Home

Join Us!

About CAAA

Newsletter

Main Gallery

Special Galleries

CAAA Contacts

Links and Resources

 

Join or Renew using

Len Boyd
	Len's passion for art was sparked after seeing a fifteen minute vignette on CBC television showcasing renaissance artists including Leonardo DaVinci. Len produced some water-coloured 'masterpieces' of his own and eagerly sold them to fellow classmates for quarters and dimes as payment. With the encouragement of his teachers and peers he continued his artistic journey until high school graduation. Unable to afford tuition to an art college, Len fine-tuned his self-taught painting skills with oils at first, and then switched over to his medium of choice, acrylics. Since the late 1990's Len's paintings have been given away as gifts, commissioned, donated to charitable events and have been showcased at select galleries, exhibitions and museums in Prince George and in Halifax. Ever since attending his very first airshow in the summer of 1978, Len became fascinated with the aesthetic beauty of military aircraft. His admiration of these magnificent machines later found their way onto his canvases. In the summer of 2011, Len was selected to participate in a provincially sponsored entrepreneurial business development program. Len works out of his home studio/gallery in Hubley, Nova Scotia overlooking scenic Five Island Lake. He lives with his beautiful and tolerant girlfriend Patty along with their three adorable cats: Ty, Sly and Ally.

	John Gillespie Magee 'High Flight' Harvard at Summerside Airshow, PEI by Len Boyd 16 x 20 inches Acrylic on masonite, 2012 Artist's Private Collection
	The First of Many by Len Boyd CC-130 Hercules in humanitarian role during the Haitian earthquake in January 2010 18 x 24 inches Acrylic on masonite, 2012
	October Saviours by Len Boyd At daybreak an RCAF C-115 Buffalo 'SAR' transport dispatched from 442 Squadron, Comox overflies the burning and abandoned 425 foot Dutch cruise ship MV Prinsendam as a lifeboat full of grateful passengers floats nearby; rescue flares fizzle in the waters. In the dark hours of the morning of October 4th 1980, the Dutch cruise ship carrying 525 passengers and crew announced an emergency while 200 km inside the Gulf of Alaska. An engine fire engulfed the vessel in flame and all occupants soon evacuated to lifeboats. A massive joint Canadian/U.S military and Coast Guard rescue effort was well underway by daybreak. All passengers and crew were saved. 18 x 24 inches Acrylic on masonite, 2012 Original for sale: $640.00 plus HST *paper prints available upon request
	A Sitting Nuck by Len Boyd   See below for details   24 x 36 inches, Acrylic on masonite, 2011
It's 5am: suffocating swirls of blinding dust slither their snake-like plumage throughout the scorched valley below. The contrasting colours of pink and blue break their way into the dirty sky of dawn, beckoning the arrival of first light in Afghanistan's new day of May 17, 2011. A lone, twin-rotor Canadian Forces transport chopper sits motionless and abandoned atop an escarpment of earth just off the dried river bed's banks. Nestled tightly within a shroud of snapped trees and brush, the helicopter's rotor blades have been completely sheared away, its forward door and most of its port-hole windows blown free during the impact. Glints of pink light reflect off its greyish metallic surfaces. Pieces of the craft lie imbedded in the sands nearby. Blue nylon rigging straps dangle freely from its twisted rotor housings. The Americans and Canadians had worked feverishly into the small hours hoisting the stricken beast from its side, stripping the machine of its one remaining engine and gathering all salvageable equipment and supplies from within and around its perimeter. The vulnerable troops work in full view of insurgents' eyes. At 5:15am, a second transport chopper is seen swirling a vortex of pinkish brown as it takes off overhead, transferring the shaken and injured to a nearby airfield in Kandahar. Moments later, the duffels and salvaged supplies are piled up near the downed chopper and the blue rigging straps begin to come down in preparation for the impending airlift. At 5:22am, the distinctive sounds of a US Marine Corp. heavy-lift utility Sea Stallion helicopter pierces its way through the brightening skies enroute to the crippled machine. During the late hours of May 16, 2011, deep inside the Panjwaii District in southern Afghanistan, a Royal Canadian Airforce, CH-47 Boeing-Vertol Chinook Transport Helicopter conducting routine operations, experienced landing difficulties upon approach to a dry river bed amid the swirling sands of the moonlit darkness. The transport helicopter carrying 5 crew, 25 soldiers and one Canadian Press reporter slammed into the unforgiving river bed with so much force that it sent the 25 ton machine twisting to its right side, shearing off its rotor blades and rendering it a smoky, fuel-leaking wreck, vulnerable to insurgent attacks as it rested on its side. A virtual sitting duck. Four were injured, one severely... there were no fatalities. ----------------------------------- A fictional setting inspired by actual events... This painting is a fictional depiction inspired by actual events which took place May 17, 2011 in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. The painting I have created illustrates a second Chinook helicopter transferring the injured crew and troops from a downed Chinook Transport to a nearby Kandahar airbase. The downed Chinook Transport in the foreground awaits its airlift from a US Marine 'Sea Stallion' Heavy Lift Chopper (not visible in the painting). In actuality, there was a trio of American CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 461 performing what is known as a 'Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel' or TRAP. The Chinook I added flying in the distance was to showcase the machine's profile from two separate yet distinctive vantage points. My main focus for this scene was to emphasize the inhospitable surroundings facing our fighting troops amidst the unforgiving climate and conditions they were subjected to working in, day in and day out, in their selfless call to duty
	Gray Ghost Corsair by Len Boyd A painting of the Vintage Wings of Canada 'Gray Ghost Corsair' from a photo taken by the artist at the 2012 Atlantic Canada International Airshow in Summerside, PEI. 16 x 20 inches Acrylic on masonite, 2013
	Winter Thunder by Len Boyd Canadian Forces CF-18 Hornet. 18 x 24 inches, Acrylic on masonite, 2013
	Moose Memories by Len Boyd 'Moose Memories...RCAF's 419 Squadron'. My tribute to the RCAF's 'Moose' Squadron depicting the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum's beloved Lancaster illustrating the Bomber Squadron's days of WW II flying alongside a CF-116 Freedom Fighter representing the Tactical Fighter Training Squadron in Canada. 18 x 22 inches, Acrylic on masonite, 2013
	Sea King at Sunset by Len Boyd Sikorsky CH-124 Sea King Four Zero Six of 12 Wing Shearwater Heliport Base, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia charges defiantly over a sinking sun enroute to its next mission somewhere on the globe, into the blackness of night. May 24th, 2013 officially marks the 50th Anniversary of the Royal Canadian Navy's acquisition of the CH-124 Sea King helicopter to its Shearwater fleet. Fifty years of assuring international sovereignty, humanitarian aid and air-to-sea rescue assistance in the making. Airforce Magazine featured my Sea King painting on issue Volume 36 Number 4. 24 x 30 inches, Acrylic on masonite, 2012
	Yellow and Red...A Beacon of Hope by Len Boyd 40cm x 60cm, Acrylics on stretched canvas, 2013
	Mark IV Mustang by Len Boyd 40cm x 50cm, Acrylics on stretched canvas, 2013
	Hawk One... Canada's Golden Wings by Len Boyd 12 x 16 inches, Acrylics on stretched canvas, 2013
	Fire and Ice by Len Boyd Dean Black from the Royal Canadian Air Force Association commissioned me to paint a dramatic rescue scene honouring Trenton's 424 'Tiger' Squadron with a painting of the rescue of a construction crane operator who was trapped above a building fire in Kingston, Ontario on Dec 17, 2013. The framed work is to be presented to the base very soon, but it can be seen now on Airforce Magazine's spring edition cover Volume 37/No.4. It is titled: 'Fire and Ice', All rights reserved RCAFA. 16 x 20 inches, Acrylics on stretched canvas, 2014