I’m back, after a long break working on a side project… still on my Hockey’s Masked Men Tour… but testing out some different styles of painting. At the moment I’m trying to test my hand at doing landscapes – inspired by the Group of Seven. They are not meant to look like Group of Seven paintings – but they have a lot of influence within them.

Here is a painting of Parkers Ridge (Alberta), my favourite place I’ve ever seen in my life.

PARKERS RIDGE: Oil painting, landscape. Inspired by the Group of Seven.

After much labour, I’ve finally completed my most recent painting of New York Rangers goaltender John Davidson, called: “Intimidation”.

INTIMIDAtion (John Davidson)

Firstly, a reminder that my “Hockey’s Masked Men” Period Two Tour is beginning this Friday with the Sarnia Sting at the RBC Centre (7:00pm). For more information about the tour – check out the my Tours, Exhibitions, and Media Page at the top of my site. I also have a show this Saturday, also in Sarnia, at the Lambton Ford’s Men’s Night Out event.

NEW PAINTING: SOAPY (Doug Soetaert) features a representation of his Winnipeg Jets era mask. Interestingly enough, this is the same mask and design he used with the New York Rangers – only swapping out the logo’s of the two teams, keeping the designs and colours as well. This mask was recently repainted to feature the NY features once more, and so my painting depicts a mask that no longer exists!

3′ X 3′ Oil on Panel, by Michael Slotwinski. Hockey’s Masked Men

Well, I must say that I’m quite proud of my latest painting. Took longer than I hoped – but it was well worth it.

Here is a second version painting of Tony Esposito, which I was asked to do on commission. It was a real treat trying to work out how this mask would look three dimensionally… as most photographs of him wearing it ‘pre-cage’ are washed out of colour and depth with a lack of real information to afford me with for study. After completing the mask I found a real challenge with the jersey – which is surprising. Normally I paint them with an afterthought compared to the mask, but I really wanted to get this one looking just right. I also added slight details no one would ever notice, such as barely visible shading where stiches should be on the edge of crests and other materials… and reflective lighting on the outside and inside of cracks and holes. The eyes were also tough to get right, so I took a different approach by putting in less information than I had hoped for, and instead am trying to use an effect in which the viewer is forced to fill in the missing information with their own imagination… without knowing it <– had they not read this.

Anyways, next up, Doug Soetaert in his Winnipeg mask.

HAWK EYE (Tony Esposito): 3′ X 3′ Oil on Wood Panel by Michael Slotwinski

I actually finished this last week and posted it all over except for on my actual site! How funny is that? Anyways, here is my latest Hockey’s Masked Men painting: BRUTE (Andy Moog). He has got to have one of the most successful cage-faced mask with a painting on top. Many new designs give off a warped impression due to the weird landscape designs of modern masks… whereas his helmet was a good flat rounded surface (think that comment through) instead of having lumps protruding from the forehead and temples as most masks do nowadays.

Hockey’s Masked Men oil painting

Here is this weeks new oil painting: “VINTAGE”, of Jacques Plante’s first mask… the first mask ever worn during an official NHL hockey game. Some may be turned off by the blood, but it is no addition – rather, I looked at stock photo’s to put him back into the mask on the first day it was worn… which was highly documented. Jacques Plante had been wearing this mask during practices, but after taking a 45-minute break to fix up his face due to being hit by a puck – he gave his coach an ultimatum to allow him to wear his practice mask during a game.

Prior to this, it was frowned upon. Goalies were supposed to be fearless to stand in front of pucks in the net… but once it was determined that he could win more games by wearing the mask other goalies soon followed and it became the norm.

The mask has deteriorated in time, and I chose to paint it with representations of how it looked on the day he first wore it in a game. It already had some wear and tear from practices it seems – and was bloodied already from his prior-to-wearing injury. Gauze was wrapped around the chin, which already had some tape/wrap tied around the area which I assume was to help ease pressure on his chin. But in all photographs you can see how his bloodied nose had dripped down his chin, pooling here and dripping onto his jersey.

I think it’s important to have the blood. It reinforces the purpose of the masks.

Hockey’s Masked Men, Michael Slotwinski, Oil Painting on Wood Panel