So long, my friends!

Since my energy is limited and since all things end at a time or another, I've decided to abandon (at least for the moment) this blog. Even if there were some favorable comments and some very faithful friends (Thanks a bunch!) there aren't usually more than 12-15 visitors per day. One cannot call this a blatant success...
It is not a totally loss since I made some friends and I had some good times. and I've also practiced my English... I will not delete the blog - so it will be still available for browsing and comment (and from time to time I'll check it and answer if any comments are made...) I will now say "So long, my friends!" and I'll hope you'll still visit me at:Van Gogh and I
As a farewell gift: this Quebec landscape I've painted sometime in September 2005...

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...