It’s the ladies turn to scheme…
Watercolor and Pastel by John McLaren
Art 6 1/2 x 9 1/2
Painted in 2025, “Counterplot” follows a lot of ‘Plots’ beforehand.
Watercolor by John McLaren
Art 9×7 | Matted 14×11
Presented at the Murray Art Guild Monster Draw, September 2019
John says: In a dream there was a woman looking over her shoulder at a man in a rowboat – as though there was a connection between them. This theme is repeated in a number of my paintings, and I will often use it to test various dyads and triad color combinations.
Cindy says: The MINI “Man in a Rowboat” is the first time that I remember a recognized shape as part of one of John’s pigment tests. The painting, “Balance of Color” started them all.
This watercolor sketch was the beginning of “The Man in a Rowboat” painting – a first draft of what John dreamed about. Cindy has a different name for this one, and it’s hiding under the mat.
was inspired by a PAPA Challenge of the same name. These pigment tests started the mini ‘Man in a Rowboat’ series, a silhouette found in several of John’s paintings.
The first sketch for the final painting, this scene doesn’t include a rowboat. Sold 2020 at PAPA Gallery.
Lots of minis between here and there!
The first watercolor sketch that depicts John’s dream (“The Girl on an Island”) is Cindy’s favorite version. She decided she could tell you the title that is hiding under the mat.. It’s “Waiting for John”. In the very first “The Man in a Rowboat” painting, we aren’t sure if she knows he’s there.
And 2023 … Will they meet at last? Maaaybe.
January 2018
January 2020
January 2023
Sold
I don’t know what it is about January, but seems that it must be the time to paint another one.
Watercolor by John McLaren
Art 10×21, 2025
Debut: The McLaren Exhibition, Janice Mason Art Museum, 2025
As Pablo Picasso once said: we are all artists as children, the problem is to remain one as we grow up.
I will keep trying to rediscover that right-brained freedom of my youth that is such a prerequisite to becoming a true artist. In the meantime, I can only hope to stay healthy and busy and now and then produce something that someone enjoys.
– John McLaren, 2021
