Still Life with Pears

Where's the Brie?  8 x 8  Oil  -  Available at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

Hello everyone! Yes, it's been quite a while since I posted. I'm at a very busy time in my life and I'm choosing what I can fit into each day, so unfortunately posting hasn't made the list lately, but let's see how I do over the next while. I have to say I've missed all of you supportive artists out there, and especially seeing what all of you have been producing. There is so much talent and beautiful artwork on your blogs. I especially want to thank Hilda Muxo who has kindly checked in on me more than once, to make sure everything was okay and to say she missed me. How special is that when we've never formally met?!

This small painting is one of three juried into the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria's Summer Small Works Show. There are over 80 local artists showing in all genre's and styles. It's always a wonderful show well supported by the art lovers of  Victoria.

My husband just retired, and to celebrate we are going on a two month trip including Hong Kong, Australia and Indonesia. I'm just in the process of trying to decide what to take for creating art while I'm there. Because we're going to be moving around and flying quite a bit, I'm thinking ink and watercolour in a sketch pad. I haven't done ink and watercolour in hmmm.....more than 30 years!! But that medium used to be one of my favourite means of artistic expression, so I think I'll try it out.

Still Life with Pears

Ba-da-Bing!   Acrylic   10 x 10   $225

If you live in Victoria or are visiting this upcoming weekend, come on down to the TD Art Gallery Paint-In! This Saturday July 19, from 11am - 4:30 pm, 180 artists will be bringing their studios to Moss St., between Fort St and Dallas Rd. An expected 35,000 art enthusiasts will be turning up again this year to take in art in all it's forms! I will be near Fort St. and the Art Gallery. Don't miss the biggest art event of the year! Drop by and say hi, I'd love to see you!

This fun little painting is hot, hot, hot with summer colours!

Radishes - Still Life

A Bunch of Hotties II   Oil  8 x 8   SOLD

This is a commission that I recently completed. My client loves vibrant saturated colours so I placed the radishes on a green striped cloth to make the colours pop. The cloth added that sunny summer feeling and she was very pleased with the feel and the vibrancy of her painting. Which was a relief, because commissions can be a bit stressful, even when they are small... :-)

Radishes - Still Life

Red Pears and Hazel Nuts

Red Pears and Hazel Nuts    8 x 8   Oil   SOLD

This is a small still life I completed a while back, and because I had trouble photographing it, I hadn't posted it yet. The colour of the pears came out much brighter and more saturated than in the painting and when I tried to colour correct, it changed the other areas of the painting too dramatically. In any case, the painting in real life was appreciated by someone who attended my recent Studio Tour and it's gone off to a new home. :-)

Red Pears and Hazel Nuts

Mexican Still Life

More Fiesta    Oil    8 x 8   $175

I just can't stop stacking these colourful little Mexican bowls.  This is another of my small works Mexcian series, which will be showing at my studio in the Oak Bay Artists' Spring Studio Tour this upcoming weekend. If you're in the area do drop by I'd love to see you! For the tour brochure click here.

Mexican Still Life

Mexican Still Life

Aguacate   8 x 8   Oil    $175

These hand painted Mexican tiles that I picked up at a garage sale, were perfect as a background to the beautiful colour and shape of the avocado, or aguacate in Spanish, so my son tells me. Avocados are a favourite in my family so they turn up in my small paintings fairly often. And of course it went perfectly with the Mexican theme that I'm on. 

Mexican Still Life

Fiesta - Mexican Still Life

Fiesta   Oil  8 x 8   $175

Hi everyone! I've been focusing on trying to paint regularly, and therefore, I painted but didn't post! So now I'm going to do a bit of catch up. I've been on a Mexican bender! I love my little brightly coloured Mexican bowls and when they are stacked I like them best. My girlfriend loaned me a beautiful piece of hand embroidered fabric from Guatemala, and the combination was just too exciting! A few tomatoes and a Mexican green background brought it all together. This one painted itself! 

Fiesta - Mexican Still Life

Ottavio's Olives

Ottavio's Olives  Acrylic  10 x 10  $295

Ottavio's Italian Bakery and Deli is one of Oak Bay's favourite shops and coffee shops. You just can't go there and not go home with a bag of delicious gourmet items and a fine crusty baguette! One day I dropped into Ottavio's and when my eyes lit on these multi-coloured olives I knew I simply had to paint them! 

Ottavio's Olives

More Cooking with Colour

More Cooking with Colour  Oil  SOLD

These little Mexican themed still life paintings have been very popular, so I'm hoping to get a few more done in the next little while. This is the most recent Mexican piece that I've completed. I love the vibrant colours and patterns, and I guess that's what draws people to them.

I was very busy over the summer, going to Vancouver to visit my elderly parents. Unfortunately, at the end of the summer, my dad became very ill and passed away at the age of 90. He lived a very full and happy life and was a devoted family man, who adored his wife, children and grandchildren. We all miss him very much. He was always so pleased with my paintings and enjoyed seeing everything new that I'd completed. Now as I slowly start getting back into painting, I'll be thinking of him and his beautiful smile and I'll try to put some of that goodness into my work.

More Cooking with Colour

Cooking with Colour II

Cooking with Colour II  Oil  8 x 8 SOLD

Here's another colourful still life using my new little Mexican bowls from my recent trip. I think I still have some value adjustments to do on the left side of the pepper.

Cooking with Colour II

Chinatown Victoria BC

Shanghai City  12 x 12  Oil  SOLD

 

 

This is an image from our small but very vibrant Chinatown. It has a rich and fascinating history, and Dales Gallery which I have shown in, is just across the street. There are many rich colours on this street, but red is a standout, so I did a red underpainting and left patches of the red showing through.

Chinatown Victoria BC

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!

Eastern Elegance  Oil on Linen  11 x 14

I so enjoyed painting this one! I have a great fondness for the complimentary combination of orange and blue, and also the warm yellows through reds, so I managed to put all my favourite colour combinations into one painting. I also experimented with the background, as I wanted it to be dark but not black, so I created a grey green as the compliment to the red, and placed a diffused light band running through it. I'm a bit of a pattern fanatic as well, so I really enjoyed painting the Asian table runner. I think I have a few more persimmon paintings in the works before retiring that fruit until next year. 

I'm using the rest of the holiday season to work on my new website. Once I have it launched I'll let you all know, and I'd love you to visit and let me know what you think. In the meantime, I wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

Silk and Persimmons

Silk and Persimmons  Oil on Linen  11 x 14

This was an experiment with a high horizon line, playing with the rich colours and folds of the silk fabric. I really enjoyed painting the persimmons as well. All the warm nuances and shadows. I'm not sure if I'm completely finished on this one. I may add some glazes in the fabric.

Silk and Persimmons

Bowl of Mandarines

Bowl of Mandarins  Oil on Linen  8 x 8  NFS

I finished this little painting yesterday, and it wasn't until I posted it, that I realized I don't like the dark background. It's too harsh  and cold, with the warm soft colours of the foreground. So I will go back into it and make some changes to the background, and then repost once I've made those changes. I think maybe a subdued wallpaper, or kitchen tiles. Any ideas for the changes?

Bowl of Mandarines

Red Reflected

Red Reflected  Oil on Linen  8 x 10  $300

This one was challenging but a lot of fun. I wanted to create some drama with the lighting, emphasizing the red of the pomegranate, as well as practice painting reflections. I had to really stick to 'paint what you see' because the reflections were not what I expected, in terms of value and colour intensity in some areas. All in all I'm pretty pleased with results.

Red Reflected

Avocado

Avocado  Oil on Linen  6 x 6  NFS

I'M BACK! ! ! I've been very busy for months, and have had the hardest time trying to paint regularly. Then I started painting again and had to keep scraping everything off, or sending the piece to my painting graveyard. Yes, I have one of those. I've never painted an avocado before, and it was kind of fun. I placed it on an old Canada Dry pop crate I have to make it bit more funky. I'm looking forward to reconnecting with my old blogging friends and make some new ones!

I've been busy researching for a new website provider. I need an automated site but one that provides exposure as well.The ones I'm considering are FASO, FolioSnap and Foliotwist. If you have an suggestions or comments or have had a great experience with a website provider, please let me know.

Avocado

Pomegranate Again

This is an updated version of the pomegranate painting I posted early this week. It had a lighter, warmer background, and when I saw it online I thought it looked it too subtle, and posed the question whether I should I darken the background. My blogging buddy Virginia Floyd suggested that it would make a more dramatic painting, so here is the changed version. I'm pleased with outcome. Thanks Virginia!

Pomegranate Again