Pursuing my series... "Saving Ivory"...

This painting was totally exploratory...

I took the opportunity to explore drawing and painting in a manner I never did before. For this one, I also used fluorescent pink in my color mixes, which makes this painting difficult to photograph!

It has been postulated that staining elephant tusks pink could prevent poaching (however, it's never been implemented, but I like the idea). With this painting, I'm extending the concept to African albinos! I paint driven by exasperation...

"Ebony and ivory - crucify me" - the start of a new series!

Over the last few weeks, I have worked diligently on my last painting until I was relatively satisfied with the imagery...

I already have an idea for the next one!

Partaking in a goup expo and branching out on a new subject matter!

Every year, I have a chance to participate in a collective exhibition using the Centre des Loisirs de ville St-Laurent as venue...

 I took the opportunity to exhibit recent works from my series on Native women and Mayans... triggering anxiety and/or admiration (my rendering of faces and stares) on the part of the public. Needless to say, I always enjoy people's reactions to my art, especially when they are strong!

The recent situation in Malawi, has prompted me to initiate a new series called "Ebony and ivory"

I seem to need these triggers to get excited about painting!

While taking a relative break from painting... an experiment!

Back from vacation, I let go of any serious work, preferring to experiment to delineate the boundaries within which I intend to work with my future works dedicated to the body...

There is potential in the transparent application of paint on raw canvas, but a next step would be to overlay passages of thicker paint while selectively leaving certain "first pass" passages intact... in the end it's a matter of balance!

Return from vacation... evaluating new directions!

Spending 10 days in Samana allowed me to decompress artistically speaking...

Back to drawing classes, I realize that my drawing capabilities improved to such an extent that I have much more freedom of expression in that medium than in painting. While on vacation, I toyed with the idea of allowing more freedom of expression in my painting, in essence dragging some of that newly found fluidity into my painting process... Over the years, I have developed a number of techniques which I could use more freely, all at once!

"A Canadian portrait"... trying to use paint and textures to communicate something!

This last painting started as a full figure and ended up in this fashion...

A simpler composition emphasizing the essential...

In the end, I settled for an encaustic effect (picture taken under intense yellow lighting), which I've never really used in my years of experimentation.

Buffalo woman, tackling the smaller scale figure...

Because I have favoured painting large scale faces up to now, gaining freedom in the painting of smaller scale figures has been a challenge...

This 28" X 28" painting points to possibilities using loose brush strokes driven by less attachment to a realistic rendering...

After two and a half years of live model drawing, I would like to go with pure imagination rather than relying on reference materials, i.e., photos or drawings. Imagination is stronger than reality!