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

Cooking With Colour

Cooking With Colour  Oil on Canvas 8 x 8  SOLD

I knew it was going to be an explosion of colour, but I just had to do it!! I bought  these cute little bowls in Mexico and as I have a special love for hand painted pottery from around the world, I had to incorporate these new little beauties into a painting. I've painted and sold still lifes with plates and bowls from Provence, Morocco, Italy, Tunisia, Turkey and Mexico, so other people must also love hand painted pottery too. So here's some more Mexico and this time it's red hot! I hope you like it.

Cooking With Colour

Fifty Shades of Green

Fifty Shades of Green  Oil  16 x 16

This fabulously green cafe sparkling in the Sayulita sunshine was a must to paint! In fact the entire town was complete eye candy!  

 

I took a long time to paint this one. I hadn't painted in oils for quite a while and it was like learning to paint all over again. There was a fair amount of frustration, feelings of desperation and questioning if I had ever even know how to paint to begin with. But I persevered and ended up enjoying the last stages of the painting. 

 

Frequency of painting is so important in our development as artists. A hiatus makes everything that should be second nature seem so incredibly difficult. I'm trying hard to paint a few times a week to get the flow of my skills going again and get into the zen of it - a place I love to be. Do you find that taking time off from painting creates a huge relearning curve for you when you start up again? Tell me it happens to you too. Please!

Fifty Shades of Green

Jazz Art

 Backstage Beebop  30 x 24  Acrylic 

Musical Spaces II 48 x 36  Acrylic 

These two Jazz music inspired paintings are part of my Jazz series called Musical Spaces. It's currently showing at Serious Coffee in Cook St Village, Victoria BC. This is a fabulous coffee shop and meeting place in the heart of this busy neighbourhood. If you're in the area please drop by and enjoy the show and a yummy specialty coffee. The works will be hanging for the month of March.

Jazz Art

Foxy in France

Foxy in France  Acrylic  24 x 30 SOLD

This is a commissioned piece that was fun and challenging to paint. My client wanted something with flowers, the colour pink to work in the room it was intended for, and to include her beautiful black cat Foxy. The cat became the challenge because I put her into a partially imagined scene, and I was concerned about getting her the right size.In the end I think she's the right size, as she's a very long furred, voluptuous cat. Painting an all black cat is a bit tricky as well, but I had fun using the vibrant colours in the scene to create her form through the highlights. Happily my client was very pleased with the outcome.

I'm off to Mexico for a couple of weeks with my sisters the first week and my daughter the second. What could be better than that?! (my husband and son may have some suggestions) LOL I've decided to sketch and do ink and watercolours on my trip as they transport so well, and don't weigh much. Happy painting everyone and I'll talk to you in a few weeks.

Foxy in France

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!

Pineapple

This is a commission I completed recently. My client wanted a full pineapple standing up. I found some tropical fabric in my fabric box which she liked, and she requested a red hibiscus as well. I have to say I struggled with this one because it didn't feel like me at first. I made quite a few changes to the pattern in the fabric, using it more for inspiration, and did a number of grey tone value studies  to work out how to desaturate the background keeping the intensity of colour in the pineapple and flower. I was inspired by the interesting shadow cast by the foliage and I added lots of fun colours to the brown and yellow skin of the fruit. In the end it was all about light, shadow and colour and I enjoyed the process.

 

If you're in Victoria and haven't made it to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria Christmas Small Works show yet, do drop by and have a look. Many of Victoria's favourite artists have pieces in the show and they are all priced from $100 - $150. It's a wonderful opportunity to give the gift of original art to someone special. In fact you're pretty special yourself, why not take a piece home?!

Pineapple

Pear with Plums  Oil  8 x 8  SOLD

Wow! What a hiatus that was! This first post in a looonng time is a painting I did or the Art Gallery of Victoria's Christmas Small Works Show, a fund raiser of the Art Gallery. See the side panel for information on the show. 

As some of you may know, I've been taking time away from both painting as regularly as usual and from social media. I've  been helping and visiting my very elderly parents who live in a different city. That combined with an unprecedented number of requests for commissions, has kept me away from smaller daily paintings. My schedule is allowing me get back to painting my own inspirations and concepts. I've learned a lot from this year about both creating art and life:

• there will always be things in life that  may take you away from painting for a while - but you will always get back to it. Take time to enjoy those precious moments.
• I've discovered that for me, painting is tied more closely to my emotions than I thought. When crises happen my emotions are all used up and I have nothing left for painting. It's as if I don't know how to paint anymore. I have to take the time to be with family and then get back to painting.
• Commissions are a wonderful compliment to your work, and also a guaranteed sale, but for me, I find that that they redirect my energies away from my creative fires and my need to realize my own ideas. At the same time I grew in my art while painting several commissions, by pushing through and finding really positive outcomes. I painted subjects I would not have chosen to paint, but in the end created paintings that were in fact me.

I also realized that I must create in order to feel balance in my life. How that creating looks may be different because of time and travel. It may be drawing instead of painting, or working out  compositional thumbnails or jotting down concepts for series with quick sketches and notes to support the idea. It's still a creative process that moves me ahead in my art for when I'm ready to paint again. 

How do you work difficult times that may take you away from your easel? I'd love to hear your tips if you have some. 

 

TD Art Gallery Paint In - A Grand Success!

This past Saturday was the TD Art Gallery Paint In, the biggest and most fun art show of the year. We couldn't have had a more perfect day weather wise. It was beautiful and sunny but not too hot. If you're from the area, you'll know that we've been experiencing a lot of rain, so it was a great relief to see the sunshine. 

Approximately 35,000 art enthusiasts roamed Moss St., a distance of about 10 blocks, being entertained by artists demonstrating their work, by painting on a community canvas, a mural, print making, trying out claywork, all sorts of wonderful opportunities for the public to experience art.

This is my set up. I also had a demo station on the left, along with a community canvas that could be painted on or if you were a little unsure of brushwork you could use oil pastels.

The Community  Canvas was lots of fun. The youngest person to paint was 2 years old, and the eldest was 90. There were lots of hearts, some rainbows, sunshine, flowers, trees, and lots of gestural strokes.

Here's two sisters sharing the bottom of the canvas. In fact the bottom of the canvas was really well worked. All in all it was a great day. I met many art enthusiasts who were interested in my process, and really wanted to understand how a blank canvas evolves into a complete painting. I was also really enjoyed my friends dropping by to say hi. Thanks everyone!!

TD Art Gallery Paint In - A Grand Success!