Five to Six, Christmas Eve

In my sketchbook

("Five to Six, Xmas Eve" is now in a private collection)

Let's be honest: we've all left it to the last minute at times... Christmas shopping that is...

This painting is actually a rendition of a pen and ink sketch I did for my Christmas card one year.  In the first two photos, you can see the original sketch in my sketchbook and then the copy I made to reduce down to a Christmas card-sized print.  The cartoon influence is probably seen most strongly in the pen and ink versions rather than in the oil painting. (Those who like to play those "Spot the Difference"  games with two pictures can do this with the pen and ink and the final canvas.)

Copied on white paper for eventual reduction

My idea was to capture the absurdity of Christmas shopping.  We all know it's coming and, while there are exceptional humans who get it all done by the end of August, most of us don't because we don't know what to buy for other people.

Maybe it's time to change Christmas so that everybody goes shopping for themselves, that way we'd all get what we wanted, retail would not suffer from the lack of Christmas shoppers, and it would be far less stressful.  (I'll leave aside the issue of why we don't know what to buy for people we've known for years and years...  maybe we'd be better off spending Christmas examining why we know so little about those closest to us...)

Five to Six, Xmas Eve in oils

This painting will be hung in the Eccentricities 2011 Show, the 26th Annual Juried Exposition of Scarborough Arts.

The exhibit starts March 30 and runs through April 17, 2011, at the Papermill Gallery, at Todmorden Mills, 67 Pottery Rd.  Gallery hours are Wednesday to Friday 12 noon to 4:30 and 12 to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.  The opening reception is March 31 from 6 to 8 p.m.

My work hung in the gallery

Some admirers

Part of the opening night crowd

Pottery Rd. runs between the
Bayview Extension and Broadview
Avenue in Toronto.
There is parking on site.

Copyright Deborah C. Sawyer.

Fat Cats IV: Touchdown?!

One of the things I like about this work is that we will never know the outcome - it will always hang in the balance. Will the player with the ball score a touchdown? Or will he experience a touchdown of another sort?

I've always thought this picture - along with others I've painted - would do well as art in an office lobby... a doctor's or dentist's waiting room...on the walls of a restaurant...or in a private dining room at home where a good conversation piece is needed. This is a painting to amuse people and get them laughing and talking.

FatCatsIV: Touchdown?

I've used a lot of strong primary colors in this work, as I believe the use of color is important in everyday life, especially if people are selecting neutral colors for their furnishings and wall coverings. Of my other Fat Cats series, one is in a private collection and another may be in an upcoming show at a different location.

You can view this work at the Bezpala Brown Gallery in Toronto for two days only, February 26 and 27, 2011. Bezpala Brown's location is 17 Church Street near Front Street East and gallery hours are 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. 416/907-6875. This is a group show so there will be many other artists displaying their work.

Detail: Note the glee on the cats face...

Copyright Deborah C. Sawyer

Rats! (She's Winning)

February 28, 2011: UPDATE! This painting won the "Best Last In: Jury Award" at Bezpala Brown Gallery. This means it will be re-hung in the show in late March 2011 as well as entered in the overall Latest in Art 2011 competition..

In this painting, we're taken into the interior of a bar, Anyplace in Anytown, on a Saturday night. The "usual suspects" are there: the couple on a date... the buddies having a brew or two... the gangster with his moll... friends and strangers having card games...

"Rats! She's Winning"/oil on canvas

It's all there... except the characters are rats, dressed as humans. I'm not sure why I decided to use rats in this painting but it may have been due to research work I was doing at the time, where I was reading a lot of studies which used rats. As you know, rats are used because certain aspects of their physiology and biochemistry are near identical with ours!

Some people look at this painting and see mice... although I've painted scenes with mice (now in a private collection in Canada), these creatures were modeled on the rats in a Visual Dictionary I have. Based on unfortunately close observation of mice (when a few took up residence in my house back in 2009), the tails and ears on mice do not look like those of rats.

Detail: Upper right corner

But, as every picture tells a story, all interpretations are welcome. Some of the details are lost in the photo; for example, the mugs of beer and ale on the bar, shown in the detail below, are actually painted with the faceted glass and reflections on the glass. You can see such attention-to-detail better when you view the real painting. All being well, this canvas will be on show at the Bezpala Brown Gallery in Toronto in late February.

Detail:Lower left corner

Copyright Deborah C. Sawyer

A view of Rats! in the place of honor

All images copyrighted to the artist

Busy Beavers

The painting I'm writing about today, and posting pictures of, is a work I have titled "Busy Beavers", commemorating life at the office and a very chaotic form of office life, at that.

Busy Beavers - Oil on canvas

In this painting, everything is an accident waiting to happen as, at any moment, the beavers will either trip over the telephone cords or bump into each other, sending piles of paper flying!  No-one seems to know what anyone else is doing, there is a lack of direction and all the staff are in reactive mode! But as this is a painting, a moment frozen in time, we will never know for sure if the catastrophe happens or whether it is diffused.

This painting won an Honorable Mention in one of the Fall National Juried Art Exhibitions held at Impact Artists Gallery, in Buffalo, New York.  There were entries from all over the United States, where I was living at the time.

A couple of years later, I donated this to a fundraiser for Studio Arena Theater in Buffalo and it was purchased by the theater's then-Marketing Manager.  I don't know where it is today, but I'm assuming it is still in a private collection.

In the photos, I'm showing the painting in its entirety plus a detail from the upper right corner.  As the painting was already varnished when photos were taken, there is some distortion due to the light reflecting off the varnish.

Busy Beavers - Detail

I think most people can relate to this picture, because who among us hasn't worked, at some point, in an organization that is an accident waiting to happen?


Copyright Deborah C. Sawyer

All images copyrighted to the artist

Lunchtime at the 'Head in the Sand' Diner

Welcome to my blog about my art! Over the years, I've painted a number of canvases - some of which are in private collections - and plan, each time I post, to show you one of my completed canvases and tell you a bit about its creation.

Lunchtime at the Head in the Sand Diner - 36"H x 36"W

The first canvas I've selected is one that will be part of a group show, in late February 2011, at Bezpala Brown Gallery. Although I painted this a few years ago, it has not been shown before in Toronto, Canada.


One of the challenges all artists face is how to capture the colors, details and other attributes of a painting in a photograph. The generally held view is that you cannot - no photo does justice to a painting. Otherwise, why do so many people flock to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, up close and personal?!



What you cannot see in the photo is the myriad details of lunchtime at a diner frequented by ostriches. I've also included a close-up of the right hand corner, for anyone who cannot make it into the gallery in person. For example, it is not possible, in the photo, to see exactly what is written on the outside of the menu , but it is something VERY important - from an ostrich's perspective!

Detail: Upper right

This canvas will be on display on February 26th and January 27th and the gallery is at 17 Church Street, near Front Street East.!

Detail: Lower left

Copyright Deborah C. Sawyer

All images copyrighted to the artist