Valencia

Valencia  Oil  16 x 16 SOLD

This is the last of my new paintings to be featured in the Oak Bay Artists Spring Studio Tour, this weekend, April 20 & 21, 12:00 - 4:30pm. I loved this piece of fabric with it's strong design, and decided to combine it with the complimentary colour of the oranges. Things started well, but part way through I was questioning my choice of fabric with all those stripes, folds, shadows and highlights. Yikes! But I just slowly worked through it and bit by bit it came together. I kept a little mantra in my head, from my blogging friend Lorraine Shirkas, "Paint outside the lines", which actually made the fabric come together  much more easily. Although it looks very exact in the photo I did paint outside the lines! I'm pleased with the outcome of this one and the European flavour it has. 

I have some Jazz pieces in the LOOK Victoria 2013 Show, on now through the month of April at the Bay Center in downtown Victoria. There are a few hundred local artists participating in this show, put on by the Community Arts Council of Greater Victoria. It's a non-juried show, and one where first time exhibitors can have their art hanging next to well known artists. It's a show with a wonderful sense of community and mentoring amongst artists, and it's such an important show to give newly emerging artists a supportive venue in which to enter the world of shows. If you are in the area the show is on the 3rd floor of the mall and is taking up two store fronts so give yourself some time to enjoy all the wonderful work on display. 

Valencia

 Lemons and Lace  Oil  16 x 16 SOLD

This is the largest oil painting I've ever done. I'm still learning how to paint with oils and the larger the canvas the more intimidating it seems. I was very systematic with blocking in the entire painting and slowly building the layers and in the end I though "Well that wasn't so scarey after all". It's funny how we psych ourselves out isn't it? The vase and pedestal plate are two new finds from a local consignment store. I absolutely love them, so I'm sure they will show up in many more paintings. 

This is a very high tone painting for me. I usually go for more colour saturation and I frame all my paintings in black front loading floater frames. This one called for a silver frame and because it was on a deep canvas the selection was limited and very expensive, forcing the price of the painting up. So I did something else I've never done before and this was REALLY scarey. I took it off the deep stretchers and restretched  it onto narrow stretchers thereby increasing my selection of framing. I just lined the stretcher bars up along the creases that were alreadyin the canvas from the deep stretchers. I put one staple in the center of each side, working to opposite sides, and then worked my way out to the corners, putting in one or two staples on each side before switching to the opposite side.  The corners were already creased in the folds, so they came together very smoothly.   I do a lot of fabric stretching in my work and have done reupholstery but this was very nerve wracking and I had to do it when no one else was home so I could give it my full attention. I was thrilled it went smoothly without any horrible moments. The custom frame is going to be ready this Saturday and I can hardly wait to see how it looks framed.

This painting will be featured in the upcoming Oak Bay Artists' Spring Studio Tour on April 20 & 21. If you're in the area feel free to drop by and bring your friends! For a tour brochure, click here, the tour map link is at the bottom of the page. The link is compliments of Elizabeth Anderson who helped me with the link address. I was having trouble with links on my last post because I was using the permalinks in the side bar instead of the link on the top menu and I couldn't get it to work. Thanks Elizabeth!

Guacamole  Oil  8 x 8  SOLD

Here's the last of the recent Mexican themed paintings. I had a lot of fun doing them because I love colour and pattern. I have a lot of images from my trip that are still beckoning me but I've switched over to some larger pieces as I'm preparing for the upcoming Oak Bay Artists' Spring Studio Tour. I'll post those over the next couple of weeks. If you're in Victoria mark you calendar for the Studio Tour on Saturday and Sunday, April 20 and 21 from 12:00 - 4:30 pm. The tour brochure is available at recreation.oakbay.ca on the events page. (I couldn't seem to get the link to take, do you something about that?)

This is only the second avocado painting I've ever done. The first was a Christmas gift for my daughter who's favourite food is the avocado.