Matti Paints - Subject Erin

So Erin's portrait is a bit of a happy coincidence. She was in the neighbourhood as I was painting ANGELA and JORDAN, strangely enough over with LIBBY and CASSIE since we all live in the same area,  and just decided to hit me up to see what I was doing. When I offered her the chance to be a part of the project she jumped at the opportunity. Literally. Look how enthused she looks in her before picture.

Look Matti. Look how enthused I am.

Erin, if you haven't guess already, is another friend from North Bay. She is the SOLE reason I passed history of drama my second year at Nipissing. She is also one of the smartest people I know.
Seriously. Her mind is so sharp it could cut someone. In fact it has cut me several times. She is someone I owe much to, and I don't even think she realizes the incredible impact she has had on my life.
Seriously. This girl is the reason I passed my second year of university.
This is not the first time I've got to artistically work with Erin. A couple years ago she was involved in my production of Love*Fool where she played the ever frantic and unnerved Peter Quince. Strange enough I have a hunch her character choices might have been based on me a bit...
(Me? Frantic? Never! Anyway...)
I was super happy with her colour choices EVEN THOUGH they were WAY outside my comfort zone. Red, purple, tan, brown and silver. After about three lines with Erin she told me she expected me to have difficulty with them.
Thanks Erin. Thanks a lot for that.
but in the end I really liked the direction it ended up. I find lately I've been getting a lot of earthy colours. Perhaps it is the season but it really is turning into a theme lately.
The painting session was relaxing and enjoyable, despite the fact that Angela and Jordan were hanging around when we were painting. There was a bit of a time constraint but I really didn't feel any pressure while we were painting. We were just hanging out. And I just happened to be painting her.
That's normal right?
In the end, I found a picture that I felt truly captured the spirited, amazing person that Erin is. I love it.
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Matti Paints - Subjects Heather and Nate

The next canvas came as an incredible surprise to me, but one I was incredibly thankful for.
I was six when I first moved to North Bay in balmy summer of 1993 and the first boy my age I met was Nate. He liked dinosaurs. I liked dinosaurs. A friendship was born.

Pictured: Friendship

Nate was my best friend for many years. We went to school together, we hung out together. There were good times. There were bad times. But the world kept turning regardless and we both grew up. We went to different high schools and because of this our friendship after grade 8 almost evaporated. We didn't really keep contact with each other and we began to run in different circles. As a result we became the people we are today (as is so often the case). But because of this, I always felt that there was some kind of unfinished business that we never really got to get any kind of closure on. Sometimes a friendship just stagnates and after a while you just sort of... forget about it.

This was our fourth attempt at a picture.

Meeting Nathan and his sister Heather at the bar was a great opportunity for me, not just to add to my canvas collection, but to reconnect with them. These were the people I grew up with after all!
Heather has certainly changed a lot since I last saw her. She's quite ambitious and she's planning a rather amazing project that I think you all should check out HERE!

The painting process started in a similar way to the others. They each picked out their songs and colours and then we got down to work. Funny enough they each chose "Strange Days" by Matthew Good Band, which is an AMAZING song of course, but I can't help but wonder if they were commenting on something... Perhaps the strangeness of the coincidence that we were all in town. Perhaps it was just life in general. Whatever it was, it was pretty great.

The first time I sat in front of Nathan and began to paint I felt a well of emotion which hadn't happened before. Nathan is for all intents and purposes my oldest friend, and as a result the process was almost surreal. There were moments I felt that no time had passed, and there were moments where it seems like several eternities ago. The feeling of painting Heather was equally strange and surreal. Here was someone I grew up with but at this point I no almost nothing about her. Now, I feel like I've at least got to begin to reestablish a connection with these two who I was once so close with.

Now something that they might not realize right away, and perhaps I shouldn't mention it, but for the first time the picture we chose together as a group is not the picture I'm going with for the collection. I actually went and changed the picture to the second choice because it really shows off who they are. It shows their relationship to each other in a unique way, and it has a sense of fun that wasn't present in the other one. Does this make me a bad artist? Probably. But no one can argue the fantastic results!

I am currently looking for new canvases! To be a part of this project, click HERE to contact me. 

Matti Paints - Subject Brea and Mandy

I'm pairing up the next two for one very good reason. They were awesome.
That's not the total reason but I swear they go together.
When I went to North Bay, once I finished on Caity, I walked over to visit my friend Cayla at the Kennedy gallery, which is one of the main galleries in North Bay. While there I met Alex who suggested that I do a live showing of the art for people to walk by and see.
So like any other insane artist I said of course.
BIG THANK YOU to Brea and Mandy for doing this for me. It's scary for people, especially beautiful girls, to take their clothes off in public. But they seemed ok with it, so that's the important thing. In a weird way this experience was my first time showing off my art to the entire public. Mind you it was a busy time of day in North Bay so "the public" ended up being about three or four very confused elderly people, but they seemed to enjoy it.
That being said, I've managed to create some of my best art so far!
To start with, we had Brea as our lovely voluntold. She almost willingly let me paint her, which is great progress!
I kid. She was awesome.
We'd never met before but she seemed to enjoy my paintings right off the bat so that was great news! 
Some interesting things happened with Brea. First off she was right at home in top 40 which we all know I tend to listen to. But when I started painting I began with a dark base, literally begining the painting by painting her black. Not my typical standard thing to do but it paid off! I don't think I'd do it again because the black ended up fading everything slightly, but in the end the paintings did great things!

Brea

 Mandy and I have a long history so I was super happy to paint her as my second canvas. While Brea ended up taking on a cat-like theme Mandy ended up with more of a bird-like theme. Her colouring lended more towards bird-dom so I went with it.
In the end we had a great time. Mandy is hilarious and I love her dearly. We had a great time catching up on old times and talking about old teachers. We used to be neighbours... and come to think of it she still has my Firefly and my copy of Dark Cloud 2...
Mandy! I thought we were friends!

I'm very happy with both of these canvases. I think it's a bit funny how my line work tended to dominate my canvases in North Bay which is something I found in Caity, as well as my future canvases you haven't seen yet. I'm not sure if that's a subconscious geographical thing or just my mind being crazy, but either way it's nice to see how they're coming out.
Both of my canvases were gorgeous volunteers and I greatly enjoyed the experience of painting you! 

Matti Paints - Subject Caity

To say my trip to North Bay was a bit of a roller coaster would be a major under exaggeration.
I arrived on the bus to good weather. My sleep was good. Did a lot of writing. It was starting well.
I'd long made it clear that I intended to carry over my project not just to the city of Toronto but since I began I realized it would most likely spill over into every where I go form now on.
So I made an announcement on book-face and ended up with a varied collection of girls who wanted to be a part of it, so I wasted now time and began the next morning.
The adventure began with Caity.

 

 Thanks to Caity I managed to have many shows in North Bay. She served as my loyal stage manager and I eagerly await the day she moves to Toronto so that I know that I'll have someone who knows how to keep me on track and handle the chaos that inevitably comes through in these situations. 

Painting her was a nice experience. There's a lot of love between us and I feel like it came out right from the beginning. She chose a very soft palate which I think elevated the piece in a nice way and complimented who I know her to be. Soft with an edge.

Also noted that our musical tastes are fairly similar.

so apparently this was the colour of her childhood bedroom walls.

 As I began to paint her I began to get a sense of play out of her. I wanted to show her playful attitude sides and really compliment how she is as a person. I put down a base fairly quickly and ended up working with a lot of details. Certain features I really wanted to pop so I added things like the Van Gogh inspired lines, and the pseudo tribal patterns on her arms and face.

This was my first time doing this in somewhere other than my living room. Fortunately the process proved to be just as easy to do elsewhere which was a relief.  The result is the picture ends up being quite different as well, but it worked on a rather exceptional level. I like to think that I got to capture how much Caity has been an impact and a treasure in my life.

Matti Paints - Subjects Libby and Cassie

Libby and Cassie are a pair of friends from North Bay that I had the privilege of growing up with.

Cassie is and always will be the most ridiculously photogenic person I know, and Libby and I hung out almost every day through our high school experience. (Banner! What? it's a newspaper thing... anyway)
The process this time was fairly simple.
Painting two people proves to be a challenge in the most obvious way because of time. There is SO MUCH work to do in such a small amount of time that duets almost always end up being less refined than full body counter parts.
That being said, I was able to do some very interesting things on Libby and Cass. I really love how Libby ended up almost Picasso-esque, especially with the black outline around what looks like fingers along the neck. Cass on the other hand looks much more impish, and the green blotch on her chest reminded me of a quill so I tried to paint her as a creator.

Can you guess who chose what song?

It has to be said that Cass is the first person who had some difficultly finding a selection of songs. I just don't have that much heavy stuff. Always fun. 
So this is my interpretation of my friends  - enjoy!