Homeward Bound

ABOUT: This series was titled after the Simon & Garfunkel song Homeward Bound, where the artist hopes to evoke the chorus line "I wish I was homeward bound". These fully hand made art pieces on wood are for those who wish to celebrate Canada and our little pockets of glory and beauty from across this land, coast to coast - helping you feel a sense of being homeward bound yourself.

Backgrounds made of Canadian maps are layered with colourful lines to showcase flashes of locations and landmarks shining through, meant to symbolizing the journey from point A to point B - whether that's a journey home or onto the next stunning view and experience. The core imagery on top include various images of people exploring various natural beauty and cultural experiences within Alberta (where the artist is from), and more broadly, Canada. Whether it's hiking to the peaks of our beautiful mountain tops, exploring the flowing rivers, standing among the mile high evergreens, exploring the plains and grasslands, celebrating our farmlands, or partaking in cowboy culture at the Calgary Stampede.

These pieces are for the Canada enthusiast, who, like our identity, seeks art that is clear and powerful but not boisterous, proudly meaningful and symbolic without being flashy or exuberant, and shows diversity via a cross-representation of our land and natural beauty but not attention seeking or distracting. When you are here, you are always home.

MEDIUM: Mixed Media on Wood (maps, gesso, acrylic paint, oil pastel, digit drawings on vellum, art pen, pencil, finished with resin)

HOW IT'S MADE: The artist starts by fully making wood boards to host the art. Thrifted maps of Canada are collaged on to the wood boards, then layered with wisps of white gesso and colourful oil pastel, scratched and sanded out to maintain glimpses of the maps underneath.

On top, digital drawings drawn by the artist on Krita are printed, and transferred onto vellum with additional hand drawn details and features added in with art pen, then with the artist's unique transparency mix is used to make the graphics translucent and continue to allow the background to occasionally shine through.

Once adhered and set, varnish seals the piece, followed by 2-3 high shine UV resin coats to seal the piece forever. This shiny finish is contrasted by the fully custom made solid wood Canadian Fir frame, included with this art piece, which has been hand cut to size by the artist and finished with a soft pecan semi-gloss stain and finish.