New Painting: Quiet Reflections

"Quiet Reflections", 10x10" mixed media on wood panel. Available. 

I've been a bit obsessed with Brian Rutenberg's YouTube videos lately. He paints these incredible, enormous abstracts... abstract landscapes that feel like a landscape even with no actual landscape type elements in them. One thing he says repeatedly in these videos is to "paint with your back to the window".

I think this is like my mantra of paint what you feel, not what you see. And it's what I've been trying to do with these landscapes inspired by my trip to Quebec. I have a load of photos, and before I start a new piece I look through them and decide what kind of feeling I want to capture. I've only done a few so far, so success seems to be a bit hit and miss. While I think this piece is successful as a painting, it didn't really get across the feeling I was going for. I was going for that feeling of blue sky reflected in still water and how calming it could be. But to get it working as an abstract, I had to lighten up that bottom "water" sector. It may have worked a bit darker but I didn't really like the colour i had going. I glazed with white until I had the value I thought I needed, but it lost a lot of the colour. I could have gone back in to add it back, but I liked it, so I didn't. Sometimes you just have to let the painting be what it is, instead of trying to force it into a preconceived plan.

I did learn enough doing this piece that I'm pretty sure the next one will be a bit better. The next one I start from scratch won't be until after the Art tour next weekend. I'm busy with finishing details right now... adding hanging wired and hardware, painting edges, putting a final coat of varnish on all these small works I've done recently.

As for the tour next weekend, I will have mostly small pieces with me, as I don't have a huge amount of space at my venue. It is a beautiful space though, and should we have good weather we will be able to move some of the art into the fabulous garden at Revive, giving it a special end of summer feel. I've got my fingers crossed for nice weather. I have a map on my website should you want to come out to the tour. There are many wonderful artists and artisans showing off their creations, and my particular location promises to be a hopping area with 4 venues on the same short street. You can access a digital version of the tour brochure here, to plan out your trip.

Hope to see you there!

Dawn of a New Day

"Dawn of a New Day", 24x24" mixed media on canvas. Private collection. 

My niece got married on Saturday. She is around the same age I was when I settled down with my now husband (though we didn't get married until a couple of years later, this is when we bought a house, which is a pretty huge commitment). I wish her and her beau as much happiness as possible.

Being an artist in a family of artists, I knew I would do something creative for them for their new home. Since I've been immersed in trying to figure out this whole abstract landscape thing, and my niece is maybe a bit traditional in her artistic tastes (and I have no idea about her now husband), a landscape seemed to be the most obvious choice. Talking to her mom and sister we determined hues of pink would fit in with their decor. Pink. Of course.

Side view, showing how the interference looks in the
light. This photo was taken in the same lighting as
the one above, I just moved over to the side.  

I'm not really a pink person. I don't wear pink, there is no pink in my home, and the pinks I've been using in my recent work started as a challenge for me to work out how to use it (since I had a few tubes of pink paint given to me). I was sure I could do this... even if I wasn't sure exactly how.

I used a lot of texture in this piece. I'm not 100% decided if it helps or detracts from the overall composition, but it gives some interest, and gave me a way to incorporate my current obsession, interference paint. Brushed lightly over the textured area the paint only hits the raised points. This can add a lot of interest to a relatively calm area.

I chose to use interference orange... I had used blues and violets along with the pinks, and I really wanted something a bit unexpected. I also thought about how the work would change in certain lighting... having used this kind of paint in a few pieces now I have a bit better idea of what to expect than when I first pulled it out. I like that you can hardly see it when you look at it straight on. It shows up in the dark areas but not the light. But when the light hits it and you're at an angle, the sky glows. It's pretty cool.

I hope they like the painting and find a special place for it. I will offer an opportunity to exchange for something else... that's something I also do for my clients whenever art is purchased as a gift. When I give art, especially my own, I worry that the receiver will not say if it's not their thing, afraid of hurting my feelings (my skin is actually pretty thick now, after years of applying to and getting rejected from shows. It's all part of being an artist). My niece already has one of my paintings, so I'm pretty sure she likes my work, but I think the art in your home should be something that really speaks to you. Maybe she would prefer something in a different colour, or has no place to put something this size. I don't really know what her other half likes either, so that's something to consider. Whatever they decide is fine with me. I know original art in a home can really add to that feeling of it being somewhere special, and that's how I want their home to feel for them.

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I am taking part in the Arts on the Credit Tour, September 22-23 in Port Credit, Mississauga. I'll have many new 10x10 pieces up for sale, plus a couple larger ones. Visit my website for details. 

New Painting: Whispered Conversations

"Whispered Conversations", 10x10" mixed media on wood panel. 

I've been listening to the audiobook of Brené Brown's "Daring Greatly" while I've been at the gym. It's one of those books that's been recommended to me a few times, but I haven't gotten around to reading.

As a creative person, I never really know what's going to inspire something. I certainly did not expect something from this kind of book to inspire an abstract painting. But when I got to the part about how sharing personal experiences and being vulnerable can lead to a true intimacy with someone, I got a image in my head that I really wanted to express visually.

Building relationships can be in interesting process. I can be a fairly open person, but it depends on how I read the other person. There have been people I'm not too sure of, and with them it can take me a really long time to trust enough to put myself out there. If I ever do. If I click with someone the process can go a lot faster.

I remember when I was a kid... the LAST thing I wanted to do was tell someone anything about how I was feeling. In my family, as the youngest of 4 kids, giving away a secret was like giving your enemy something to taunt you with for the foreseeable future. My siblings could be vicious. The girls at school were equally awful. I learned quickly that the best defence was to never give anything away. I developed a poker face... while I couldn't always put it on at will, I did try. As a result of being so closed off, I had very few close friends. I still don't have many, but the ones I have are the kind of people I can tell anything to, and not have it come back to bite me. This is a good place to be.

It took me a long time to get here. As a young adult I didn't know how to talk about how I was feeling, so when I got angry or upset I just shut down. There were a few people who kept poking until they hit the soft spots and it all came out...usually involving a lot of swearing (and sometimes alcohol. My best friends are partial to scotch and tequila, respectively). But those conversations... the ones where I shared the parts of myself that I generally keep hidden... they were like little bright lights shining in an otherwise dark world of uncertainty and doubt.

Visualizing those whispered conversations... that was an evolving process, and it took many layers. I put some value variety in the dark areas representing the people we come in contact with daily. The co-workers, the acquaintances. The lighter hues are the people closer to us. There is variety in those too. The really good friends... they are in the iridescents. They look white, but they sparkle a bit. They change depending on the lighting. They are where you look and keep looking. And they hold it together.

As I'm trying to verbalize my thought process on this, I realize that I did an exercise like this decades ago when I took a class with an art therapist. She called it a "life map", and had us use a different colour to represent each person in our lives and show how they related to us. We did a past, present and future map. It was an interesting exercise that really sparked an interest in the abstract representation of an inner world. Maybe a topic for another post...

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I am taking part in the Arts on the Credit Tour, September 22-23 in Port Credit, Mississauga. I'll have many of these new 10x10 pieces up for sale, plus a couple larger ones. Visit my website for details. 

New Painting: Paper Wings

"Paper Wings", 10x10" mixed media on wood panel. Available. 

I've got a lot of art supplies hanging around my studio. Some things were given to me, some I bought just to try out. I've got a few oddball colours that I don't really know what to do with. It can be fun to start a piece with the intention of using something new... the end point is always a surprise. And sometimes that something new is added at the end, in a last ditch effort to save a painting that is just not working.

This piece went through many, many stages. A lot of them really ugly. At one point I scribbled all over it with a soft pencil, because I was at a loss for what to do next. It was once predominantly red, then yellow, then pink. It was really dark at  one point. What finally pulled it together was a bit of never before used interference green. It now has this glow that I can't quite describe. And I certainly can't photograph it. While I think the photo looks pretty good, it doesn't really do the original justice. It will, however, have to do.

Last week I did something a lot of people will think is a little bit crazy, given my age. I quit the job I've been at for the past 11 years. I'd love to say I did it so I could become a full-time painter, but alas, that is not in the cards for me just yet. I am going to another company, for a position that I hope will be a little less stressful, a little less all-consuming, and hopefully full of new things to learn.

It may seem to some like I've tossed my job security out the window (I know this because people have told me so, usually preceded by a "you're crazy"). I don't look at it quite that way. Just because the company I've spent so much time with finds me useful now does not mean they will still want me there in a few years. There have been a few people let go lately that were long-term, dedicated employees. Corporations don't have any kind of loyalty to long term employees anymore. No matter what I do, it's a gamble. The future is never guaranteed, and all we really have is the present. If I'm no longer enjoying how I spend the majority of my time, the time has come to figure out something else.

However it works out, I'm pretty sure there will be some surprises.

New Painting: Sunday Afternoon

"Sunday Afternoon", 10x10" mixed media on wood panel. Available. 

Earlier this summer I spent a couple weeks in Quebec. It was a wind-down kind of vacation... we didn't have much planned, we did the AirBnB thing so we would have a kitchen and not have to eat out every meal, we spent time with family and I my husband and I had a chance to spend some quality time together.

With my guy being big on fly-fishing, I decided to take some art gear with me to keep me occupied while he was out on the river. The spots were so scenic, I enjoyed the time in nature just sketching and taking photos. I got some great pics for inspiration. I also got some ideas for doing a few paintings when I got home.

My travels have really inspired my art. With this trip under my belt, I thought it may be time for me to try doing some actual landscapes. Never much one for realism, I knew abstraction would be the path I had to take. Literal depictions don't work for me... I wanted to relate how the landscape makes me feel, rather than what it looks like.

"Sunday Afternoon" is the first of a few I have started. This one came together fairly quickly... although at first I didn't realize what I was painting. I had worked on it the other direction, doing my usual thing with dark/light and composing a pleasing arrangement of shapes. I had it drying on a shelf when I caught sight of it the other way and knew this was supposed to be a landscape and not an abstract. A couple quick additions and it was finished.

I have a few more abstract landscapes in the works to be ready to debut at the Arts on the Credit Tour in September. I've even started a new page for them on my website. They will be available as prints as they get finished and photographed, and I'll get the originals on there after the tour. I'm having fun with this genre, so I may continue on for a bit. I'm only half way through my 100 Square Project, so there's lots of room to add a few abstract landscapes to the series.

New Painting: The Road Less Travelled

"The Road Less Travelled", 10x10" mixed media on wood panel.

I've always been a bit of an oddball. 

When I was a kid I was painfully, painfully shy. Like, hide behind my mother and cry if forced to talk to someone shy. I've never had a lot of friends, but the ones I did have were really good friends that totally got me. I hung out with other misfits, and still do. One of my high school friends described us as the "island of misfit toys". Yep, that's about it. 

Being an artist wasn't exactly a choice. It's more a like this internal restlessness that had to be put to use or it would kill me. I tried to ignore it and couldn't... it was like the world just sucked the life out of me and this was the only way to get it back. 

It's not an easy path. It took a long time before I could look at my own work and like it. And once I got over that hurdle, I had to convince other people. I've been turned down by many a gallery, rejected from many shows. I've also gotten into galleries, shown in some prestigious juried shows, and won an award. Obviously opinions of what makes good art differs. I have decided, for better or worse, to be unapologetically who I am and see where it takes me. I'm not sure where I'll end up, but pretty sure I'll be a happier person. That's the end goal for all of us, isn't it?

This painting was a fight from the first layer. You can see it in the texture... there is layer upon layer of paint. I think there was collage on it at some point, although you can't see it at all now. Just the faint edges of where the paper is glued down. I tried to smooth out some sections, but it's still a bit rough around the edges. That wandering line is like the path the painting took to get where it is... there are parts hardly visible but they still effect the whole, and there's one little area I seemed to get stuck in for a bit. I'm glad I didn't give up on it, because overall, it's an interesting little piece. 

It's weird how I can see my life mapped out in a 10x10" square. All art is a reflection of the artist, because we can't help but have who we are show up in our work. Things inspire us, we make choices based on our preferences, decide what to let stay and what has to go. I intend to continue on my own path, no matter who tries to convince me it's a bad idea. The road less travelled is often a more pleasant trip than being trapped in the traffic on the highway. 

New Painting: Summer Storm

"Summer Storm", 10x10" mixed media on wood panel. 

I've always loved storms in the summer. They are so powerful and spring up suddenly... it can be sunny and beautiful out, and within a few minutes it's like you're standing under a waterfall.

You'd think, given the number of times I'd been caught out it it, that I'd hate them. But the power always amazed me. I'd sit and watch the rain pour down and be in awe of nature. Until that massive storm and subsequent flood in 2013.... that's when those storms started to scare me.

Until then, I'd never been in a major storm. Hell, compared to what's happened in other parts of the world, this was not even a major storm. I began to pay more attention to weather related incidents in the news. And it began to dawn on me... holy shit, are we ever in trouble.

I do read the news, and was aware of climate change and the things going on in the world. I had seen an inconvenient truth, but in my naivety, I figured the people in charge were on it, and as long as everyone played their small part, things would work out.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa!

Yeah, I know.

I continue to do what I can. I live close to my job, I keep my car tuned up and take public transit when I can. I ride my bike. I recycle and dry my laundry on my clothesline in the summer. We don't run the air conditioner if it's under 30°C. And we eat a lot of fresh food and avoid the processed stuff. Not really much in the big scheme of things, but it's what I can control. And anything else, I just block out of my field of vision. I think I'd have the trouble motivating myself to do anything if I thought the end of the world was just around the corner.

So anyway, back to my painting.....

I worked on this piece for what felt like forever. I kept adding and adding layers, but it just wasn't speaking to me. When it came together it was so fast.... I was looking for something to add some life to it, and what I found was interference orange. Pink and orange isn't a combination I would normally use... it reminds me of 70s polyester fashion if I'm honest... but since the painting wasn't working anyway, why not? It totally pulled it together, and it instantly became one of my favourite pieces.

Sometimes doing something drastic and unexpected can solve a problem in a unique and creative way.