Pomegranates Reflected

Pomegranate Reflected  Oil  11 x 14  $400

Seasons Greetings one and all!! I hope you've all enjoyed a special holiday season with loved ones and friends. I want to wish each and every one of you the very best for the New Year. May 2013 be your best year yet, filled with good health and happiness, good friends and family, and  beautiful paintings and prosperity.

 

I haven't done a reflective painting in a while and decided to put the pomegranates on glass, to add a bit more compositional interest. I love painting all the rich red nuances of the interior of these luscious fruits.  I tried a few different background fabrics and finally settled on this grey green to compliment the reds.

Pomegranates Reflected

Art for an Oil Free Coast

Pomegranate and Cranberries

I love the form and colour of pomegranates. They are a bit like pears, in that you really want to paint their shape and colour nuances. I teamed this one up with some glossy little cranberries, and of course my favourite antique wooden box. 

 

 

This past week in Victoria BC, we were privileged to have the "Art for an Oil Free Coast" exhibit, showing at the Victoria Conference Center. Over fifty British Columbia artists including Robert Bateman, Robert Davidson, Roy Henry Vickers, Mike Svob, Janice Robertson and many more, "have created paintings, prints, carvings and sculptures reflecting their experience of this vast wilderness and the beauty of the Great Bear Rainforest and Haida Gwaii. These artists hope to bring attention to the magnificence and ecological diversity of this coast."  It was so incredible to see beautiful and powerful works by all of these artists in one exhibit. Above is the cover of the book that has been published to compliment the exhibit. It is available through Amazon.ca The artworks are blended with poetry and essays to portray the splendor of the region.

If it is built, the Enbridge pipeline will cross pristine British Columbia from the Alberta tar sands, to Kitimat on the west coast, crossing over 700 fresh waterways, (sources of fresh drinking water, spawning grounds for our salmon, and sacred First Nations Lands) arriving on our coast where huge quantities of bitumen will be held in giant tanks on the waters edge. Then supertankers would load up and have to navigate through narrow and dangerous channels, bound for China.  Our entire coast is on the San Andreas Fault Line. Recently there was a 7.8 earthquake in Haida Gwaii just 150 km east of Kitimat. 

The 'Art for an Oil Free Coast' project is organized by the "Raincoast Conservation Foundation, comprised of a team of conservationists and scientists empowered by their research to protect the lands, waters and wildlife of Canada's Raincoast. They regard coastal British Columbia's majestic diversity of plants and animals as assets to nurture rather than resources to exploit." I wholeheartedly agree.

 

(excerpts from "Art for an Oil Free Coast CANADA'S RAINCOAST AT RISK)

 

 

Art for an Oil Free Coast

Quince and Crabapples - SOLD

 

When I saw these quince with the leaves still attached and these vibrant crabapples, I snatched them up quick, because they were asking to be painted! I really enjoyed painting the colour nuances in the shadows of the quince. 

The farm shop I bought these at has a petting zoo attached to it, and the chickens and rooster decided that they liked it better inside the shop. As shoppers were wheeling their carts around and others were at bistro tables enjoying a coffee and baked goods, the chickens were pecking  around between their feet, and every now and then the rooster would cock-a-doodle-do. We had so much fun there! Our cashier told us that sometimes a chicken hops up on a shelf behind the cash desk and lays and egg. That's definitely fresh off the shelf!