Submitted by billkeast on
This last weekend I sold "Aged Sentinel" at the Ottawa Art Expo. This was a great show with many talented artists displaying a wide variety of work. It's a real compliment to have one of my pieces counted among the many pieces sold.
Submitted by billkeast on
Another of my very favourite paintings has gone to a good home. I know a number of you have heard this story before but bear with me as I tell everybody else. I was born in the last year of the war and my father came home from that war and went to work for Comstock. The company was going around the province changing the motors on refrigerators and washing machines from 25 to 60 cycle. We were constantly on the move. By the time I graduated from high school I had lived in 22 different abodes, Some of them could hardly be called houses.
Submitted by billkeast on
Our very best friends are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this week. What a milestone! We could think of nothing better to give them to commemorate this event than "Golden Iris", a painting they have long admired.
Submitted by billkeast on
There was something about simpler times that would have been very satisfying. The amount of work involved would, however, have been overwhelming to today's labourer, no matter what his field of endeavour.
Submitted by billkeast on
As I have said before, there is something iconic about horses at pasture in this part of the world. "Hillside Farm" is one of my favourite paintings.
Submitted by billkeast on
The Pelham Show was a successful one for me and it was a beautiful weekend. Like all areas of Canada, there is something special about spring. The Niagara Peninsula has an especially fresh feeling to it this time of year.
Submitted by billkeast on
The more of images of the rural Ontario that I knew as a kid that I paint, the more I come to view myself as a Romantic. Often I find myself thinking of the likes of Millet who romanticized images of rural France in the 19th century at a time when European life was changing dramatically as the world entered the Industrial Age. He sought a return to simpler times that appeared to be easier to cope with and that seemed to have stronger personal and societal values.
Submitted by billkeast on
One of the most iconic images of the Ontario countryside is the grazing horse. It's funny how this has come to be. One can only imagine how many of these animals there were in the world before the invention of the gasoline engine. Back then the site of a horse at pasture very probably elicited only thoughts of long days and hard labour. Not much would be nostalgic about that. Today, however, that same horse stands for leisure, contentment and a fairly high standard of living. I also firmly believe that it has become a symbol of a way of life that rejects much of modern living.
Submitted by billkeast on
This painting was a long time in the creation. As with all of my work, there is a process of continual "development". I don't ever start with a completed composition in mind and this one simply seemed to expand and expand. I love the sense of a frieze that the row housing in the background provides and the mere suggestion of different levels of depth that is evident here. You can see the entire painting in "Paintings for Sale" in the Gallery.
