), trying to find a model, goes to what I call in French "le trou a bouffe" (an approximative translation would be "the fast food pit"...) People are there almost all the time, plenty of involuntary models getting fat with good, old, fast food, and we, the artists, we are drawing everything in sight... Just sketching, of course, maybe a bit on the side of caricature... Nobody gave us a beating. Yet...

The Phoenix Bird of Suffering

Since this blog is not anymore only a selling tool (as those of the so called Daily Painters - by the way, I've red in a Georgia O'Keeffe biography about one of her early teachers, william Merrit Chase, who recommended his pupils - in 1907! - to produce at least one canvas a day; nothing new about that... In fact, I remeber it was the slogan of some Ancient Greek or Latin writer - or was it a painter? Appeles maybe? "Not a day without a line"...) I have the courage to show some of my more unusual stuff...
This is called "The Phoenix bird of Suffering" and it echoes with a post on my other blog (http://ivdanu.worldpress.com) where the title was " The permanence of turmoil"...

No comment nude

9" x 12", acrylic ink & watercolor on 300 g Strathmore paper; in a North Hatley Gallery right now; CAD 250 + s/h.

Love Dream Catcher

The name is weird, bizarre, eh? the work is also bizarre... Not my usual portraits or nudes... But this is also me... I started this big acrylic painting (36" x 24") in 2005. I've painted and repainted several times and this is the final version (if a suden mood will not dictate other wise...)
What does it mean? Well, it's up to you... But my idea, initially, started from those twig and fethers etc. things that native americans call dream catcher or nightmare catcher... It evolved in a smaller version and then in this one...

Improved landscape

Since I'm a perfectionist (I think) I did some small improvements to a landscape I published here at the begining of my blog...

Karin orange

No comments.(None needed, I think...)

9" x 12", acrylics and watercolor on Strathmore 300 g paper.

Esoteric Rose

I have just read "Da Vinci's code" when I've painted this portrait... Since I also saw "In the name of the Rose", well, it was inevitable to play a bit with esoterism, especially when the two fire trees behind Rose were forming a V sign...

For dimension and techniques, the usual...

Sabrina

Another portrait, the usual dimensions and techniques ( I should began to experiment more with other materials... but if it works, why fix it?)

This one is sold.

A male nude, Karsten...

Sometimes, our model is a man. This is Karsten, an East-Germany immigrant and a dancer... Nice muscles...

It's a 9" x 12" acrylic ink and watercolor on Strathmore 300 g (acid free, of course) paper. I'll sell it for CA$ 250, shipping and handling included.

Marie de Peru

In fact, Marie (one of my pupils from last year) wasn't FROM Peru but she worked there so many years that, sometimes, she would prefer to speak Spanish instead of her native French québécois...

Exactly the same thing as Yannick... And you see that I'm not afraid of pink! (which could be a very tricky color...)