Wisdom at the Crossroads, the Podcast.

This week on the podcast we reflect on family road trips and recall the gift of time to be ourselves. We learn creativity is mined from routine actions and chat about some of the painterly traits I commonly use in my painting practice. Sunshine yellow continues in the conversation about composition and inspiration in my work in art.

The meditation begins at 12:44 in this episode. It is available on the recording and I hope you will listen in. .

“SWEET SIXTEEN”, Named after the yellow Head Highway #16. 30” x 30”, acrylic on Canvas
By Amanda Onchulenko

This pair became an unintentional diptych because of their proximity to each other on my painting wall. “YELLOW HEAD” and “SWEET SIXTEEN” are the names given to a regional highway our family travels on when we head west to visit grandparents. “YELLOW HEAD”, Acrylic on Canvas, 24” x 24”, 2013.

My current work in acrylic is focused on the painting process. I start with a general idea, inspired somehow by landscape. The act of painting for me is a tactile and physical process concerned with the feel of liquid acrylic contacting a surface: a panel being more resistant to the action of the brush, while canvas has a little more give, but hopefully not too much.

I am often asked how do I begin? “Do I start at the top and work down for instance?

No. For me right now a piece begins with no visual reference or defined intention. There is no photographic starting point like there once was, so the 100’s of photographs I have taken and continue to take are not engaged on paint days. The painting process instead flows through layers of visual decision making with a focus on the concept of composition. That is the internal structure that invites the viewer on a prescribed journey through a 2 dimensional surface.

When I paint I use only paint. Drawing is done with a thin flippy brush loaded with very watery acrylic paint. The action is reflexive and intuitive. I will sometimes use this technique right at the very beginning to rough in my initial intentions but mostly I reserve “drawing” for when the composition is more advanced and can benefit from a little clarity.

Each mark has a role to play. At the outset a work flows together with large active strokes and gestures that are first concerned with adding colour to a surface and I do aim to cover the entire surface, very often with a large wide brush. This is usually done in a compliment, or colour opposite on the colour wheel to what I think I am intending. Beginning with very basic, yet fluid, divisions of the surface into suggestions of background and foreground. .Way back when I was doing my higher school certificate in Australia my inspirational art teacher impressed on our group her preference for eradicating the white dots of the naked canvas from showing through onto the finished surface. It was the early 80’s and photo realism was getting to the end of its reign. In covering the surface with underpainting, I feel like I am accommodating Diane Epoff’s voice which remains with me even after all these years, and should these compliments show through I am not leaving the surface untended, instead I am planting seeds that just might help the composition to bloom.

As a composition progresses my additions are slower, smaller and more considered as each mark I make contributes more significantly to the composition… less really does become more.

Though not discussed in this week’s podcast I wanted to remind readers that this painting,“FIESTA”, 24’ x 60”, Acrylic on Panel, is my donation to The OSEREDOK ART AUCTION and Fundraising initiative in support of the Canada-Ukraine Fund.
**!00% of proceeds from this painting will directly help displaced Ukrainians.**
**Please contact Osederok’s Fundraising officer for more information katie@oseredok.ca or call 204 942 0218**

Some of the things I do with regularity that give my work its signature vibe include: washing my brush with regularity, some might say compulsively? This keeps the colour clear. In art school I double majored in painting and printmaking and though printing inks proved too toxic for my system, I did retain the printmakers’ tendency to think in one colour at a time. This practice helps to prevent me from blending colours down to neutrals. I use a single colour on multiple areas of a surface to encourage both movement and balance and I add compliments together to create darks without the use of blacks.

These strategies all contribute to the vibrancy of colour that you see and feel in real life with my work, it may be less obvious in reproduction and since we are on a podcast, well it can be whatever you want it to be. Lol I just hope you aren’t disappointed when you see the actual images on my blog. You know how when you read a book that later becomes a movie and the lead character you imagine as Jaimie Fraser from outlander turns into Ronald MacDonald? I want you to use your imagination here but I am hopeful my images in real life don’t disappoint.

I often paint in series and can have multiple pieces on the go at any given time. Sometimes these are defined groups like a triptych with 3 panels or a diptych with 2. These groups also mean I can paint a large piece that I can still fit into my car. These formal groups are always worked on as a team. Sometimes two pieces will be neighbours on my painting wall, like the two pieces we will talk about a bit later. Multi panelled pieces offer the additional challenge of having to be compositionally sound as individual paintings, as adjacent pairs and if there is a third player, as a triptych.

Composition is one of my primary concerns. It is the structure that drives the viewer’s visual path around a surface. For me it is what informs the direction any painting takes regardless of subject. Compositional challenges have been known to turn a painting literally upside down on my painting wall. An altered perspective can be the key action that helps me to solve the visual puzzle. Really when it all boils down painting is a visual problem to be solved and each artist uses their chosen tools in their preferred way to do that.

Some days I might be frustrated with how a particular work is progressing. Most likely I have overpainted and lost some of the spontaneity that existed in the underpainting by trying too hard to clean things up and control the action. Why do we do that? I ask myself not infrequently. I might even be sulking because I have turned something fresh and fabulous into something , well, a little lacking.

At that point my energy is better spent refocusing on another piece. By having more than one ball in the air I get to continue in the flow of painting until I feel finished for the day on my terms instead of feeling defeated by a block or a perceived misstep. In life as in art it’s good to remember everything happens for a reason and our journey evolves.

I always want to end the day on a high note. That way when I come back with fresh eyes on my next studio day, having allowed a composition to rest or marinate, the painting will generally lead me back to a resolution and i will be enthusiastic about making my next steps.

The unintentional diptych, “Sweet Sixteen” and “Yellowhead” are a sunny pair of paintings that combine aspects of several seasons in only a few major colours. “Yellowhead“ on the right bares some reference to the spring gouges left to tell the story of the farmer’s eagerness. These marks also help to section off the foreground and draw the viewer into the composition on convergent lines that delineate a pink triangle just off centre to the right. A soft rosy pink triangle forms between the 2 edges of these receding lines that might reiterate the idea of fertility in the rich dark earth of central Canada. Clear sunny yellows suggest the abundance of grain ripened at the heart of the prairies. Colourful quadrants are sectioned off by the loose marks that sweep suggestively across both canvases.

The middle ground recedes with the aid of vibrant slashes of azure and cobalt blue that also continues through both compositions. In each piece a lone cloud formed in my wispy under painted marks that began as a subtle sketch in watery blue. Sometimes a little happenstance leads the evolution of the subject like in this case where my watery initial marks combined to suggest an open palm in profile. In “Yellowhead”, if you are familiar with the Rider Waite Tarot, think aces of cups or pentacles and the potential of harvest and another seasonal cycle bearing fruit. In “Sweet Sixteen” on the left a Cloud formation on the far left puts me in mind of a cheeky character ready to forcefully exhale the captured air in his overstuffed cheeks.

The atmospheric upper third of both panels revert again to bright sunshiny cadmium yellow with creamy variations that balance the composition and read as sky. This pair of cousins though originally not intended as a diptych, hold together compositionally by means of a few shared lines that extend from one composition to the other. Sometimes that’s all we need to bring two individual composition together to become more than the simple combination of their parts. Painted in 2013 not long after we purchased our cottage, when one teenage daughter admired them as a pair it was a simple action to bring them home to take up residence at the lake where wall space was more than plentiful.

The Yellow that dominates this pair is a colour not instinctively embraced by Canadians. At the time I was happy to assume the Australian part of our daughter resonated with this scheme. I resonate with their sunny personalities and personally love waking up to their positivity. Together they have taught me to appreciate the ages and stages of our kids, in all seasons, to observe the seasonal markers of the landscape and in the coldest of seasons to appreciate the radiant light they bring to my space that reminds me of the potential for warmer days ahead.

I hope their sunny disposition resonates with you as it does with me. May they remind you of road trips you have taken or maybe even of roads less travelled that might appear on your bucket list soon?

“Eye on the Sky” 10” x 20” , quilted textile, 2021 though not mentioned in todays podcast episode, it does illustrate another example of the prairie as muse. The yellow colour story also continues in this piece.

Thanks for tuning in to see what “Yellow Head” and “Sweet Sixteen” were all about. I hope you are finding something of your story within mine in listening in to the podcast, our catching up on the images through this blog.

IT’S FREE. If my work or words inspire you please consider sharing the podcast with a friend or writing a review. You can listen to the full episode anywhere you get your podcasts.

This week’s meditation begins at 12:44 in the recording.

I will add the new link below when the episode is live but in case you stop by ahead of that you can feel free to google “wisdom at the crossroads podcast” with amanda Onchulenko, Season 1 Episode 7: “YELLOW HEAD/ SWEET SIXTEEN”

Leave your questions or comments on the website or find me on instagram @mandartcanada. I would love to hear from you

Until next time, stay well,

all best

Amanda

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Apple Trailer - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wisdom-at-the-crossroads-trailer/id1609992256?i=1000551067035