According to Webster, “blithe” means “gay, joyful, cheerful ... see ‘Happy’.”
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That pretty much sums up Blythe. Here, she is a sweet four year old with
wispy blond hair that is almost white. She’s at a time in her life when just
standing in the ocean is enough to thrill. The bright colours of her swimsuit
distort in the glassy water and catch my eye. It’s mid-afternoon in the
summer heat. We are at the Pender Islands Beaumont Marine Park,
camping with friends on Canada Day.
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The concept behind this painting is the simplicity of Blythe and her
adventure – just standing in the cold water, reflecting on this new world.
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In this piece, I experimented extensively with texture and colour in the
“ground” – the base colour that I apply to the canvas at the start of each
of my works. I chose to allow quite a bit of the ground to peek through
the foreground here and there. It helps unify the painting.
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This particular ground is special in two ways. It has metallic silver and gold
powder worked into a base layer of tissue paper and gesso. (And I paid
for this use of metallic powder! There is still a fine metallic dust around
my studio, months later.) There is also a photograph of my daughter
Charlotte within the gesso layer of the ground. Perhaps that’s why I
chose to have more of the ground showing through on this painting.
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Mark Heine