This album will be dedicated to the art that I create during the Covid-19 global pandemic! Some of the art will be in the form of drawings. Some may be photos of the art I see in the world around me. Some art will be... well I just don't quite know, at this point - that's the wonder of art..... sometimes you see it in unexpected places!
Be inspired to adjust your outlook on life and the world so that we can build a future for all the children living on planet Earth!
I will be adding dates to each post, as a timeline marker for this experience!
Be well.... EVERYONE!
--- March 26 ---
I am a Paratransit driver. I drive a small mini-bus throughout London, Ontario, Canada, picking up passengers with mobility issues and taking them wherever they need to go - hospitals, movie theatres, restaurants, friends' homes, etc. Since 'personal distancing' protocols are now happening, instead of having around 45 people on my bus during an 11 hours shift, I have 3!!!! My employer is trying to keep as many drivers as possible, employed and for that I am grateful. But.... it sure is challenging keeping oneself amused for the 10 hours of an 11 shift when we are doing nothing!
Since, I am having a difficult time, being fresh and inspired during this time, to create ideas for artworks, I have been letting others do the foundation work for me! I've been googling 'adult colouring sheets' and finding lots of interesting images to fill in! While at work, I sit in my bus listening to updates on the radio while finding the 'quiet' place in my mind as I work on these colouring sheets!
I am finding that these 'artworks' are keeping me distracted from time, as it moves slowly towards the end of my shift!
This is my first completed colouring sheet! I used pencil crayons for this one. Since it is now spring, I wanted to focus my thoughts on flowers and Nature!
When I came home from work and showed this to Devon, I blew him away! He told me that it looked like an image from a magazine! A nice compliment! Thanks, Devon!!!
I actually started this artwork on my previous workday, but it wasn't finished until March 26.
After I finished the spring flowers colouring sheet, I started right into this one! This time, I used markers! I wanted to focus my mind on our planet's oceans and all the animals living there!
This colouring sheet was also completed on March 26.
--- March 27 ---
Every spring and fall, we have small fires in our back garden. This helps us to get rid of all the fallen sticks and twigs from surrounding trees and the pot ash (after the fire is done) gets spread around on top of the garden's soil to add nitrogen to the soil!
I took this photo, when the fire was dying down!
What do you see in the embers???
I see a galactic scene filled with energy and pulsing radiance! A scene of creation... unfolding - with a far away dark area that is being overwhelmed by a tidal wave of light that is moving forward, towards me, as it overtakes the dark... about to engulf it. There are several winged dark messengers that are about to be swallowed up, and so... they retreat back into the darkness from whence they came!!!
Ha! Whence! I can't ever remember using that word before!
--- March 28 ---
Yesterday, I challenged my son, Devon, to write an acrostic poem for the word HAPPINESS! Later, that same evening, I gave myself the same challenge. When my poem was finished, I realized that all art forms have now been forever changed by this virus...
To share my poem, I went digging through some of my early art files and I found this acrylic painting! I realized that I have never shared this art, before, so I may just be inspired to do that... sometime soon....
--- March 30 ---
This artwork is making me feel full of summertime vibes and I'm imagining I'm self-isolating in a small hut in the middle of Africa.... for some strange reason!!! LOL!!!
This artwork was created using markers! While working away on it, I focused my mind on our planet, directing my thoughts full of healing, outwards to all!
--- April 02 ---
And.... my turtle colouring sheet is done!!!!! I put a bit of thought into the colour placements. For example... the front shoulders of the turtle are bright, while the head is muted in greens and blues - because an oncoming predator will see the bright shoulders as eyes and think "Damn! That's a big creature.... maybe I won't get into a fight with it!" And similar thoughts went into the shell colour schemes.... lots of greens and blues that create uniformity, while the brighter colours may look like large eyes to a predator!!!! See.... I learn things while watching Nature shows on TVO Kids with my son!!!!! LOL!!!!
--- April 03 ---
I finished this colouring sheet on Friday! I used markers for most of it and a light blue pencil crayon for the background!
When I came home from work, Devon was very excited to show me his art creation!
With Mommy's help, Devon created a Minecraft sunset design! It's so bright and colourful! Great job, Devon!!! I'm sure you'll be wearing this a lot, this coming summer!!!
--- April 04 ---
Watching me working on colouring sheets peeked Devon's curiosity and he asked if he could do some, as well! Since we are working on a 'Pollinator' project, I thought it would be good to start with an image with some bees!!!! It took Devon a few afternoons to complete this, and today, he was very excited to show me the final image!!! Awesome job, Devon!!!
--- April 7 ---
Devon has been working on this - his second - colouring sheet for several days. He was very excited to show me and to tell me how he had been listening to me when I explained how to use colours in a progressive way... one colour leading into another colour. He demonstrated this to me while talking about the wing - "See, Daddee, how it starts at the top in brown and then it goes to red and then to orange and then it goes to yellow? And look, I even added a bit of orange to the yellow area to make the colours relate more!"
Smart kid!!!!
--- April 9 ---
So far, this is my favourite colouring sheet to have done! For a reason!!!
When I first started this effort, I was thinking that the colouring sheets would make great 'Welcome Back!" gifts for the employees my wife had to lay off because we had to close our grooming store Happy Tails! After I had completed a few more, I began to think of other ways that I could share the finished works, and then I had an idea...
I posted some of my earlier efforts on a couple local Facebook community groups. I shared my idea by saying that if someone wanted me to create a colouring sheet specifically for them, that I would.... but at a cost! The cost would be a bag filled with $20 worth of canned food and/or baby supplies for a local food bank. Less than 8 hours later, someone sent me a message and asked me to do a greyhound colouring sheet for them. I agreed! As we were making arrangements (the final plan was for me to drop off the art at the food bank, where the person could pick it up once the donation was made) I learned that she was going to be sending the art to her daughter in Montreal, who has a greyhound. I thought that this was fantastic! Then I learned that her daughter was a nurse and suddenly this whole effort took on a deeper meaning for me!!!
--- April 14 ---
This crab, took longer than any other colouring sheet, to date. I really wanted it to look awesome, so I took my time, planning out my colours and planning out my colour schemes. If you look at the coral, you'll notice that I used 2 and sometimes 3 colours, to give the sense of sunlight filtering down through the water. The blues, in the background follow an interesting colour transition from light to dark.
--- April 16 ---
A week or so ago, I was texting with a co-worker and I told him about the colouring sheets that I'm working on, to keep sane at work. He checked out my website to look at a few of my artworks and then he asked me if I'd do one for him! I said yes! He said that he wanted a picture of a penguin!
I hooked up with him, earlier today and gave it to him. Later, he sent me another text to thank me and then he told me that he was going to get it framed so he could hang it in his daughter's bedroom!!!!
When I was organizing my colour scheme, I decided to make one flower look like the sun... in yellows, oranges and reds. The rest of the background is filled in using just a few colours that I feel gives the sentiment of an arctic environment.... cool and refreshing!
--- April 18 ---
Devon and I have been spending some time working on online school projects, now that our local school board finally got their act together! I shared the image posted above with Devon lying on some grass with his 'HAPPINESS' poem, beside him. His teacher asked if she could use that as inspiration for another online English assignment. Devon has happy to say yes!
We could have simply resubmitted Devon's first poem... but we both felt like that would be cheating... so Devon wrote another acrostic poem! I found some fun paper in one of my cupboards, and I helped Devon lay out some construction lines to make it nice and neat! I showed him how to make thick letters and then he was off and running!!!
--- April 21 ---
Devon's online schooling is teaching him about 'area'. He was given an assignment to use grid paper and design a robot. Then he had to figure out the area of the robot. The assignment said it would take only 25 minutes to complete. It took us 1 1/2 hours!!! You can see why....
Devon and I chatted about this assignment and I inspired him to 'up' his game by creating an interesting artwork by adding a foreground, etc. Soon, there was a tree, a rolling hill, a cliff, a sun and a rocket ship all surrounded by a big blue sky!!!! I love it!!!
--- April 22 ---
--- Earthday ---
A little over a week ago, I was chatting with the mother of one of Devon's friends. I learned that she is a nurse, working at London's Victoria Hospital! I became inspired to want to create a colouring sheet for her, so I asked Sabrina what subject she wanted on her colouring sheet. She said that she loves horses!!!!
What makes this artwork unique is the fact that over 90% of it is created using colour blending techniques. Instead of filling in an area completely with just one colour, I would use one colour to lay down a light fill and then I would go over that same area with a second colour. I love the textures that are created using this technique!!!!
A couple of days later, we dropped by her house to give this to her. Her son was there, so Devon and Judah got to see each other for the first time in over a month and I'm pretty sure they enjoyed that... even if Judah had to stay on the porch and Devon stayed in our van and chatted out of the window!
--- April 26 ---
After several weeks worth of effort, I've finally got my first Quarantunes compilation playlist ready to share with y'all!!!! Enjoy.....
--- April 28 ---
Devon is going to be sooooo surprised to wake up in another day or two and find this colouring sheet framed and hanging on his wall!!!! Since I've been doing colouring sheets for so many people, I thought that I would do one just for him!!!!
--- May 02 ---
This is my most unusual colour sheet yet!!!! This was an experiment. I have a cool idea that I want to try, but first I needed to learn more about the concept that I want to pursue and this was the best way to start the wheels in my brain turning!!!
It's easy to see a revolving and repeating pattern in the layout of this colouring sheet. My idea is to not think of the patterns.... but think about the space the pattern takes up. This art is simply 3 circles laid out over the existing pattern. My job was to fill the spaces of these circles using the existing pattern! Does this make sense??? LOL!!!! My next experiment will be to use a similar pattern as the background layout and try to create a scene.... maybe a hill with a tree in the foreground, a lake, and a nice blue sky with a cloud in it.... or something like that!
--- May 07 ---
I sure am learning a lot about colour blending with pencil crayons! It's hard to see here, but almost everything you see has at least 2 colours in it.... sometimes 3!!! This dolphin was a request from one of my Paratransit customers! She loves dolphins! I finished this on Monday and yesterday, I went to her place to drop it off! Alison was more than happy to exchange this art for $20 that I'm going to spend on canned goods and baby supplies for the Byron Food Bank!!
--- May 16 ---
I have been experimenting with a new philosophy while working on my colouring sheets! Last week, I shared my first experiment. This is my second one!!! A simple image - a tree, a hill with another hill with 2 trees farther back. Was I successful??? A number of challenges arose while working this out... but I think it looks pretty interesting! I'm going to have to spend a bit of time thinking about what I have learned, through this art, so I can try another experiment sometime soon.....
--- May 21 ---
I call this one 'Brother Wolf and Sister Moon'
--- June 24 ---
This may be the last colouring sheet artwork that I add to this album..... as I'm not needing ways to kill time anymore cuz I'm a Mr. Mom now!!!!! Just a few days before my last shift, a co-worker asked me to do a colouring sheet of a grayhound for his daughter. He paid me $20 that I spent on canned food for the Byron Food Bank. I've been so busy as Mr. Mom that I didn't work on this art at all, until just a few days ago! I needed to get it done, to get it out of my mind.... and now it is done!!!! I went into work today, and left it there for him to get when he works next! I'll bet he'll be surprised cuz he must of thought that I forgot about it.... cuz it had been so long in completing! But, I'm a man of my word.... even if it takes a bit of time to get things done!
I rather like it! I hope you do, too!--- July 22 ---
Devon usually spends his summers having fun at Summer Day Camps... but sine they have all been cancelled, this summer, I have been taking care of him. I like to encourage him to be creative, so I got Devon to create a drawing using the techniques he used, earlier this spring, when drawing on grid paper. I simply gave him a list of things that I wanted him to put in his drawing.... 3 trees, 2 hills, 5 birds, 2 clouds, 1 sun. This is the result of that project. I love the rawness of it!!! Great job, Devon!
--- August 15 ---
After we came back from a weeklong cottage vacation, I had Devon revisit his artwork and I shared with him, a few new ways of looking at his previous work so that he could improve it. We talked about how to blend colours when using a grid as a layout. We talked about how to create the illusion of distance by choosing lighter colours for object in the background. This artwork ended up getting framed and put behind glass and Devon gave it to his Grade 3 teacher as an 'end of the school year' gift... even though she received it in August!
--- September 24 ---
When school started up again, a week later than normal, I was finally able to go back to work. So... I took a few colouring sheets, markers and pencil crayons with me, anticipating that I would still have a lot of time on my hands during my 11 hour shift. The amount of riders did increase and I found that I had a scattering of time on my hands throughout my shift... but nowhere near the free time I had, in the spring!
I found it a little odd that the peace and calm I found in the spring, when working on these colouring sheets, didn't happen for me, after I returned to work. It was like the magic of the colour sheets was gone! As I worked on this owl, I actually found that I was becoming tense... and this was not what I wanted!
After I finished this colouring sheet, I decided that I needed something else to do with my free time... so this may be my last artwork to share in this album.
I decided that I'd do something that I've been wanting to do since 2006...
In 2006, I went on an art journey to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut. When I got home, I started thinking that I'd like to write a book about my experiences there.... I had taken a journal with me and it was filled with notes and sketches.
So... that's what I'm working on these days.... my first book!
I'm not sure what will become of it... but I'm rather enjoying the experience of painting with words and it is helping me fill the voids during my day! If all goes well, I just may try to find a way to share it with all of you, sometime soon.
Wish me luck!
To end this blog post, I'm going to share one final thing. This is a meme that I saw on Facebook, not too long ago and I feel that it puts the year 2020 into a positive perspective, so I'm going to leave you with someone else's words to think about and hopefully find a little inspiration...
Be well!
Stay well!
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