Ron Morrison

There are times when you are drawn short and take a deep breath when you see a painting. There is something about it that gobsmacks you. This is one such painting by Courtenay artist, Ron Morrison.
Lets begin with the sky - a wet on wet waterfall of colour that flows down the painting to the reflective metal roof of the building.
In some ways the roof is a continuation of the sky, a tin slide for the light to flow down onto the collection of old vehicles.

Look at Ron's play with shapes and movement. See the flow of white in the lower sky above the building. It leads to the back half of the building. Now, slide down the roof and see how the assembly of cars opens like an inverted V. Talk about design!

The picture is vibrates with activity. The tree branches spike into the sky, the foreground suggestion of grass dances with a variety of improbable colours. Then there are the unpainted sparkles which surround the work and that surprising flow of red in the upper right.

Where does it end? Ron's creative sparkle and vitality has carved him a unique and important place in the Canadian watercolour scene.

To see more of Ron's dramatic watercolours please click here.

Ron Morrison on Vertical Painting in Watercolour

Once Upon a Time

Ron Morrisson of Courtenay, BC changed his method of painting. Like most watercolourists, Ron painted his works on a flat sheet. Ron recently wrote

"I started painting this way after watching Castagnet. I found the transition relatively easy after all these years of flatitude. I have also started using very big brushes. Z'bukvic is always talking about following the "bead", the bottom of the wash as it moves down the paper.The combination produces greater transparency. I found that I lost some of my "effects" as the paint waves down the paper, such as granulation and some texturing but overall I liked the process. What the whole program does is force you to deal with keeping your hands off the paper, paint with the tip of the brush to get your finework done and paint fast. You have to actually paint without support or aid (I suppose you could use a stick thing) and occassionally mop up as the paint runs down the paper."

When we take a good look at Ron's 'Once Upon a Time' above, it may not be readily apparent for many viewers that we are seeing a vertically painted picture.

Let's take a good look at this work. How can it be? What is happening to my perceptions when I look at this work? When I look at this painting it seems to me that Ron has not just bridged the chasm between technique and finished product but this work looks like technique itself. It looks like a frozen cameo taken from an developing scene. Quick now, where did I put the phone number for the national Gallery of Canada?

I've been critiquing Ron's work now for about 3 years, and I've got to be upfront now, its important when you look at this work to realize that Ron's change in technique, is taking Ron out onto a limb. His works are different. They have always been confined by flow and backflow, blossoms, and dramatic interplays of values and colour. But, as Ron says above, the vertical technique comes without some of his perfected 'effects'.

The flow in this work entreats my imagination to think that I am looking at this scene, through a rain streaked window. I am gobsmacked to think that someone can actually duplicate such an image.

It also presents quite an unintentional comparison with Milton Zsabo's preceding work. There are differences and there are similarities.

Ron's palette is restricted and his subject is limited to a few basic elements: trees, sky, house and foreground car. Ron's liberated immpressionism encourages the viewer's freedom of imaginative inreading. Look at the sky for instance. Do we see clouds and light or do we see clouds, light and mountain shapes? Look at the foreground on the bottom left...does it suggest to you chaotic littering? Ron has always been a master of such technique.

Sometimes in art its not what you see, but what you think you see. Sometimes its not the picture but the mood created by the picture. Can the artist use his/her skill to fasciliate inner vision and imagination? Can the impressionist, help you see the inefferable mystery of that which is within a subject? I would argue that its infinitely harder to be an impressionist than to be a small brush, controlled literalist. And Ron demonstrates his willingness to step out onto an artistic limb and to change his style. I respect his artistic voyeurism and adventurous spirit.

To visit Ron's website please click here.

Video's of Alvaro Castagnet painting in the vertical style can be found on You Tube.

Ruination by Ron Morrison, of Courtenay, BC

Thanks go out to Ron Morrisson for sending the FA blog his most recent work. Ron continues to delight and surprise viewers with his mastery of colour and light as a watercolourist.

Ron begins by hanging a canopy of blue sky and trees at the top of his work,almost as a theatrical backdrop for the drama that unfolds on the stage below it.

Note how the blue sky, blends into the peaked silver roof of the larger of the two buildings. The slope of the roof is like a ski run, where the eye slides down and leaps high in the air and descends upon the drama below.

The peaked roof of the building to the left, has an almost liquid sense of light and this is enhanced by the shadowy black forest that surrounds it. There are also reflected highlights which sweep like a spiderweb along the left side.

Ron's work, like this one, appears spontaneous and right hemisphere driven. And Ron is the first to admit that he makes decisions as he works. But that isn't to say that what you see is what you get. This work is the result of careful examination, and several reworks.

I like the way Ron connects the elements of his works. Slide down the building to the lower roof. You find a waterblossom, then a streak of light and then what looks like a pair of crossed 2x4's. And the lower part of this opens into the part of the picture where the action is.

At first glance it looks like a jumble of old cars. Right? Well, look again. The X at the bottom of the peak, takes the eye to the top row of the centre car. Look now at the bottom row and you will find the centre car facing it and sharing some of the same colouring.

Its all part of a wonderfully designed and orchestrated work. Right hemisphere work? Maybe. But there is also a lot of order and control going on.

Ron does things with colour that sets him apart from the watercolour community. Ron's signature is his advanced use of strong contrasting values, advanced understanding of colour, and his effective picture construction skills.

Capturing the Magic - Ron Morrisson

This is Ron Morrisson at his best. Ron's paintings sparkle with vitality and energy and colour. But, there are many who believe that Ron takes them up a notch when he includes his homebrew stories to go with them.




I.M.Beaton

All righty then, this may take some 'splainin', so bear with me...My grandmother was a Rosicrusian who would tell anybody who would listen that, "when she went, she wanted her ashes spread in her garden." As a precocious child I figured I could untangle this riddle. A Rosicrucian must be some kinda gardener specializing in roses. But where was she going and what did "ashes" have to do with anything? If I'm a nut case its partly her fault, I'm pretty sure. Her husband was a newspaper editor for the old Vancouver Times and an amateur painter. He checked out the week I was born. All through my childhood I looked at two muddy oil paintings that hung above the chesterfield in Granny's livingroom.


My brothers used to ask our dad to draw stuff to illustrate the stories he would cook up for us kids. He couldn't draw worth a lick but he gave it a shot. My brothers were always impressed, but I would look at the drawings and shake my head, the ol' man would grin and that was that. When I would draw something he would show his poker buddies and generally advertise the productions of his oldest kid. Well he packed it in too, leaving the whole outfit shy of male influence. As luck would have it, my grandmother had a brother. In retrospect my great uncle was prolly a full blown loon, that no responsible parent now would let a kid anywhere near. But times were different and I was shipped off to see visit the iconoclastic recluse (that may be redundant, but you get the idea) for weeks at a time during the summer. I would be about ten and his shack was in the interior and it was hot and magical and I learned a lot of stuff that I maybe shouldn't have.
I called him, "Gunk"..a contraction of great uncle. Thing is, the ol boy was sort of a patron of the arts and a polymath and encouraged me to draw and paint. He was an incurable contrarian and encouraged me to question everything as a matter of principle. He had (wait for it, you can see it coming) wrecked cars and junk and told me what they were and how they got to his yard. I loved the idea of the junkers and the designs, colours and history...I was hooked.Gunk sent me supplies, books and encouragement until he joined the rest of the crowd up above (I hope). He lived to see my first big junkyard painting and was over the moon about the whole production, somebody else saw what he saw...beautiful junk.
Gunk's real name was Ian Marshall Beaton. An appropriate name for a natural "bad attituder" who didn't see any real future for mankind, yet whose bright light shone on his grand nephew (or whatever I was).

Please click here to visit Ron's website

Watercolourist Profile: Ron Morrison, Courteney BC

Whatever else, Ron Morrison will surprise you. He's a dynamic Canadian Watercolourist from Canada's west coast. Ron is a self admitted motorcyclist with a passion for art. He is self taught, and admits to having began dabbling in watercolours after he left school and he has never looked back since. When you check Ron's profile on his website, you discover that Ron likes shaking the boat.

And shake it he does! For one thing, Ron love painting old cars and boats. His portfolio is rich with paintings of junked cars and beached boats. This is Ron's primary interest, and as he has often said, he paints them a lot, because there is something in them which captures his personal quest for growth. And, when you peel back the "I like that colour," critiquing and delve into how it all flows together - colour dynamics, subject arrangement, visual flow, and atmosphere you can see what Ron means. And, I never cease but to be amazed how Ron can redefine the same subject, over and over - like a golfer perfecting his swing in that constant search for perfection.

Intriquingly there are parallels which can be drawn between the works of the earlier BC iconic painter, Emily Carr, and Ron. Emily explored decaying Haida villages where the people had vanished and their totem poles and buildings are leaning and falling into decay as the forest embraces and reclaims them. But for Ron, its his search for the nostalgic, haunting, primitive, reclaimative beauty in old discarded boats, cars and trucks, which blurs with a sense of loss and nostalgia.

I sense an empathy in Ron, for his crumbling old vehicles. And, I find myself wondering if it isn't all part of a grand metaphor on the human condition and Ron isn't making a statement that beauty triumphs over all.

What captures my attention is how Ron uses his art to create atmosphere. The car in this posting has dignity and pride as it sit alone in the field. It sparkles with light and it is the stuff of poetry.

Ron searches for what remains after the beautiful old family car which has been lovingly waxed by caring hands, and then experienced social rejection. If you look carefully behind the broken windows you see a teasing play of light and shadows and you sense the presence of a world of sprites.

Ron is a master extraordinaire in understanding what colours to use to create the atmosphere he seeks, be it a phosphorous, moonlit sky or the brilliance of an afternoon sun - and then, he takes this light and explores how it effects colour on metal and paint.

I suspect that Ron finds conventional landscapes and florals boring and too restrictive. There is not enough room for him to explore the breadth of his paintbox and to include the kind of detail he searches for and the fineness of expression he seeks.

The amazing thing about Ron's works is that he plots his course as he goes along. There is no preplanning, and there are no values sketches. What you see is what you get. Its the magic of his spontaneous touch. Its the ulimate of right brain painting.

Ron Morrison has carved for himself a unique place in the community of Canadian art and he is an artist to be reckoned with.

http://watercolourproductions.blogspot.com/