What are you doing this Sunday?
Want to learn how to mat and frame your own art?
Then consider taking a workshop with me at the Art School of Peterborough. More details, as well as everything else that's been going on, below...
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Watercolours by Dwayne
Offering the following products and services:
Original paintings
Signed GICLEE prints
Custom framing
Gift Certificates and eGift Cards
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Join me on Saturday February 29th at the Peterborough Public Library for the 5th Annual Artspace Book + Zine Fest (from 10 to 5). I'll be there promoting my books and signing copies.
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"The event will feature artist-made zines, comics and graphic novels, letterpress prints and cards, the work of small presses, woodcuts, screen prints, handmade books and other types of book and paper arts."
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Speaking of upcoming shows...
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I'm still in the process of confirming my roster of art shows and studio tours for 2020 (look for it next newsletter), but I have updated the portfolio that I send in along with some of the applications and so thought I'd share it with you...
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Learn how to mat and frame...
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This Sunday, February the 23rd, I'll be leading a workshop at the Art School of Peterborough all about matting, framing, and stretching canvases.
If you're an artist, or if you've always wanted to mat all of the kid art that you've got stored in the basement, then this is the workshop for you! Bring a piece of art and we'll provide all the supplies and know-how to mat it for you!
It's last minute, but there are still openings left. Contact the school today to book your spot!
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Presenting: Canadian Call!
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"Canadian Call"
Watercolour, 18" by 18"
Copyright 2020 by Dwayne James
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This is my third painting in my planned nine-part polyptych (in progress and described in more detail below). I very much enjoyed creating this image if, for no other reason, than it finally gave me an opportunity to paint a loon! I’ve always wanted to paint a loon, but when it comes to paintings of iconic Canadian wildlife, it’s all been done before (several times in fact) and I don’t like to commit to a project unless I can find a way to do it in an original way. Painting a real loon on the face of a beat-up old loonie certainly seemed like a way to do this.
Eagle-eyed viewers will notice that there's a cameo from another famous Canadian coin on the other side of the island just above the bird’s folded wings. I put this here because, from the moment that the loon design was revealed for the Canadian dollar coin back in the late 80s, I've always wondered if the rocky island that appears on both the loonie and the classic silver dollar was the same one. It seemed to me if the tandem Voyageur canoe was on one side of the island while the loon was on the other, you should be able to see them. Here's your chance to petition the Canadian mint to update the loonie's design to fix this egregious error!
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The Canadian Coin Polyptych
In case you’re unaware, a polyptych is a painting with multiple parts or panels. The most common form of this being the “triptych,” a painting with three parts arranged in close proximity on a wall.
My polyptych will include nine paintings (check out the plan included as one of the preview images on this page), eight of which will portray a Canadian coin with the image on its back painted to look like it’s real (are you surprised to learn that the side of the coin without the head of state is the “back” of the coin? Well, you’ve just learned something new today (two things if you didn’t know what a polyptych was (three if you didn’t know you could nest parentheses three sets deep))).
The individual paintings will be tied together by the common barnwood background as well as a large red maple leaf, parts of which will extend into some of the other individual paintings. As such, the only way to see the polyptych in its entirety is to assemble all of the nine parts in the correct configuration. When complete, the concatenated image will measure over 5 feet by 4 feet!
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I've almost got the next painting in the polyptych finished, so I'm not going to post a progress shot of it until it's done. Instead, I'm going to use this space to give you an idea of what I'm going to be playing on next.
This last summer I visited the Roche Percé in the Gaspesie and took a series of pictures with my trusty old bottle on the cobble stone beach and with the iconic rock formation in the background. Here's a rough mock-up of what I'm thinking of in terms of the final painting. I want it to be a tribute to the small fishing boats that have been plying these waters for decades.
Follow my progress by visiting my facebook, twitter or instagram accounts (links below).
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Presenting My New Website!
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Visit my website to watch the ambigram spin...
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It's taken me way too long to get around to it, but I've finally launched a new website! My previous website had a number of limitations and was focused pretty much entirely on my art. Since I've been giving my writing a lot more attention of late, I wanted a site that better balanced the two.
I'm calling the site "WbyDwayne," because the visitor will have two links to choose from on the home page, one for my Watercolours, and the other for my Wordplay.
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The new site has a number of advantages:
- Chat window where visitors can interact with me.
- Dedicated shipping calculations.
- A filtering function
- Site configurations for mobile devices
- The ability to post progress videos on the product page of the painting that they're all about.
Right now, I've just got the basics in place, and I'll be adding some more features and sections over the next few months.
To visit the site yourself, go to www.dwaynerjames.com. To go directly the art component, you can use www.resteddy.com.
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Every week, my son's class appoints a "student of the week," and this week it's his turn. We were asked to compose a poem from his perspective to celebrate him and tell the class more about him. Here's what we submitted:
It is said that those named “Daniel,”
all have the tendency
To question every little thing,
and yes, that’s true of me.
For, I want to be a scientist,
and run experiments.
To use a fancy microscope,
to find rare elements.
To gather rocks and minerals,
and learn astronomy.
And dig trenches in my backyard,
for archaeology.
I have so many questions,
my favourite word is “Why.”
It’s a word I use so often,
that my parents want to cry.
But the thing that keeps me up at night,
besides my brother’s breathing,
Is how do you close the school bus door,
when you’re the last one leaving?
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Watercolour artist Dwayne James lives in the Lakefield area where he has been feverishly living a creatively-driven life for the past decade, that is when his very forgiving family allows.
Dwayne studied archaeology in University which is how he learned to write creatively. “The most important skill I accrued in University,” he says, “was the ability to pretentiously write about myself in the third person.”
With no formal art training, Dwayne has always preferred the self-guided, experimental approach. In fact, he taught himself how to illustrate archaeological artifacts while completing his Master’s degree at Trent University. Said his thesis supervisor at the time: “There might not be much in the way of coherent theoretical content in Dwayne’s thesis, but damn, it looks pretty!”
Dwayne had played with watercolours a little in his life, but it has only been relatively recently when he truly began to experiment and develop his style. An avid paddler and wilderness nut, it’s natural that most of Dwayne’s paintings should reflect this passion.
After spending close to a decade as a technical communicator at IBM, Dwayne opted to look at their January 2009 decision to downsize him as an opportunity to become a stay-at-home Dad for his newborn twins, and pursue his painting and creative writing whenever they allowed him to do so. It is a decision that continues to make him giggle with wild abandon to this very day.
A self-taught painter, Dwayne’s highly-detailed watercolour paintings have been described as “unconventional” yet “absolutely authentic.”
Fascinated by both texture and dimension, Dwayne channels nature to create personalised images that are not easily captured with conventional photography.
Dwayne seizes a moment in his paintings that shifts every time you view them. You may have seen watercolours before but, chances are, you have never seen watercolours like Dwayne’s.
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