August: Mural Work, Portraits and Logo

Claire Douglas-Lee (Assistant/apprentice - studying at McGill)
paints leaves better than I so I have to follow her example. 

I've had to put book projects on hold while I work on a few commissions to pay the rent. I've hired an assistant so I don't fall behind. Claire, who is going to her first year at McGill will be leaving me at the end of the month to study politics and international studies. She's hoping to work overseas for an NGO. I didn't know she could paint! I set her up to paint leaves and now I have to adjust my style and match her unique approach.
     Bille, from Thailand is working as a lab technician in town till the end of the month before she heads back to Thailand. She posed for an oil painting. I made her cheeks a bit fat so I'll have to rework the painting. It was great that she had the time to pose for a live portrait.

     This month I received a wonderful compliment from a woman in Woodstock, Ontario. She got a tattoo to celebrate her three children, one who loves The Boy from the Sun. Mother and son have read it "a hundred times" and are still reading. 

Promoting and selling books at the Westfort St. Fair

     Writer, Gleb Raygorodetsky has asked for a logo for his book, Archipelago of Hope. I'm working to get a number of themes represented in the logo. No small task. More updates to follow this month. Back to selling books at the Country Market, a new street fair in Fort William and the Westfort Street Fair at the end of the month. READ ABOUT MY WORK IN FRENCH. CBC RADIO INTERVIEW.

Visitor to the Country Market gets a free book!

Current Works

Afro Vinyl - Oil on board a 4'c8' sheet -
 hair soon to be filled with vinyl discs. 

This July continues to be active. I had fun painting this 4' x 8' tall board for the Waverly Library in Thunder Bay. Interviewed by the library: HERE. A Lakehead University Engineering student named Bobbi posed. She has braids, but was okay with the oversized afro to mimic a Chicago Library work. Our librarians used the idea to promote their "new" vinyl collection. The afro will be filled with vinyl discs.

Ocean Guard at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery

My last painting is hanging at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery for a show called, The Perspective From Here: 150 Artists from the North. It's nine feet long, so my biggest canvas yet. The show wonderfully represents both past and current artists from Northwestern Ontario.

Read Article HERE

Commissions are coming - it helps to have a gallery/studio (118 Cumberland). I completed the cover for a dice throwing game, Vault Assault, for its box.
Calmly laying on a rock in the painting on the lefts is a Hollywood damsel who is not in so much distress in a storm. (Storm in the sky yet to be painted). The painting is a metaphor/allegory so realism is not required. I had fun creating waves that you wouldn't see in nature. A little guy will be featured in the background of the painting, working with a few wires. And a panel will have popped open on the side of the rock.
Read about my work in French.