Casey the Puppet. This painting captures the essence of a puppet lots of older Canadians will remember. A strange genderless creature with a dog puppet companion. A puppet with an outspoken personality that I remember as a kid wondering how it got away with saying what it did. The painting has a Canadian stamp to commemorate the puppet's roots.
The Queer Old Man is a solid wood puppet head created more than 50 years ago if not more. The eyes of the character are a radiant blue and the carved structure of the face is expressive and bold.
Impalla, Wart Hog and Topi is a strange painting of a young doll like female puppet head with large intimidating eyes. The scary doll head puppet looks like a frozen predator. Her expression almost ferrel but still oddly innocent at the same time. I chose the vintage storybook background based on the mottled rich tones of the paper itself and the fact that the title refers to prey and predators in Africa. It is an excerpt from an old African adventure story. I love the arresting expression and bright colours of this painting. She has great stopping power and evokes all kinds of emotions.
A portrait painting of a vintage dislocated puppet head. Created with mixed media including vintage storybook pages, old photographs and stamps. Pen and ink, gouache, and watercolours.
A little collection of mushrooms, done with gouache in my mixed media sketchbook. The process of painting with gouache is growing on me, it feels so satisfying.
Fun with gouache! While I was painting this, I learned that "scumble"/"scumbling" are words used to describe the action of dry brush painting, so my detective's name is Scumbles.
