Sunday, April 17, 2016

Echoes of the Group of Seven

I love impressionist art, and over the past 6 months or so I tried my hand at replicating some impressionist masterpieces.  My first try was one of Monet's poppy fields, but with the second attempt I stayed closer to my Canadian home, and painted (in acrylics, on canvas) Tom Thompson's "The West Wind", from a printed card I bought at the ROM a few years ago.


And because I'm still going through a doodling or Zentangle phase, I also doodled the painting.




In a separate post I'm going to go into more detail about some woodburning I've been playing with as well, but here is a peek at Tom Thompson's West Wind done in pyrography, with some acrylic paint for colour (and a slight stained-glass look - because making artwork in a mix of media makes my life so much happier!)


But, back to the doodled designs, the West Wind piece experience led me to try zentangle-type doodling another Tom Thompson painting, the even more famous "Jack Pine". And that was followed by F. H. Varley's "Stormy Weather Georgian Bay".  I've been using the doodled sketches in several variations of cards, and even matted a few.  Choosing different background papers to print the designs on (scrapbooking paper, various shades of tan, parchment, aged-looking printer paper) and varying the colouring (in markers) of the trees, can result in unique, one of a kind pieces.