The Demo that Became a Painting
Early in the year 2017, I was approached by the Don Valley Art Club to be the guest speaker for their regular Friday night member's meeting. I was requested to fill an hour and a half of airtime, with a discussion about my techniques followed by a live demonstration.
Now for me, filling an hour an a half with aimless blather is a no-brainer when it comes to griping about politics, or generally pontificating about how shit the world is. Conducting a class is a different kettle of fish, and I wanted to make sure the group had a good experience for having entrusted me with their weekly meeting.
I thought long and hard about what it was that I could offer them. Having spent a decade painting snowy winter nights, I've developed certain functional skills for depicting lights, snow, mist, steam, reflections, and all the various atmospheric elements that make up such scenes. And so I decided to title my talk "Smoke and Mirrors: Special Effects Painting".
I acquired a couple of canvases to use for my demo. I wanted to be able to get down to the 'good' parts of the lesson as quickly as possible, and since special effects like mist and reflections tend to come later on in a painting, I prepped the canvases with some preliminary images.
Some of those preps included a fireplace needing flames, a car bumper looking to be 'chromed', and various glass elements like a glass orb and a window.
But I also prepped one that was an overall scene. In it, I tried to include as many opportunities for visual effects that I would typically employ in my work. So I set up a snowy winter night scenario where I could reflect the scene down onto a wet street. There was also a lamp post through whose light I could portray twinkling snowflakes. And it also had my usual lonely walking man, positioned ideally under the lamp to allow for dramatic shadows and a strong rim light glancing off of his fedora.
Armed with my prepped canvases, I headed off to the DVAC meeting at their Eglinton Avenue clubhouse. I'm happy to report that everything went very well, at least from my perspective, as I was never at a loss for something to show and the evening flew by.
I went through the first few demos in short order, and then I started to work on the larger piece. As I added more details and started to fill it in, I began to think I might actually have something on my hands with this one, a thought I openly mused about to the amusement of the crowd.
When I left the meeting with my now more realized painting, I resolved that I would finish it.
The first thing I did was put in the town in the distance across the square, and changed the statue from a steed-mounted swordsman to a First World War infantryman, a figure found in many small towns.
And in the interest of 'story' (ever a watchword for me), I decided to add a female companion on the arm of my lonely fedora-clad man. The nature of their relationship is up to each viewer's own interpretation.
And finally, I felt the piece had room to accommodate a car. I thought long and hard about what kind of car...something of the late 40's or early 50's I thought would best suit the scene. I have painted a lot of cars in my day, and nothing was connecting...until it dawned on me that the perfect vehicle to be out late at night in a small town would be a cop car. It would also add a bit more intrigue to scene overall, and deepen the mystery around my couple. And so the online search for a vintage cop car was on.
There was no shortage of cool looking cop cars that popped up during the search, but this one in particular, a 1950 Pontiac with the classic 'cherry' on top, got the pole position.
The fact that a cop car was so prominent in the scene also inspired the title of the piece. And so it was that "The Night Patrol" completed its journey from rough doodle for a demo, to full blown 24" x 36" painting.
The Night Patrol did not stay in my possession for long. It was bought by my brother-in-law Jim and later in 2018 gifted to his brother, Paul. A perfect ending for the little demo that could.
If you would like a print of "The Night Patrol", here is the link:
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