Frequently Asked Questions

When I went searching for my pen-and-ink drawing with the bit of wasp nest resting on a desiccated magnolia leaf, I came up with a small stack of 6" x 8" pen-and-inks I'd done twenty years ago. At that time, I was very engaged in drawing and had become fascinated with the patterns in JT's bandanas played against the shapes and designs of shells, seedpods and dried flowers.
I can remember working away, small stroke by small stroke (or dot-by-dot, as for the magnolia leaf) to develop the shapes and tones. The darks and the shadows in this one must have taken me 3-4 laborious passes of cross-hatching:--
And this next one, in fact, was left unfinished because I realized its completion might require another year of my artistic life -- with dubious outcome.

Thinking about the time I spent on these small drawings, I recalled an article I'd once read by a painter who worked out of doors on urban subjects. He described his common experience of having a casual audience gather to watch him work. He said he didn't mind this at all -- unless someone asked the one question that made his blood boil: "Hey, how long does it take you to make one of these paintings?"

He perceived this inquiry into "production time" as a very low-brow response to the painting process. (Imagine the tourist in tropical shirt and baseball cap, tapping Leonardo on the shoulder and asking him the same question. "...and by the way, don't you know her smile's kinda crooked?")

So this author/artist had mulled things over and devised his own satisfactory answer to this Frequently Asked Question. The dialogue now goes like this:

Question from uninvited commentator: "Hey, man, how long did it take you to do this painting?"
Superior artist, after pregnant pause: "My whole life. It has taken me my whole life to get to this point."

Well. That should put a stop to any further intrusive questions.

Personally, I think the deadly FAQ is a natural enough one, especially coming from someone who doesn't paint and is wondering what it might involve. Documenting the development of my own paintings, I've found it revealing to learn that for a typical still life, I average 15- 20 hours on each one, preliminary sketch to sign-off (not including "all my life to get to this point.")

There are lots of ways to look at time. Rainer Maria Rilke suggested this viewpoint for artists.

Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree,
which doesn't force its sap and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not
afraid that summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who
are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly
silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am
grateful for: patience is everything.

Colour -- and the gifts of grandmothers

A few months back, while I was mixing paint for "September Stripes," a whole world of colour suddenly flooded back to me -- in the afghan I had as a child. What followed from this flash was an interesting few days of recovered memory colliding with colour theory and warm thoughts on the unintended riches of certain family legacies.

My remembered afghan was authentic in three ways:-- It was made in the traditional "granny afghan" design of multi-coloured squares bordered in black. Its yarn, in the thrifty spirit of mid-1940s wartime, came from either salvaged worn-out sweaters or scant leftovers from newly knit ones. And it was crocheted especially for me by my grandmother who was called "Granny."

Granny, who lived with us for many years, seemed flawless to me -- as each of her grandchildren in their individualities, was to her. How was it possible then, I would wonder as a 5-, 6- and 7-year-old, that she had made a Big Mistake with some of these colours? In fact, as much as I tried, I could never wholly accept a single square as ideal -- only two or three rows together at most. It was only later that I realized the construction of the squares depended entirely on the amount of yarn available.

Whenever I would snuggle under my afghan (which I could distinguish in an instant from my brother's -- something no one else could do), I'd carefully put on top the two squares with my favourite colour combinations. One of these contained the rich and pale yellows of "September Stripes". The other had a three-row sequence of blue-toned pastels.


I was astonished how clearly these colours came back to me. Once I'd remembered my favorites, others came through over the course of a few days -- arriving in small parcels, like the balls of varied sizes in my grandmother's workbag. There were the ones I didn't like at all:-- a very dark brown with a deep dull maroon, a chestnut brown with a dull olive green, and a sickening pale pink with a half-hearted tan. As a child, I'd mentally move a colour or two to another square, trying to make them work, but these ones were mostly beyond redemption.


Last to arrive from my memory bank were the almost-rans, the colour combinations that intrigued me: an emerald green with a wan beige; an intense orange with an intense turquoise; a 3-row set of rich cherry red, dull blue-green, and a green-tinged off-white. I'd look at these again and again, making mental adjustments that might bring them into the "like" category (what if this orange were paler, this green softer?).


As you see, I resolved to try to reproduce the remembered colours in paint. In the hours I worked, it occurred to me that almost every one of these samples, good or bad, could form the basis for a lesson in artists' colour theory -- something for which my grandmother would have had no use. Except for her grandchildren's afghans, she crocheted exclusively in white, making intricate doilies for the arms and backs of upholstered chairs (definitely old-fashioned by the early 1950s!)


Nonetheless, it seems I owe to her my great love for colour and a fair bit of sensitivity in its use. And along with this meditation on colour, I had another rich thought:-- that some of the legacies children receive are obvious, and some are less so and sometimes more important.

Among my friends now are grandmothers, great-aunts and aunties who are blasting away almost non-stop on behalf of their cherished little and not-so-little ones:-- knitting, crocheting, quilting, sewing, cooking, felting, baking, story-telling, singing, play-acting, writing, scrap-booking, photographing, recording, event planning...with creations that include hats, blankets, sweaters, toys, stuffed animals, costumes, favorite foods, tall tales, family histories, surprise (or not so) parties, uniquely designed cakes, never-stale cookies...the full meal deal. (My mouth waters just thinking of a nourishing bowl of Mrs. Gnome's Track Soup, with sides of yams and sticky rice, topped off with a whole plate of Grandma's Rainbow Cookies!)

And I've wondered, as I painted the colours that Granny bequeathed me, just what legacies from grandmothers, great-aunts, and aunties will be remembered 40-50-60 years from now by Aedan, Aiden, Alanna (please!), Alexa, Alyssa, Andrea, Chantel, Christian, Corbin, Fred's and Bruce's kids, Gavin, Jaymie, Juniper, Logan, Matthew, Merritt, Nyah, Ocean. Time will tell.