Saturday, December 03, 2005

revisiting the past...

We've been looking through our older drawings and paintings. Here's the first in a series of posts of things we found from our back pages.

Self portrait, watercolour by John, painted in Florence.


6 comments:

Unknown said...

Very nice and expressive painting!

Anonymous said...

I like the volume, the expression and the colours!

hfm
http://tcores.blogspot.com

MikeS said...

Very nice lighting John! I am envious of any one who can paint, and both you and Arna can.

I remember that you both had watercolours on display at a place around the corner from the studio, don't recall which establishment it was though. I'd love to see those posted if you have a copy of them!

Tell us a bit more about your time in Florence too. Must have been a great adventure.....

Steve Daye said...

This is really nice! I'm sure I've seen it before... maybe hanging the halls of Nelvana? Hard to picture JVB without the beard! Had I not known I'd think that this could be a painting of Elvis Costello! I'd love to see more!

the doodlers said...

Thanks to Alina and 'Anonymous' for their kind comments!

Mike: Thanks to you, too! When I did this painting (26 years ago?!?) I was just learning how to push the paint around. I like that I wasn't afraid to use LOTS of paint and LOTS of water. As I continued to paint through that year in Florence, I began to use less and less water. Not sure that those paintings were quite as 'happy' as this 'accident.' Arna and I went through some old work last week and found many paintings from that year spent in Tuscany...and the one in Amsterdam. I'll try to put more of those paintings up with a 'backstory' or two about them! Speaking of which...

Steve: Yep, no beard and wet behind the ears! My horn rim glasses definitely add to the 'Elvis Costello' look in this painting. Actually, those are the ugly prescription safety glasses I wore that summer working at GM. I brought them with me to Europe as a 'backup' pair. Good thing, too, since I became somewhat inebriated on the train from Paris to Florence (long story) and lost my 'good ' pair of glasses whilst spewing up, my head poking from the train window...like a true 'New Waver!' OY! We'll try to get more up for you anon...

Clive said...

John, you apparently executed a Jackson Pollack knock-off down the side of the train...