Odd title you may think but rather apt for the first picture – not surprisingly called “The Office” this is an impressionist piece of art work in the manner of and with hints of both Cezanne and Van Gogh.
Province House - Offices
Painted as seen in the dark interior with heavy curtain drapes and the sunlight, such as it was, streaming in through the window in the background gives a certain olde worlde mid 1800′s look to the picture. Which is of course when this particular building was in it’s hey day and at the centre of a nations’ birth. Indeed Province House continues to make history as it still houses the Legislative Assembly for the Province of Prince Edward Island.
So where are we……….? – Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Canada – in Province House itself in the present day in one of the main historical offices still laid out as it was in when Canada was more or less conceived in 1864.
The building today looks pretty much as designed and sits amongst wide 100′ wide streets from the river with the 80′ wide cross streets which gives the town lots of space ( I wish they’d do it where I live! ) and is just one of the many features of this interesting town. With their heritage being of prime importance most new building works have to conform to certain rules and certainly many of the other buildings are quaint and colourful.
This is such a street – rebuilt actually as part of the “Great George” Hotel – old on the outside, but very modern inside.
Charlottetown street scene - impression
Used an impressionistic approach to this image which was first taken from a colour photograph, the picture simplified with much of the photo detail removed. Decided to leave in the photo perspective and slight barrel distortion as it looked better with these in place. Added a canvas background, then merged with brush tools on to a basic black & white sketch outline of the image to bring in the original converted colour scheme. A second image was also created with another set of paint instructions but far more aggressive including some nice expressionist distorted imagery – then merged both together to create the result you see here.
Sounds much simpler than it actually was believe me, but the result is more or less what I was aiming for, so I’m pleased.
Not meant to be a travel diary of course but just happens to be of an interesting and for me, far off place – and I like Canada – so there!
You’ll note that the two pictures are completely different in style, which is of course the beauty of Art in general – the variety is quite astonishing.
But to round of this posting and for you nature wildlife people out there – here is a guy we just stumbled upon and so intent was he on his Pine cone he only spotted me once I’d snapped his picture.
Well what can you say – the Canadian Confederation meeting and the birth of Nations seems a long way away from this fella – leave him alone and he’ll do just fine.
Till next time.
