Shortly the trees of Southern Ontario will burst into reds and oranges and yellows. This print is an attempt to capture the beauty of a spot the pooch and I frequent for our daily hike.
CHANGES
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Category Archives: trees
The Nearness of you
This is from a sketch I’d done years ago. The background seemed boring so I kept the trees and added moon, hills & water. The title ‘The Nearness of you,’ was from a song I heard while engraving. Easiest title ever.
Early morning, early spring
This isn’t really a winter scene, in my mind at least. In the early, early spring you can’t see much evidence of snow melting in the bush, but it is melting and the water finds its way down into creeks like this and turns the snow darker.
As I write this it’s -16C outside so the image is, at this point, just wishful thinking.
Barn near Marden, Ontario
Another of Southern Ontario’s iconic Bank Barns, so named because of the earth banked up on one side as a ramp leading to the second floor. The ground level at the back leads into the stables with the second floor overhanging to give some protection to outside animals. I drive past this one often and wanted to do an engraving and now, having done this small one, I really want to do a large one with much more detail.
Silent Bay
Except for my Barn prints I don’t have many winter scenes choosing instead to sit in my warm studio and focus on summer subjects.
Here’s a winter scene, one of Northern Ontario’s many frozen lakes. It’s a three colour engraving using only one plate.
Spring surprise!
Both entries submitted to Insights, a juried show in Southern Ontario, were accepted. Especially nice because there was a lot of very good art in the show.
An extra treat was that one of my submissions was an ink wash painting that I’d worked up from a sketchbook. It was the first painting I’d ever submitted, anywhere….except maybe a cow drawing submitted to a Fall Fair when i was six. I’ve improved over the years :- )
Weather to order…
Seems that complaining won’t change the dull, winter weather outside so I painted this sunny afternoon on Georgian Bay. I used a close to the water, canoe perspective.
Ink Wash painting
Bit of a switch from engraving. I used walnut ink that I’d made to paint this. The colour is great but the ink is quite susceptible to moisture, including its own, so there’s not much layering of colour, the separate tones are mixed in a dish then painted on.
Pandemic prints
Early on in the year I did a B&W, 4.5 x 5, covid inspired print titled ‘Passing Storm’. As we know the ‘storm’ has been what the weather folks would call a ‘very slow moving disturbance.’
When effective vaccines were announced I did a more hopeful, 5.5 x 8 print I’ve titled ‘2012, the view from here.’
Hopefully a bright, cheerful addition will be warranted very soon :- )
Dark Shore
Stretching up the east side of Georgian Bay is an archipelago called the ‘30,000 Islands’. I haven’t counted them but viewed from an airplane it seems there could be that many.
However, if you’re still out in a canoe after dusk the 30,000 become one large, never ending island and good luck finding the island you camped on. That meal you’re longing for is there just waiting to be cooked and eaten :- )
Shoreline
Something new for me. Rather than an engraving, a lithoprint using a ‘Pronto-plate’.
This was a 2 colour trial print titled ‘Shoreline’. Still lots and lots and lots to learn.
My Kinda storm…
It was all happening on paper inside while the cold and storm was happening outside!
Misty morning
One morning I canoed out into a thick fog and down a wide channel towards open water. When I left the channel and headed towards the shore islands slowly began to appear out of the fog. It was quite magical.
This is a 27×14.5 cm, five colour reduction print.
Last Light
I had a spatula of dark ink after cleaning up from printing and ‘painted’ this tree with it. I liked the tree so I created a background for it. 
Incoming.
This was a print of a somewhat abstract painting I did of a storm that was moving in. A bit of random rolling out of ink in the background for a slight ‘organic’ feel.
clive lewis, printmaker 