Still Life in Acrylic - The Sifter

The Sifter   Acrylic  11 x 14  SOLD

Available at the Sidney Fine Art Show

I have a collection of vintage goods along the tops of my cupboards in the kitchen. Some of the items are from my family and some were collected from various places over time. I've been eyeing the sifter for some time and decided one morning to create a still life with it. I remember as a child watching my mother bake and she always used a sifter for the flour. So this is a memory of baking day, way back when. This painting entitled 'The Sifter' is showing this upcoming weekend at, The Sidney Fine Art Show, October 17, 18, and 19, at the Mary Winspear Center, in Sydney BC. This is a regional juried show and an annual arts highlight of Southern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. I'm really happy and honoured to have two pieces in the show. I'll post the second one later this week.

I've been painting mostly in acrylics for the last few months, as I'm teaching a painting class in acrylics. Over the summer I took a workshop with a fantastic artist, Janice Robertson,and learned how to properly use Glazing Fluid. This medium has opened up a whole new world of possibilities in acrylics for me. I glazed the pears and some of the shadows on the tea towel, but most of all I glazed the heck out of the sifter! I love how I was able to create such soft edged reflections in the metal. It's my new favourite medium!

Still Life in Acrylic - The Sifter

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

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!

Still Life with Starfruit

This is a step by step of a commission that I just completed for a client who is collecting a series of these long narrow still life canvases. I had never thought of painting starfruit because it wasn't a fruit I was at all familiar with, however, it has beautiful form and created an interesting shadow along the edge of the bowl. My client requested this particular cloth, which is an Egyptian Prayer Rug, and the plate is Turkish. It made a nice exotic combination.

 

Because the plate had white in it, the cloth was creamy white, and the starfruit was basically white with touches of yellow and green, I had to evolve into how to create a vibrant colourful painting, as my client and I both love colour. So I started with something I know well - grapes.

I started adding colour and pumped up the vibrancy of the star fruit by bringing out the yellow and green.

I decided at this point that the contrast of the shadow shapes in the cloth were far too strong, (I was working from a few photographs as well as some of it from life) so as I changed the colour of the cloth, I also softened the shadow effect.

This photo was taken inside on my easel and the colours appear very cool. I slept on it and decided to soften the contrast slightly and warm up the lights a bit.

Here is the final painting which I shot outdoors in the shade. The colours came out much warmer here. I felt it was a very busy painting with the patterns in the cloth and plate, so for compositional purposes I softened the colours in the fabric above the plate. 

I find commissions very challenging because they are someone else's inspiration rather than your own. In the end, this painting became one of mine, but I had some moments of struggling. I really like the person I was painting this for, and concentrated on created a thing of beauty for this special client. 

When you paint commissions how do become inspired by the content if it's not necessarily something you would choose to paint?

Still Life with Starfruit

Three Persimmons

Three Persimmons  Oil on Linen  8 x 8  SOLD

I've been busy in Vancouver with my parents recently so I haven't had a chance to practice the techniques that I learned in Mike Svob's workshop. However, I've been practicing thumbnails, trying to come up with different designs for the same image, and seeing which one is most dynamic, for a future painting. This sounds elementary and easy, but it's actually quite difficult to rethink a photo considering adding gradations,  simplifying the shapes and creating a pattern of three values - light, midtone and dark. If you can get through this step and feel really good about one or two thumbnail designs, the next step of painting from your thumbnail by matching the values, is really freeing. A bit scarey but freeing! I highly recommend you try it. 

This is a little painting a did a while back. I received this beautiful table runner as a gift. It's made from recycled Sari's. The persimmons added to the exotic theme, but it was really all about painting the beaded and sequined fabric. I love exotic fabrics...

Three Persimmons

More Still Life Step by Step

So where have I been this year? Why am I blogging so infrequently? Well...I’ve been busy with family. My parents are both quite elderly and living in Vancouver, and I’ve been travelling back and forth quite a bit, and will  continue to do so. Add to that my full time Display Design work, my art shows, my own family, the house and garden etc. and something had to give. So blogging has slowed right down, and some months painting has as well. However, I’m fortunate to live close enough to visit my parents to help them out, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. So please accept my infrequent blog posts and please send me a comment when I post, because I love to hear from all of you and appreciate the feedback.

This is another commission piece for one of my collectors. There is a series of these long narrow still life pieces coming together. They are all 24" by 12" on Gallery Wrap canvas with the image wrapping around. I applied some texture to the canvas first with modelling paste to create some energy and movement, and to add another dimension to the painting. Starting with a value study in Transparent Red Iron Oxide, I then built layers of transparent or semi-transparent paint in the fruit. I like to use these transparent colours, because the light can pass through right to the white of the canvas, creating an inner glow in the fruits.. 

The fruit bowl is cobalt blue glass with some rings of texture running around it. I started to build the reflective quality of the glass, and the beaded table center underneath.

Everything but the table cloth is now fully painted.

I completed the table cloth, added depth and colour to the shadows, and added more texture and colours to the beaded table center. Again like in my last post, this was a commission for a strip out of one of my existing original paintings, so I used my previous advise and tried to see the image with fresh eyes, trying not to ask my myself how I painted parts of the image last time. For me that's important in order to enjoy the process and not second guess myself. I have one more painting left to complete in this series of six and this next one features star fruit, something that I've never painted before, so I'm looking forward to that!

More Still Life Step by Step

Still Life Step by Step

This is a commission piece I recently completed. The commission request was to paint a section from another of my originals, capturing the essence of the image, but in a different format. The original was square and this one is long and narrow. I don't know how you feel about painting similar images in different formats, but I find it very challenging. Instead of enjoying the process and problem solving naturally, with spontaneity etc, I find that I keep asking myself, "how did I create that effect last time?" or "how did I mix that colour?" I decided to approach this painting slowly and to fight the urge to ask myself those kinds of questions. To force myself into a fresh approach.

 

 I painted my value study in Transparent Red Iron Oxide. I prefer this colour to Burnt Sienna for example, because it's transparent, and the light passes through it to the white of the canvas. Subsequent layers of other transparent colours such as Napthol Red and Hansa Yellow, again allow the light to pass through the paint to the white of the canvas, creating an inner glow in the peppers. 

 One thing that I found extremely difficult was the rounded edge of the colander. I used a grid to draw the image, capturing the turn of the bowl, and the proportions, instead of sketching loosely in paint and adjusting as I go. But during the painting process I inadvertently  made small adjustments to the edge of the bowl and kept changing the shape and losing the circle. Without the line continuum, I kept reading the shape incorrectly. I had to regrid in some areas twice during the painting process to get the shape back again.

In the end it was a lesson in both patience and persistence, and I was pleased with the outcome. But the biggest lesson on this one, was to see the painting with fresh eyes, and to not go where I'd already been, trying to second guess myself. It allowed me to experiment, improve on the outcome, and most importantly, to find the joy of painting the image a second time, as if it was the first. And that was a well learned lesson for me. How do you handle commissions and requests to paint a similar image in a different format?

Still Life Step by Step

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

A Bunch of Hotties

Oil on Linen 6 x 6 $85 Unframed SOLD
Free shipping Canada and USA

These radishes were so much fun to paint! I was focusing on the light and keeping the brushwork loose. The curly tails added a fun and chaotic aspect. Sorry, there's a bit of glare on the photo, otherwise I'm fairly pleased with this one.

I'm really delighted to tell you that this month I have a Solo Exhibit at the Marina Restaurant in Oak Bay. The Marina is one of the leading restaurants in Victoria, and yes it's right on the water, at the Oak Bay Marina. I have 17 of my most recent paintings hanging throughout the dining spaces. If you're from the area and are enjoying a wonderful gourmet meal at the Marina, please take the time to enjoy my art show as well!

A Bunch of Hotties

LOOK Victoria 2011 Art Show and Sale

 Tutti Frutti  Acrylic on Textured Deep Wrap Canvas  24 x 24  $800

Please contact me to purchase

In The Garden   Acrylic on Textured Deep Wrap Canvas  24 x 24  $800

Please contact me to purchase

Tomorrow and Sunday are the art submission days for LOOK Victoria 2011 Art Show and Sale presented by the Community Arts Council of Greater Victoria.  And these are my submissions for the show. If you live in Victoria the show is located at the Bay Center downtown, on the lower level. The art drop off is 11-4pm both days.  This is a visual art show of 2D and 3D work, and it will be running for an entire month. I'll be volunteering tomorrow for the drop off, so if you come by with your art, be sure to say hi! It's going to be a great show again this year, so I'll have more to post about it in the upcoming days.

LOOK Victoria 2011 Art Show and Sale

Pear Hug

Original Oil on Linen  8 x 8  $95 

Free shipping Canada and US

International orders please contact for shipping quote

Merry Christmas Everyone! I didn't have a Partridge in a Pear Tree so I decided to send a little love and do a Pear Hug. I'm having fun playing with these dark backgrounds, and edges. I liked how the pear on the right was almost completely in shadow. These were extremely red pears, giving it a bit of a Christmas feel. The wooden crate is one of my favorite props. It's a vintage pop crate - "Canada Dry". I'll have to try to get more of it into one of these paintings. Have a wonderful holiday season with your families. Talk to you soon!

Pear Hug

More Christmas Small Works at the AGGV

Sweet n' Spicey  6 x 6  

A-pear-antly Red  6 x 6

I'm happy to report that my two paintings Three's a Crowd and Tempting, that are part of the Christmas Small Works Show at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, posted November 22, have been sold! So I've been invited to submit two more and these are my new submissions. If you are interested in either of these paintings they are both framed and are $125 each and can be purchased through the AGGV 

 Also, after receiving such kind and supportive comments from you on my last post Ford Cove - Hornby Island, I realized I hadn't told the whole story about this painting. I'm sorry this photo is so dark, but it gives you the idea.

This painting was selected for the Vancouver Island Art Calendar 2009, and was the image for the month of December. The calendar was produced by the Rotary Club to raise funds for their humanitarian program - ShelterBox. These ShelterBoxes are sent into areas where natural disasters etc. have displaced people from their homes. These large green plastic boxes contain a 10 person tent, water filter system, a special portable burner that will operate on any fuel - even paraffin, tools, cooking and eating utensils, school supplies - all of the essentials for a family of 10 to survive for at least 6 months. They have been sent to places like Myanmar, China and Haiti.  I was  very proud and honoured to be part of this fund raiser, and managed to sell enough calendars to fund the purchase of one entire ShelterBox.

An amazing thing about the program is that if you purchase a ShelterBox, you can track it online and know when and where it is sent to aid people in need.

More Christmas Small Works at the AGGV

Christmas Small Works Show at the AGGV

 Three's a Crowd - SOLD

Tempting - SOLD

These two paintings are part of the Christmas Small Works Show at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. It opened on Friday and if you haven't made it there yet because of the cold snowy weather, do try to make it there soon as there are many wonderful pieces by over 60 of Victoria's well known artists. To view the information on the show click here.

Thanks to everyone who sent their good wishes for the Oak Bay Art Studio Tour that took place this past weekend. We had icy cold weather with high winds at times, but the snow held until today, which came in the form of a white out! So we were very lucky during the weekend. Although we had smaller crowds than usual, those who did come were serious art viewers, who were very interested in the art, my process and inspiration and they were all a pleasure to welcome into my home. So all in all it was a success! I'm taking a few days off to relax after the weekend, and then I'll be back painting and posting again. Talk to you then!

Christmas Small Works Show at the AGGV

Pomagranites

Original Oil Painting on Linen 8 x 8 Framed - SOLD

Free Shipping CAN and USA International please email for shipping rate

I had a lot of fun with this one. I'm working on more painterly brushstrokes, and was thinking about lost edges as well. I'm quite pleased with the spontaneity of it. The photo has some glare unfortunately. If I manage to get a better shot, I'll repost. I find that the darker the colours with oil paintings, the more difficult it is to photograph. Anyone else have that problem? And if you do, how do you deal with it?

This painting reminds me of living in Toulouse France. We had many exotic (for us) fruit and nut trees in our yard, and one of those was a pomegranate tree. I didn't know what to do with a pomegranate and was told to us them in salads. So here's a great little recipe if you happen to paint a pomegranate and then want to eat it. Baby spinach or mixed greens, lots of pomegranate seeds, walnuts, a bit of crumbled blue cheese or goat cheese, and an olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing. It's really yummy!

Pomagranites

Sidney Fine Art Show 2010

Tutti Frutti  Original Acrylic Painting 
24 x 24  $800 + shipping and handling
Please contact for shipping information

A-peeling  Original Oil Painting 11 x 14 
$650 + shipping and handling
Please contact for shipping information

I am thrilled and honoured to have two paintings, Tutti Frutti and A-peeling accepted into the Sidney Fine Art Show 2010, in Sidney BC. Last evening was the Opening and Awards Ceremony, which I attended, and it was a superb and exciting affair. The calibre of work and variety of disciplines was wonderful. It's truly a beautiful show and if you live in the area, do make a point of dropping by as you won't be disappointed.

If you are not from the area, following is the a description of the show presented by the organizers - The Community Arts Council of the Saanich Penninsula:

After more than a year's preparation, the 2010 Sidney Fine Art Show will open it's doors to the public at 9:00 am on Friday, October 15 at the Mary Winspear Centre in beautiful Sidney by the Sea. Now in its 8th year, the Sidney Fine Art Show has become one of the largest and most anticipated shows in British Columbia and a highlight on the cultural calendar of Vancouver Island.

Sidney Fine Art Show 2010

From the Garden

Original Acrylic Painting  24 x 24  $800 s/h

Please contact me for a shipping quote

This painting was inspired by my time living in the Southwest of France. The people of France live the Zero Mile Diet. They eat locally and seasonally and revel in their amazing regional dishes. 'From the Garden' reminds me of times visiting a relative of my husband, who had a huge vegetable garden and an orchard in the back yard. We literally picked artichokes and peppers as robust as this for dinner. This painting is currently part of the Federation of Canadian Artists Fall Show, at the Community Arts Council Gallery in Victoria BC. If you're in the area do drop in as there are many beautiful paintings to enjoy.

From the Garden

l'Aperitif

Original Acrylic Painting  12 x 12  $250 
Please contact for Shipping Quote

When I was living in the South of France, each evening began with the Aperitif, and usually a number of good friends. We would sit down around the table and share conversation and laughter, often a glass of wine and some little appetizer like the olives pictured above. This is a little Moroccan dish I bought while living there, and it's something that I cherish for both it's beauty and memories. This painting is more about the Aperitif experience than about a particular aspect of painting, however I did enjoy painting the light on the olives and the wine glass. The ratan table top I could have done without, but once I'd committed, I just kept on going.

 

l'Aperitif

Oranges Reflected

Original Acrylic on Exhibition Canvas   24 x 24   $600 + s/h

I was visiting someone's home and noticed this amazing cobalt blue glass bowl sitting on top of the beautiful beaded table center. Now usually I don't ask people if I can borrow their home decor, but I made an exception in this circumstance, and the result is Oranges Reflected. I love the complimentary colour combination of the blue and orange, and orange reflections in the bowl. It doesn't show in the photograph, but the beaded table center has a texture to it. This painting is also showing at the Victoria Airport.

Oranges Reflected