GRAPES WITH BENEFITS

GRAPES WITH BENEFITS
12"  x 12" Gallery Wrap Canvas
Sea Dean and Daniel Dearborn
(sorry about the shine at top right)

This painting is on show in the annual Intergenerational Exhibition - Art Through the Ages. The Exhibition opens on Wednesday at Lake Country Art Gallery, Lake Country, B.C. Canada, my local stomping ground. This is the third time I've taken part in the Intergenerational and each year I stretch myself out of my comfort zone and collaborate with someone from another generation. This year is no exception.

The basis for Grapes with Benefits was a painting of grapes spontaneously gifted to me by Daniel Dearborn, a local artist who I much admire. I tried to find somewhere to hang the painting in my home, but as this is a location where clients often come shopping for a new art work, I couldn't find anywhere to put it. It was of course not for sale and not by me. I spoke to Daniel about this predicament and asked if I could make some additions and enter it into "Art Through the Ages". Cheeky, I know, but he agreed as long as I took his signature off the piece, which I have done. I thought it only fair that I should leave my signature off as well.

It should be pretty clear where Daniel left off and I began. His work is all the nice impressionist, flowy grapes and leaves; my bit is the wine glass. I hardly touched Daniels work and managed to slip the glass into a space between some impasto grapes. It was a huge challenge to match the colours Daniel had used and integrate the glass into the scene. It's easy to think that glass is transparent and if you add a few bits of white as reflections you're done. The glass actually took me two days to get right. My biggest mistake was making it lighter to depict shine, when actually I needed to darken most areas. Then I needed to add colour to the white wine, which is more golden than water.

I don't think I will embarrass Daniel too much and I will be quite proud to see it hanging in the exhibition.