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!

AGGV Summer Small Works Show 2014

Available through the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

Available through the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

I'm so pleased to announce that these two paintings Red Grapes and Silver, and More Fiesta have been juried into the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria's Summer Small Works Show. If you are in the area this a great opportunity to add art to your home. The show has been beautifully curated, and the opening reception is this Friday, July 11th from 5 - 7 pm. Many of the artists will be attendance. I hope you'll be able to join us!

If you are interested in either of these paintings you can contact the AGGV by clicking here.

AGGV Summer Small Works Show 2014

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

Step by Step Landscape in Acrylic - August Afternoon

My main genre is still life, however I really enjoy mixing in a landscape or an architectural painting, just to loosen up a bit. This image is the entrance to the old farm on Hornby Island, British Columbia. It's a beautiful spot. Every time I visit Hornby I photograph the entrance to the farm. There's something so peaceful about it, and the road leading in makes me want to follow it.

I started by cropping the image for compositional purposes. I wanted the two trees to fall at the 'law of thirds' intersection. For those of you who may not know, if you divide your canvas into thirds horizontally and vertically, the intersection of the lines in four places, offer good locations to position the focal point.

Using Transparent Red Iron Oxide, I warmly coloured the ground on the canvas, and to blocked in the basic shapes. A warm red tone is a nice counterbalance to the greens in the trees. 

I started to block in the colour in each shape and to develop the foreground a bit. The darker shade area in the foreground and the light of the sky, helped to gauge the values of the rest of the painting.

I continued developing the painting adding a bit more red tone with burnt sienna mixed with some napthol red, creating branches in the trees. I removed the barn because it was distracting from the focal point.

I broke up the solid tree branch shapes with more variety in value and colour,  strengthened the colour of the sky, and cooled down and lightened the background trees so they moved back in space. The foreground was developed a bit more as well. I used acrylic medium to blend the grass shapes and added some more darks.

The name chosen for this painting is August Afternoon, and I felt the colour of the field wasn't reflecting the impression of a hot summer afternoon. I used glazing fluid and glazed a warm golden colour of hanza yellow deep broken with a bit of ultramarine and alizarin crimson. I added some grass in the field, and developed some lights in the trees to finish it off. 

On a hot August afternoon the entrance to the farm is so still and peaceful. You can hear a few crickets and the breeze moving the branches and it's all about sun and shade. Truly idyllic.

August Afternoon   16 x 16  Acrylic  $650

Step by Step Landscape in Acrylic - August Afternoon

Mexican Still Lifes

 Vine Ripened  Oil   8 x 8  SOLD

 From the Garden  Acrylic 24 x 24 

Ole  Acrylic  36 x 24

Here is the last of my new Mexican small works, along with two larger Mexican themed paintings. I'm excited that I have a presale for the Studio Tour coming up this weekend! If you are in the area, do drop by and say hi, I'd love to see you! For the printable online brochure click here.

Mexican Still Lifes

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

Winter Warmth   Oil   16 x 16

Pomegranates are in season and I can't resist these rich red fruits, both inside and out. They are one of those fruits that everyone loves to paint. These ones seemed like the perfect accompaniment to some red wine. I wanted to create a rich, warm and inviting atmosphere. The lighting was important in creating the atmosphere, by suggesting evening with a low or candlelight type of lighting effect. I've been working in a lot of detail in my most recent paintings and decided to try to limit the detail and just suggest the fabric pattern. I used a palette knife for the leaves, again just suggesting rather that forming each leaf. I'm drawn to patterns and detail, so I had to really fight the urge not to say more with the paint. 

Lemons & Lace II

Lemons and Lace II   Oil   12 x 16   

Part of my 'Porcelain' series, Lemons and Lace II, features English porcelain and one of my favourite props, a vintage blue medicine bottle. Blue and yellow is one of my favoured colour combinations as I find the freshness of the yellow lemons against the blue patterning of the china very inspiring. In particular I enjoyed painting the varied depths of the shadow from the wedge of lemon protruding over the edge of table. It's these subtle observations that give me so much pleasure in painting a still life from life.

I've been trying to get back into a regular schedule of painting, following the passing of my father. When you haven't been painting very much, each colour mix and how you approach the painting, seems to be full of challenges. I've decided for the next short while to go back down to smaller pieces and try to get back into the groove of painting, and then I'd like to take a little break from still life and get back into some landscape pieces. Landscapes always feel so freeing as opposed to the close concentration of still lifes. They come off my brush in a much more impressionistic style. I hope that by mixing things up a bit I'll get back in the groove. Have you had moments when the paint just doesn't seem to flow off your brush or you're just not getting behind the easel as much as you used to? What did you do to overcome this obstacle? I'd love to hear some thoughts and suggestions.

Lemons & Lace II

Federation of Canadian Artists Fall Juried Exhibition

I am so pleased to have received Honourable Mention for my painting Satsuma at the FCA Fall Juried Exhibition!  The quality of paintings was very high and I truly feel hounoured to be recognized for my work. If you are in Victoria do drop by Dales Gallery in Chinatown and enjoy the show!

Satsuma  Oil  16 x 20  $1200 

Please contact Dales Gallery for inquiries

The photograph of this painting did not really turn out well. I tried shooting it a number of times using a grey card and I still ended up with a high tone photo, so that the value nuances are not really evident. I learned a lot painting Satsuma, because I layered not only patterns, but also white porcelain in front of each other. So the painting became all about values in order to create the form of each object and to have them stand apart from each other in space instead of blending.

Federation of Canadian Artists Fall Juried Exhibition