Miles Constable Artist

24x24 Acrylic on canvas SOLD

I am continuing my series of abstracted city views in a square format, similar in some ways to "Winter Escape", but also quite different. In that series I am trying to encapsulate fundamental colours and patterns of a landscape without reference to each other. In this series the shapes have a reference to each other and are not encapsulated so that the city is more visible.

 24x24 Acrylic on canvas $200

The third of my series under development (two paintings is a series), this is a very fragmented and abstracted city view with only enough information to give you the feeling of a city. Certainly not much more. I use a lot of green tape in masking off these paintings, costs keep rising.

18x36x3 Acrylic and paper on canvas. SOLD

This is another painting on the thick canvases that I so like. It started solely as a desire to use the coolest paper I have found to date, it looks all the world like boiled leather, in this case it surrounds the bottom 1/3 of the painting. Once I had applied the paper and I studied it for a while the paper came out as a highly textured landscape, perhaps a planetary surface. With that I was off, although it was not simple. I overpainted several designs until in frustration I added a heavy purple colour up against the paper. This provided the appropriate tonal difference and I could finish the painting in a better frame of mind. This painting really challenged me with the question "How do you know when it's done?" The title? Gloriana was a name given to Queen Elizabeth I by her troops on the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

36x24 Acrylic, paper and leaves on canvas SOLD

Deep 'n' Delicious resulted from two disparate events; the first I was in an art store and found the coolest paper made from paper pulp and the skeletons of willow leaves. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but it was too cool to leave in the store. Second an artist in the VASA studio and gallery was painting an image of apples, another thought she'd like to do her own take on the image, so four of us decided to do our own variations. Of course, mine was pretty abstract. The red and green stripes form a solid background for the lacy leaves and floating apples.

24x24 Acrylic on canvas SOLD

Water Lillies came about as an attempt to salvage a canvas as I had totally botched the painting. I overpainted the canvas with gesso with yellow paint in it. A big mistake, I generated the ugliest yellow ever. I put it behind all of my other canvases for months until one day I resolved to do something with the ugly yellow duckling. Monet came to mind. Of course, water lillies. So I started with a watery blue over the yellow to develop a green base and it just rolled off of my brushes.

24x24 Acrylic on canvas $200

I started this last June 21 for a Solstice celebration on Perron Street in St. Albert. I got part way into it and just lost my way, not knowing how to get out of it. I left it for 9 or more months behind my easel until finally I resolved to finish it. I added black, white, more gold and a few other extras that improved it considerably. Event Horizon, the point of no return for entering a black hole. I think I pulled out just in time.

18x36x3 Acrylic on canvas SOLD

"Where did this come from? I asked myself." I started with bright yellow streaks across the canvas and on the top I thinly layered magenta. It wasn't really doing anything for me so in a bit of a panic I grabbed a little squeegee and removed some of the magenta. "Oh cool!, I says, "I like that." So I left the bits of yellow peaking out. This is often how my paintings progress, through experimentation and panic. I wish I could say it was carefully thought out, but so far the best haven't been. Not sure of what to do next I decided that the yellow on the bottom would actually be good as green under a thin layer of blue, so that's where I went. I got the feeling of water and, as orange works well with blue I added blobs of orange and suddenly koi started jumping, so I added yellow and speckles. The title? According to Wikipedia Nishikigoi is the formal Japanese word for koi. At the Whyte Avenue Art Walk I mentioned this to a Japanese exchange student. She was simply puzzled. Perhaps it was my accent.

18x36x3 Acrylic and paper on canvas SOLD!!!

Pronounce the "e", it's Italian. Why? I'm not really sure if this is spring passion or hot growth or a fire racing up a mountain side. I really wanted to use this cool green grass-like paper I got in Ottawa and then there's the cool "boiled leather earth" paper at the bottom. This is what happens when I paint and listen to Jesse Cook up loud. Very rhythmic and primal.

18x36x3 Acrylic and paper on canvas LOST!!!

Yet another thick and long canvas. This I started last year and got to putting something on the top "stone" and stopped. Dead-in-my-tracks! I tried all sorts of symbols, sayings, Japanese, Arabic, Wickan. All sorts. Finally I just decided I have to finish it, so I looked up this Egyptian symbol, which they called "wedgat" better known as "The Eye of Horus". It was said to ward off evil and was used in the ceremonial tombs of pharohs on their way to the after-life, cause even they needed to ward off evil. It was derived from the eye markings on a Peregrin Falcon as Horus was the sun god, and what flew closest to the sun? Falcons. This one has been LOST by the artist! Indeed, I have no idea where it is. If anyone has it, or finds it let me know. I'd just like to know where it is.

24x24 Acrylic on canvas SOLD

I have continued with my series of abstracting essential elements of landscape, namely patterns, textures and colours. This painting I call Brightsand after a lake and regional park in Saskatchewan that is familiar to me and my kin. Sand, water, trees, roads (both wet and frozen) and other elements of what I see in the area.

36x36x2 Acrylic on canvas $700

Another series under development, 3ft by 3ft canvases of vague, abstracted city scapes. This I used a lot of silver and pearlesence to simulate early morning fog in backlit city streets, with a sunrise and tall buildings. What city? What sunrise? I can't tell, although someone thought it was Toronto. Could be! Both of our kids live there. That subconscious will come through.

 24x24x2 Acrylic on canvas $300

The third of my series under development (two paintings is a series), this is a very fragmented and abstracted landscape with only enough information to give you the feeling of a landscape. My current issue is whether to give them a title that gives the viewer a hint of my intentions, or to give it a non-title and let the viewer develop their own perspectives of what the painting is about. Many people see mountains or the west coast. Oh well, my inspiration was southern Saskatchewan.