A Trip off the Back Forty and Something New

Ah yes, the 'back forty'....we really are off the beaten track, can still see some of our neighbours homes but with an acreage we are well insulated and can choose how much interaction we want to have with others.  I am not sure if it is the spring weather but I have felt a need to connect with other artists and for me the best way to do that is in a workshop. I signed up at the spur of the moment for a one day workshop with Calgary artist Connie Geerts. I wasn't really clear about what we would be painting, I was more interested in the workshop description - I know, I know....so was a bit surprised that trees were the subject matter. Don't get me wrong I really do like trees - all that they offer to nature and what they represent but I just don't like to paint them. Remembering to keep an open mind and focus on the learning of new techniques it ended up being a lovely day. Connie works with colour - straight from the tube colour, lots of underpainting and layering, stressing variation in spacing and shape, and the use of pixelation (she worked as a video editor in a past career), lots to think about.  Not only is she a talented artist but a very giving one as well! When I returned home with my 'masterpiece' and showed my husband - his reaction was exactly what I expected. The phrase 'you painted that!?!' was repeated several times - the fact that it was readily identifiable as 'trees' and not something more abstract was the appeal. I have actually stopped asking him what he thinks about anything I paint now - but remember we are painting for ourselves....right!!

10"X20"
Acrylic on canvas

'Workshops are not about making paintings - workshops are about making progress'

                                                            Canadian artist - Brian Buckrell


On another note we have a forest fire burning (out of control) approximately 16km from our home. Seems a certain irony after spending a day painting trees to come home and find out they are burning not that far away. We are separated by a river from the burning area but are expecting high winds and unseasonably high temperatures today. We have had a few years of below average precipitation in the winters & summers so it hasn't been a matter of 'if' but 'when' a fire would occur. We are situated next to a large area of provincial recreational land - campers, off road vehicles, hikers, bikers, etc all make good use of the area and for the most part are respectful of the regulations, but unfortunately it only takes one to start a fire. Rain is in the forecast in the next few days so optimism is high. We are extremely grateful to the fire crews that are out there working in dangerous conditions to get the fire under control and protect our homes and community.

A Tough 'Paint'

I enjoyed participating in Leslie Saeta's Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days in February and March and was looking forward to carrying that momentum forward. Well...if anyone had told me that I would spend the last few weeks painting and then overpainting and overpainting yet again on the same wood panel I wouldn't have believed it. The underpainting was started in a workshop I attended last August. The large black shape was added from direction given by the workshop instructor. So then what to do? Well I let it sit for several months and finally pulled it out again in December 2017. Added a few daps of paint and collage and left it for another month. Still 'dapping' and getting no where - I finally glazed over it with some transparent red iron oxide, added some stencilling - pulled out some of the dog paintings from the challenge for inspiration and found my rhythm! This all didn't happen without a few sleepless nights and a lot of negative thoughts running through my head. Oh the life of an artist.....

2017 Underpainting (24"X24")

Thank goodness for some transparent red iron oxide!

24"x24"
Work in progress!

Taking a break to let the collage dry, then a bit more paint, perhaps some stencilling, collaging and line work....I think she has pretty good bones!

Back to the Studio and the Dogs

The beautiful Cleo!

It's been a busy couple of months. Depending on what I have to organize things can go either smoothly or extremely messy. This go round....extremely messy. Anyhow it is done and I am happy it is! Now I can spend a bit of time in my studio before the christmas season starts.

So where does the dog journal fit into all this you ask? We have just adopted another yellow lab and she is gradually settling in to our home and routine with our other lab Cleo. Both girls have been adopted at an older stage in life and we are very lucky to have them as part of our family. Cleo has the most expressive and unique face - so different from Kali (the new girl). I don't know Kali well enough yet to capture her personality and features. Cleo having been with us longer has fascinating facial features and expressions.

The first painting is Cleo and will be one of many I hope and maybe a 'big' canvas at some point! The other is just a quick painting of no dog in particular, but just experimenting relying on memory rather than a reference.

This painting is actually 11"X14", but it was too large to fit on the scanner so had to crop it.

'Cleo'
~8 1/2"X11"
Acrylic mixed media on
Canson mixed media paper

6"X6"
Acrylic mixed media on
Arches 140lb cold press watercolour paper 

Kali
...a little camera shy 

....winter is here! 

Thirty Paintings in 30 Days - Day 15

'Flo & Mo'
12"X12"
Acrylic mixed media on canvas 

It was just one of those days when you couldn't take things too seriously.....even painting! I am not sure who is who - but what I am sure of is they are steadfast and true barnyard companions.

Thirty Paintings in 30 Days - Day 9

I wasn't sure if this would be considered a 'daily', but finally put the last bit of paint on yesterday.

An 8 day back country-horse back trip north of Jasper National Park has provided me with a lifetime (no exaggeration) of inspiration. We rode in one of Alberta's wildlands parks and it was incredible!!

'The Wildlands - Solomon Creek #1'
24"X24"
Acrylic mixed media
on birch panel

I haven't worked this large before. But I love the freedom the size gave me to explore paint, collage, and mark making. 

Enjoy your day wherever you are!

Thirty Paintings in 30 Days - Day 5

......Not one of my best days in the studio :(  
Nothing was clicking and in the end I went back to a smaller more abstract landscape. I have done a couple of still life paintings, but not sure if they really reflect 'me'. If you are an artist you will know exactly what I am talking about. So here is day 5 such as it is.

5 3/4" X 5 3/4"
Acrylic mixed media on
140lb hotpress Arches

Here are a couple of quotes I came across after a 'long' day in my studio.....

"Blocks are part of an artist's natural cycle, and mine come whenever I reach a plateau. I'll feel bottled up with negativism, but when I blast through the garbage, I find I've emerged as a better artist." Nick Payne Artist

"I'm not running out of ideas, just trying to push myself into better ones."  Mike McQuade Graphic Designer & Illustrator

Thirty Paintings in 30 Days - Day 2

Our winter wonderland!

We are back in the deep freeze again. A rather cool -28 this morning. We had almost 2 weeks of temperatures pushing into the -30's the beginning of December. Seeing -15 on the outdoor thermometer was a welcome sight. Felt positively balmy! Maybe today's painting will convey a bit of that cool arctic air. Is a very neutral painting and not a lot of value contrast. Have a great day and stay warm!

8" x"8
Acrylic mixed media
on printmaking paper

Daily Paintings

A couple more daily paintings. I just love doing these. It opens up the door for experimenting with colour, different media, mark making, subject matter and composition to name a few. I keep going back to landscapes. Our weather has been unbelievable these last few days.....20 above today, the sun is shining and there is a gentle warm breeze - so beautiful! Spending lots of time outdoors and enjoying the views. I hope you will enjoy these 2 daily paintings.

7"X7"
Acrylic mixed media on paper

6"X6"
Acrylic mixed media on paper
mounted on birch panel

Painting - Is it Finished?

I haven't posted for awhile! And miss it - writing makes me think more about my art, others art - about creating!

I am participating in a Christmas show and sale in a couple of weeks. I have been busy getting things matted, mounted on wood panels, varnished and packaging and pricing. This year I vowed not to leave it to the last moment. I have a couple of paintings that I am planning on taking. One is from May of this year and the other from September. They have both been sitting in my studio, bidding their time. I thought they were 'finished' but with a second look neither one seemed ready to leave my studio. So, I took a deep breath and went back into both. This is a huge deal for me. My 'critic' starts off with just a whisper and by the time I start putting the paint on the palette she (mine is a 'she') is loudly telling me I am really going to mess things up, it is going to look horrible, I will be sorry I even started ......the list goes on. Now that I have worked on them both I am much happier! They do look finished - more depth and layers - they look richer. I am so glad I pushed 'her' to the back and went with my intuition. Painting on a daily basis is making it easier to push past my inner critic. Does this happen to you and if so what do you do?

'Winter's Blanket'
12"X12"
Acrylic mixed media on birch panel

'At the Edge of the Great Beyond'
12"X18"
Acrylic mixed media on birch panel

Vancouver Island Art Workshops - Jane Davies - Part 2

Back to the workshop and the final three days.....

Starting day 3 we had a choice of switching to our 'good' paper  (a good printmaking paper) or doing a few more prints with the drawing paper. I choose to switch to my printmaking paper - Stonehenge. I really like the Stonehenge for this type of monoprinting. Jane wanted us to experiment with the techniques we had been using the previous two days - especially the masking of shapes and texturing. It was important not to have a plan and to work more with our intuition and notice things such as similar values, lights/darks, shape size and saturated colour versus neutrals. Once these were dry we added a background ('ground') to the print. Lots of choices to think about here. Do you leave a space between shapes and ground, how will the shapes relate to the ground and what colour for the ground. By putting in the ground it makes it easier to see what you have. We could still print and collage over the ground if we wanted. Painting the ground takes a lot of time and care. I mixed two or three colours for my grounds so I would get some variation in the colour.

There are a lot of things to think about when working on these pieces...
1. Contrast of scale
2. Variation in value
3. Transparency/Opacity
4. How much white space to leave around shapes - thickness and thinness of lines
5. Do you leave white space
6. Placement of shapes - ex. do they go off the edge, overlapping
7. How much do you enhance the shapes - a little or a lot
8. What is the 'top/bottom' of the print. Jane usually decides this earlier on - is intuitive for her.
9. Will your ground be all one colour or one side yellow the other purple

For the remainder of the workshop we worked on the following
1. Printing then collaging, painting the ground and line work
2. Printing grids and then collaging and painting
3. Printing grounds and printing, painting and collaging over them.

These are a couple of printed starts that I am looking forward to working on.

Multiple printings and masking off of parts of plate and masking  using a shape. Lots to do with this start!

Rolled titanium white over residue on gelli plate and printed. You can see previous printed shapes and colours. Looking forward to working on this one

Printed ground with printed and collaged shapes,
added paint and some line work

Printed grid with collage, added paint,
some stencilling and line work

Started with printed ground using a lot of
layering and masking of the background.
Added collaged shapes and paint

So this is a very brief description of techniques covered in this workshop. For me the gelli plate encourages experimentation and pushing limits as much as you can with this tool. Having spent 5 days 'monoprinting' has inspired me to do some printmaking at home. I am going to 'dust' off my etching press and enjoy experimenting with some monoprinting.

Vancouver Island Art Workshops - Jane Davies Workshop - Part 1

I have just returned home from Vancouver Island, British Columbia. I was attending a 5 day workshop with Jane Davies. The subject of the workshop was 'Monoprint Collage: the Dynamics of Working in Series'. The workshop was organized by Vancouver Island Art Workshops. Mary Stewart and her husband Jim put a tremendous amount of time and effort into this workshop. The facility was well appointed, two big tables for each participant to work on and lots of refreshments and food. Mary also had several prize draws and gave us each a bottle of Dick Blick 'Celadon' acrylic paint (a favourite colour of Jane's) and a tube of acrylic paint from Kroma Artist's Acrylics.

I had purchased some of  Kroma Artist's Acrylics for this workshop. This is the first time I have used this brand of acrylic paint and I really like it. It printed well using the gelli plate and the colours are rich! Have put these on the the 'art supply' wish list.

I had taken Jane's online monoprint workshop so I knew there would be some repetition over the first couple of days and I was looking forward to the idea of working in a series and getting feedback and ideas/suggestions on how to move forward with my work.

Day 1 and 2 were spent making making a variety of collage papers using the GelliArts gel plate. The paper we used is approximately an 80lb  drawing paper. You can get some gorgeous papers layering colour, patterns and textures. We needed a variety of hues, values, high contrast and low contrast papers. We layered tone on tone, pattern on pattern, opaque and transparent. You could go on forever. For texturing - string, corrugated cardboard, texture plates - you are only limited by your imagination! We also started cutting masks and using stencils to create some interesting effects.

The afternoon of day 2 we spent experimenting with printing and collaging on the 80lb drawing paper.

Here is a very small sampling of some of the papers made during day 1 & 2.

Tone on tone

Phthalo turquoise mixed with glazing medium on plate, rolled out with brayer and printed

Patterned paper made with multiple colours of blue and multiple stencils/masks

Tone on tone paper, using texture plates

Some of my favourite papers were those I used to clean my brayer off on and some rolling titanium white out on the residue left on the plate and then printing.

Using titanium white over residue on plate and
pulling the print. The curved shape had been
printed on the paper first using a mask

Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow!

Painting - Acrylics

A week of rain, cooler temperatures and cleaning up after installing some new flooring in our home. Seemed as good a time as any to attempt a little studio cleanup as well. I am forever 'cleaning up' my studio. I hate 'recycling' or 'throwing' anything out! Always seems that a few months down the road I am looking for those particular items that I got rid off. I did unearth some of my earlier attempts at acrylic painting. At the time I painted these I was thinking how bad they were, and had thought of either painting over them or tossing. But I am glad I kept them - is a good record to see where I started and where I am on this art journey.

These pictures do not have much colour mixing - if any! (that is what I am conciously working on now). Tried some different techniques - collage, image transfer, stamping and using markers and coloured pencil. I am thinking of reworking one or two, but maybe I should just keep them as a record of where I started and where I am currently with my painting.

Looking at them now they don't seem all that bad.

6"X6"
Acrylic paint, image transfer & stamping

6"X6"
Acrylic paint, image transfer, stamping and coloured pencil

11"X14"
Acrylic paint & tissue paper

8"X10"
Acrylic paint & collage