The suit of armor is a sketch on paper; the boy portrait is chalk on paper done from a photo reference for a client; the blue face man is a chalk life drawing; The hand and scissors is a proportion and perspective exercise drawing in coloured pencil; the man head is a spontaneous water colour painting;  the Porche is also a water colour.

These are all pencil sketches I've done in the past. These studies are usually the first step to a painting or they can be seen as finished art.

These are pictures showing the progression of an acrylic painting on canvas - cows being the subject, was the request by the person who commissioned this piece. I used 5 photo references to create the composition on paper before starting the painting.

This painting is titled, "Red" and measures 5 feet long by 2 feet high.
With a contemporary feel it borders between abstract and landscape.

Here are a few more pictures of me in my studio.
The top photo is me in my library room; one of my cats is there.
The second photo is my paint mixing area; notice the mountain of paper work on the desk below the lamp that I have been neglecting.
The third photo is me pointing at one of the studios most important items, my art paper file cabinet. Its a very wide and deep metal drawer for keeping expensive paper, art pads and art safely stored away. You can see how important this cabinet is by noticing the serious look on my face!

I used to teach at a University for three years and some of my students wanted to see my studio I work in, to see the set up and the environment - I couldn't show them at the time but I thought I'd put some photos on for people to have a peek of me working in my studio.

That's me pretending to be working at my light table; my paint space is behind me. You can see the plastic curtain that's open in the back ground, that is my toxic room; I can zip the plastic closed and do messy, stinky work in there. I just use my lungs to filter out air bourn toxins.

This is a three panel painting, acrylic on canvas, hinged together to create a fold up privacy screen.
This demonstrates that not all art needs to be on a wall and can have a very practical application. The total size is 7'x5.5'
You can see other murals I've done if you go to the Past Works page and scroll down.

These are the two abstracts I was working on; they are a spring theme, acrylic on canvas measuring about 40"wide and 30"high each. These would work well as a set hung side by side on a wall. These have a lot of texture that is not visible in the photos and that is why original art is always much more impressive than prints.

Me in my studio.

Abstract paintings are in progress; they basically have no boundaries in the real world so anything goes. One way to begin to understand an abstract is by seeing it as the basic "skeletal" or "underlying structure" of what would become a finished painting of say, a landscape. It can be seen as an unfinished painting that is in its planning stage; where, hopefully, a strong composition has been developed and colour principles are followed. Good use of colour and design or composition is what makes a good painting, so once that has been established the painting can be said to be finished without it being representative of anything. Does that make sense?

What am I up to?

Well, I've been creating some paintings in my studio for Celadon, the picture framing company in Burlington. They have a large warehouse and showroom where art and frames can be viewed and they are displaying and selling original works by local Artists and Photographers as well as their own inventory. I created some Canadian landscapes to get warmed up because Canadian themed art is very much in demand. Celadon also requested some large acrylic on canvas paintings that have a blue  turquoise and bronze taupe colour combinations as well as bright abstracts. Art with these parameters sells well according to Celadon, so thats the direction I'm taking - we'll see.

Misty Jean

Welcome! This is my first blog posting and I look forward to passing on art tips, demos and sharing general information, and hope you'll take part every now and again.