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WORKS ON PAPER

Overview of All the Drawings
in a Dozen Introductions

Works on Paper undertaken as, and finished as artworks in their own right are shown in series pages just like the oil paintings on panel are. As usual, the meaning of the term series as applied to these works is arbitrary and fluid just as is the art-making process it seeks to corral. Thus, there are at this point only two pages showing the early pen and ink drawings but these will be further differentiated as drawings in various collections are cataloged. Also the two Black Sumi Inkworks series, small ones (small, smaller and very small), and the extra large ones (which are really huge) are introduced together but given two separate pages. Six different series of Ink Works from the years 1982 to 1987 are grouped together below and on their own overview page. And there is one other such series from 1994.

The last few sections of this overview of works on paper are about sketches. Two of them are about distinct series. And we finish with an overview of miscellaneous drawings of very miscellaneous sorts that are discussed in appropriately miscellaneous locations around the web site, many in the miscellaneous section.

   

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1959-61
Pen and Ink

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1964-68
Pen and Ink

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1979-80
oil paint

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1980
mixed media

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1980-83
sumi ink

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1980-81
gouaches

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1980-87
ink works

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1994
ink works

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1982
Charcoals

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1985-86
Templates

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1987
collage

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sketches
etc

These thumbnails link down this page.
Direct links to Series Pages are at the top.

Working on paper was, for Bloore, always much more improvisational than panel painting. Rather than simply paint on canvas in a certain manner, he chose to work on paper or on panel in two very different manners. Works on paper were approached with complete seriousness of intent but usually without preconception: the imagery was developed on the fly. New techniques were experimented with but always with the utmost of care and attention to developing facility. In the later works speed was the key to bringing out surprises, but gesture was never permitted because it would imply expression.


   

Early Pen and Ink Drawings

Drawings 1959 to '61

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To Drawings '59 to '61

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1961, undated , 51x66cm, ink on paper, estate collection

   

Drawings 1964 to '68

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To Drawings '64 to '68

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1964 Sept. 7, 13x20" 33x51cm, ink on paper, estate collection

There was no distinct settling of style, after Egypt, in the drawings like there was in the paintings. New ideas generated new series at about the same rate as before. Nevertheless the Pen and Ink works of the two time periods have been separated so as to take their place on the Before '64 and '64 to '74 Period Overview Pages with the contemporary paintings. There seems to be no drawings dated from 1968 to 1976.

Drawings '59 to '64 and Drawings '64 to '68


   

Sackville Paper Works, 1978-79

To the Sackville Drawings '78-79 Series Page

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Oil Paint on Paper

In May and June of 1978 Bloore taught a summer course at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. While it was not a vacation from teaching, it would at least be a pleasant holiday from Toronto.

Click to see Larger

Sackville Sketch, May 29 1978 (53rd birthday), 46x61cm, pencil, ink, oil on paper

As in holidays of the past Bloore expected to draw and sketch in his idle hours on heavy watercolour paper. But there was a new angle on this pursuit this time. In May 1976, deep into his more than 74 work Byzantine Lights Series, Bloore had done some oil painting on blocked watercolour paper with both brush and knife with positive results, two examples of which hung in the Bloore / Lochhead show of 2021.

In New Brunswick Bloore approached these blocks as requiring composition; some arrangement of completely amorphous forms in completely ambiguous space. He regarded this at first as simply an intellectual exercise, a technical problem that had been solved by others many times before.

To the Sackville Drawings '78-79 Series Page


   

Mixed Media on Paper Works 1980

To the Mixed Media Series and Show Page

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Pencil, Pen, Brushed Ink, Oil and Gouache

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March 2, 1980, 56x76cm, ink, gouache and oil on paper

To the Mixed Media Series and Show Page


   

Sumi Ink Works, 1980-83

To the Small Sumi Works page
Or the
Extra Large Sumi Works age

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“There and Not There”
Experiments with Composition

Black Snow Huge Sumi

1980, July 1st (804100701) 40x60" 101x151cm, sumi ink on paper

To the Small Sumi Works page
Or the Extra Large Sumi Works age


   

Gouache Works, 1980 and 1981

To the Gouaches series page

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Architectural Tapes, Templates
and unmodulated colour

Extra Large Ink Work

1985 June 7th (851090607) 29x41" 78x105cm, gouache on paper

To the Gouaches series page


   

The Ink Works of 1980-87

To the Ink Works Overview Page

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Architectural Tapes, Black European Inks
and Water: Watercolours in Ink

“The ink drawings are totally different. I haven't made any of those for the last four or five years. They are a total reversal of the paintings, which are carefully calculated. I go into the studio, I stretch or hold down a piece of Arches or Fabriano paper on a board with masking tape and pick up a roll of stuff known as geo-tape. Architects use it. It comes anywhere from a sixty-fourth to a quarter inch in width. It’s quite flexible so you can pick it up, hold it down at one end and go whoosh in a great arc and you've got that piece of geo-tape stuck down there and that gives you a line. I would do this as rapidly as possible, without any preconceived image at all in my mind. I would not know how it was going to turn out. I could even put the first few down with my eyes shut just to make sure. The tape is put down as fast as possible.

Extra Large Ink Work

1985 June 7th (851090607) 29x41" 78x105cm, ink on paper

“I then have about four or five different black inks. These are European inks; the fifth one is a sumi ink, Chinese or Japanese, it doesn’t make much difference, which is pure black. The European, and I'm not certain about the North American, black inks are made out of two colours, blue and orange. The blue immediately sinks into the paper. The orange is a little slower; it tends to sit on top. So, OK. The “black” inks therefore are not black. They are a combination of those two colours. They vary in mixture with each company. Some, if treated properly will give me a peculiar sort of greenish tinge. If I'm lucky I'll get it after about three or four coats of ink. Another one will give me a purplish colour with sparkle on it, absolutely marvellous. If you blot properly, maybe put the stuff onto wet paper, float it on, and then blot quickly, you get all the orange off and you've got this great, marvellous blue.

“There is a whole range of hues I can get out of this, sort of like using white paints that are not really white at all. But the joy of the times when I was doing those ink jobs was the fact that I could put in diagonal lines. I could play around. I mean some of them look like landscapes, for Christ’s sake. Some of them have little sparkly stars up there and that sort of stuff. I did a lot of those ink jobs, right up the size of forty by sixty inches. Now, those that were that size were done on a slightly more calculated basis than the smaller ones.”

- Excerpt from the Eugene Knapik Interview for Work Seen

To the Ink Works Overview Page


   

The Ink Works of 1994

To the 1994 Ink Works Series Page

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Tapes and Inks, One More Time

Here Comes the Brown Ground

Large Ink Work

1994 May 7th (942150507) 22x29" 57x77cm, ink on paper

To the 1994 Ink Works Series Page


   

1982
Charcoal Concept Drawings

To the Charcoal Sketches page

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Investigating Geometric Motifs

Charcoal Sketch

1982 September (CSS82-06) 24x18" 61x46cm, charcoal on paper

To the Charcoal Sketches page


   

1985-86
Stencilled Concept
Ink Works

To the Stencilled Concepts page

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Investigating Monumental Motifs

Stencil Ink Sketch

1986 March 26th (860326) 24x18" 61x46cm, ink on paper

To the Stencilled Concepts page


   

Collages, 1987

To the Collages Series Page

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Breaking the Surface

Collages

1987 Feb. 5th (873050205) 29x22" 78x56cm, ink on paper on paper

To the Collages Series Page


   

Sketches and Doodles

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These thumbs go to their various pages

Conceptions, Ideations, Improvisations

Sketches and unstructured explorations on paper are mostly presented among the Miscellaneous pages. Also, there is an article there about Painted Working Drawings and another about regular Working Drawings, the sketches done as designs for paintings. Photographs of working drawings, when we have them, will be included in the Catalog entries of the artworks they relate to. In the case of the tapestries experiment of 1976, the only image we have at this point is a photo of an oil sketch working drawing which hung in the Carleton show of 2008.

Large Ink Work

1978 Feb. 18th, 14x20" 36x51cm, pencil on paper
The Ronald L. Bloore Archives, University of Regina

To the Examining One Page page→
Or the Sunday Sketches page→
Or the Byzantine Lights Sketches page→
Or the Working Drawings page→
Or the Working Oil Drawings page→


Works on Paper
overview page

← black works / TOP / sploores →

WORKS PERIOD PAGES

Before ’64 Early Days
1964 to ’74 White on White
1975 to ’87 Back to Toronto
1987 to ’99 Synthesis
2000 to ’07 Anti-synthesis

MODE OVERVIEWS

Works on Paper
Small Maquettes
Black Works
Works With Colour
Sploore Sculptures

MISCELLANEOUS

Sunday Sketches
1975-76 Sketches
Working Drawings
Oil Working Drawings
SERIES PAGES

’54 TO ’64
pre-’58 abstracts
58-59 enamels
59-60 relief
60-61 signs
61-62 mandalas
62-63 white lines
60-63 others
59-63 drawings

’64 TO ’74
64-66 after Egypt
67-68 murals
67-70 after Regina
70-74 after Cape Dorset
67-74 maquettes
64-68 drawings
70-72 sploores
SERIES PAGES

’75 TO ’87
75-76 byzantine lights
77-80 Sackvilles
79-83 stick relief
83-84 chasubles
80-84 stick chasubles
85-86 assemblages

78-79 Sackvilles on paper
1980 mixed media on paper
80-83 sumi ink on paper
80-81 gouaches on paper
1982 chasuble sketches
85-86 template drawings
1987 paper collages

80-83 small inkworks
80-81 large inkworks
80-83 very large inkworks
80-81 extra large inkworks
SERIES PAGES

’87 TO ’99
87-88 the X's
88-90 grand diptyches
91-93 squares continue
93-94 4-by-4's continue
1994 inkworks on paper
94-97 white white gold
97-98 brushed lines
98-99 News Series I

2000 TO ’07
2000 New Series II
01-02 move to Spadina
2003 back on the horse
2004 late series begin
04-05 back to the square
05-06 an old man's style
06-07 the Yellow Series
2007 the Last Series
TOP