Bringing a Painting to Life

If you can imagine one of those animated flip books that we had as kids, then you will imagine how this painting came to life.

First I covered the entire canvas with warm colours, making such no white was showing.

Next, I mixed up some paint for my sky, and worked on the negative shapes of the background, which in turn defines your positive leaf shapes. This was a bit of a mind game. It was also rather exhausting and took a long time. Slowly the painting started to come to life.

Once the leaves took shape, I danced back and forth between the background and the foreground.

At some point I decided that I wanted to add a bird into the painting, so I made a nice space for him to perch on a stem.

Adding the blue bird gave the painting more character.
Then many many more dabs and brush marks and dah, dah....

"Fall Palette", 20 x 16", acrylic on canvas

To see more, please visit my online gallery

Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

Hosting a Workshop

I absolutely love hosting and facilitating painting workshops.

A few years ago, as part of our Island Arts Magazine services, we decided to start hosting workshops. How hard could it be?

There actually is a lot of planning that goes into these events. Researching and tracking down instructors is the main issue, as some of them are booking two years in advance. We try to bring in instructors from outside our area (mid-island) on Vancouver Island. We have to confirm dates, making sure that the venue is available. Next intensive marketing comes into play. Once the registrations start coming in and the day arrives, the FUN begins.

Our March 2016 workshop was called "Flowering as an Artist" instructed by Sandy Terry, an artist from Victoria. How refreshing to paint flowers in the spring.

We limit our class size to 12 students (11 actually as the 12th spot is mine). We had a lovely group of ladies for this class.

Most of our classes run for two days on a weekend. On the morning of the first day the students are anxious to get some instruction and start putting colour to canvas. By the end of the first day, they began to tucker out. "More coffee ladies?"

I like to position myself at the back of the classroom, and watch the canvases blossom. I enjoy the chatter amongst the students, as they paint, converse, laugh and sometimes even swear – for the good of the painting of course.

After a hard day of painting, on Saturday we like to gather at the local restaurant for a bite to eat, a refreshment or two and a chance to get to know each other outside the classroom. The artists love this part of the weekend.

In this class I worked on a tiger lily and was happy to see it come to life. I was able to take it home after the weekend, and finish it off with a few more brush strokes. All signed it is now ready for my Saskatchewan exhibition this summer.

Prairie Gift, 28 x 22", acrylic on canvas

As the host of these events, I am usually exhausted on Monday. But, I love doing them, I love spending the weekend with my fellow artists and I look forward to the next workshop in a month.

Oh dear!

Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

My Underwater Adventures

I have always wanted to do a painting of my underwater adventures. On a rainy west coast day, I decided to do just that.

I pulled out an envelope of underwater photos that I had compiled over the years. Some were from Mexico, Costa Rica, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos and many from the Cayman Islands (one of my favourite dive spots)

 

Looking at the photos took me down memory lane. It seemed like another life time ago that I started scuba diving. I achieved my open-water certification in Tobermory Ontario. It was a cold and tough weekend. At the end of the weekend I was so darn proud of myself and a certified diver.

I continued with the advanced class two weeks later. I went through that course and onto becoming a PADI rescue diver.

At last count, I had 120+ dives, under my belt; in scuba diver's lingo. I haven't done a dive in many, many years and if I did, I would surely take a refresher course first.

Perhaps that part of my life is over and if so, at least I have incredible and colourful memories of those adventures.

Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

Take an Art Retreat

Last fall I was invited to attend an art retreat. Living on Vancouver Island, surrounded by beauty, we often forget about the wonder that is in our own back yard. I jumped on the idea!

Being the organizing junky that I am, before going on the retreat, I made a list of intentions.
1) Have FUN
2) meet new artists
3) don't expect end results
4) Have FUN ...

I painted and sketched and wandered around nature. As a self-directed retreat, all we had to do was  show up for meals. Sitting in the sunny meadows being one with nature, and taking a trip to the mountain tops was absolutely glorious.

I became very aware of shapes and negative space. Something clicked in my brain, as I sketched like crazy, keeping the designs simple and loose.

In the evenings, I put some of my design ideas to canvas, keeping in mind simple design and negative spaces.

 

By Sunday morning, I had met all my objections and ready to return home.

Spending time with like-minded folks was inspiring. Some of the best conversations I had with the other artists was often over morning coffee.

I want to remind myself to take min-retreats, whether it's just a nice walk by the beach, or an afternoon in the garden. It's good for the creative soul.

Have you been on a retreat lately?


Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

Enjoying the Process

When emailing a friend, I told her that I was starting a new painting. After seeing my reference photo instead of saying "I can't wait to see the final painting", her comment was "Enjoy the Process".

That really struck me as a great thing to say to someone. Enjoy the process! How often do we start a painting, work through it, only to get to the end? It's like that old saying "It's not about the destination, but the journey that matters."

To me the process begins when I get the idea of what I am going to paint. I then either go to the art store and purchase the perfect canvas, or, if I am lucky, I have the right size at home.

The moment I take the plastic off the canvas, the process begins. The next step in the process might take several days, as I mentally create the painting before making a mark on the canvas.

Trying to slow myself down, I enjoy each new layer of paint that goes on, embracing the magic that appears or twists my mind, as I stumble over roadblocks.

I'm going to write that phrase down and post it in my studio, as a reminder to myself to "Enjoy the Process".

Are you enjoying the process in everything you do?


Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

West Coast Mini-Series

After painting prairie images for almost a year, I was ready for a change of scenery. I had four canvases on hand, each 16 x 20" and thought hmm...I can do a West Coast mini series.

When working on the "Prairie Whispers" series, my palette was very different. I used lots of warm colours: yellows, browns and maroon. Now back on the west coast, I am back to intense blues and greens. It was a definite mind switch.

Having taken a recent workshop with Nicholas Pearce, I also wanted to try using his limited palette: phthalo blue, cadmium red light, cadmium red dark, cadmium yellow medium, plus black and white. Because I absolutely love the warmth of Quin gold, I included that in my palette as well.

Heading out to Sea

The first in the series was a painting inspired by a trip last summer to Friendly Cove. This depicts the feeling and view when leaving Gold River aboard the ship. The misty totem in the background welcomes visitors to the island.

 A Quiet Moment by the Lake

The second painting was inspired by a photograph taken in the BC interior that one of my Facebook friends sent me. I was intrigued by the reflections of the trees and mountains.

 Yoquet, Where the Wind Blows

The third painting is also inspired by our trip to Friendly Cove. In this painting, it was all about the tree and the rock. The background is secondary, that is why I pushed it back with misty washes.

 Come, and Sit Awhile

The last painting evokes a sense of peace and tranquility. I added an Adirondack chair, to invite the viewer to sit back, relax and enjoy the view.


Now that my min-series is finished...what to paint next?


Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

Picking a Title for your Artwork

Often the hardest part of painting, is not the work itself, but the title that comes later. Sometimes the titles just pop into my head, even before I start the painting. Other times, not so much.

This is the case with this painting.

Last summer we drove up island to Gold River BC and hopped aboard the MV Uchuck III. We were were on a day trip to Friendly Cove, also know as Yuquot - the ancestral home of the Mowachaht / Muchalaht people.

Yuquot translates to “Where the Winds Blow from Many Directions” and is reputed as being the ‘birthplace’ of British Columbia.

It was wonderful to sit back, relax and enjoy the breath-taking scenery. Once we got out to sea, it was quite chilly and yes, the winds were blowing from many directions. I was so glad I had a heavy jacket with a hood on it.

Now, back to the issue of the title:
I thought I would see what the internet has to say about picking a title. One suggestion was to name them from a feeling that you had, or a feeling that you would like the viewer to experience while looking at your artwork. Other suggestions include: factual, abstract, mysterious, sentimental and numerical.


When I look at this painting and remember our trip, I feel an immediate sense of peace and magical tranquility. I used a limited palette giving the painting a sense of cohesion.

Some of the titles I am thinking of are:
"Magical Rock", "Tree of Life", "Tranquility", "Yoquot"
 
Since the paint is barely dry, I think I will give it a day or two to resonate.


I'd love to hear how you title your pieces?


Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

2 Weeks - 14 Paintings

This past fall as a way to capture the beauty of my gardens, I decided to give myself a challenge: a painting a day for two weeks.

The challenge was this: to do a painting each day, to paint quickly and not to fuss over details. Sometimes a person tends to over work a painting, which often leads to undesirable results (or as we say, mud). 

When painting quickly, you must make fast decisions, and execute them faithfully.
Here are the results of my two week challenge.

2 weeks - 14 paintings	Sunflower
Brown Eyed Susan	Pears from our Tree
Mr. Pepper	Hibiscus in Vase
So Gladiola	Bloomin' Calendula
Fall Cololurs	Apple Pie Anyone
Grape Vine	Maple Leaf
Bella Dona	Cosmos
Hibiscus	Each Painting Acrylic on  Canvas Board 8 x 10" $99.

I encourage you to try this exercise, even if only for a week.

Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

Bird on a Wire

As I sort through some of my earlier work on the computer, I thought it would be fun to paint the same subject, using a different medium. The original "Bird on a Wire" was painted using watercolour paints, as you can see from the texture of the paper.

I've always liked this painting, so this past week I decided to paint it again, but this time using acrylic paints.

I started out, as I usually do, scrubbing a warm colour on the canvas, followed by a quick sketch.

Then I started adding light glazes of colour, blocking in the fence post and the prairie grasses. Next I painted in the sky.

The barbed wire was fun to do, twisting it around and dropping in highlights where the light would reflect. On my sketch (above) I had a bottom row of wire, but decided to omit that, as I thought it would block the viewer from entering the piece. Plus it didn't really do anything for the painting.

I changed the bird from a blue bird to a blue jay, with a little bit of attitude, his feathers ruffled from the prairie winds.

The remake of "Bird on a Wire", 12 x 14"
This one and other "Prairie Whispers" can be viewed in my gallery.

Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

Elevating Experience

It all started when I was asked to do a commission painting of the elevator in Kelliher, a small community in south east Saskatchewan.

I was thrilled and gladly took on the challenge. I completed the piece in November and sent it off to the clients. They both loved it. I found that painting it also brought me much pleasure, as I recall fond memories of riding with my dad in our rickety old truck, back and forth to the elevators to drop off loads of grain.

I went out and bought three more canvases, 12 x 16" and started another, and then another and then another. They are great little paintings, each with a character of it's own and each a familiar location for me. For ordering and purchasing information, please visit my online gallery.

If you have a photo of an elevator that you think would make an interesting painting, I'd love to hear from you, as I continue on this elevating path.


Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

The 5 Stages of a Painting

Have you ever noticed how we repeatedly go through the same emotional ups and downs while working on a painting? I have broken it down into 5 stages.

1) You are having trouble sleeping because you have such a GREAT idea for a new painting. You can't wait to get started.

2) You are excited about the first few brush strokes going on. You are feeling fantastic and can hardly get the paint down on the canvas fast enough.

3) Oh oh ... running into trouble. I call this the "Oh what was I thinking" or "it sounded like a good idea in my head" stage.

4) This is the tough stage where we are tempted to get out the white gesso, paint over it and start again. BUT at this stage you MUST push through. Some say it is about the journey, not the destination, that we learn something from every painting. Myself, I am usually just too darn stubborn to call it quits.



5) There is light on the other side and this is the "Oh my gosh, this is the best painting EVER" stage.
At this point your spouse just rolls his eyes, as he recognizes each stage and patiently waits for the outcome.

I would be much happier if only I could eliminate stages 3 and 4 ...

FYI: This painting is of the Hoodoos in Drumheller, Alberta, one of Canada's natural wonders. In the Blackfoot and Cree traditions the Hoodoos are believed to be petrified giants who come alive at night to hurl rocks at intruders.

Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

Still Standing

Recently I have been working on a series of prairies paintings. I really love the subject matter. Having grown up in Saskatchewan, this is very close to my heart.

I love driving through the prairies, as the gentle warm winds blow, stopping often to take photos of sway-back barns, and old sheds...still standing through years of use and changing seasons.

• start out with a warm background colour
• I sketch the outlines of the barn, sheds and trees
• next comes the sky and the clouds
• at this stage I often forget to take more photos as I get excited about the process, until the final piece is finished

"Still Standing", 12 x 24" acrylic on canvas
To purchase this painting or other prairie scenes, please visit my online gallery.

Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

Hot off the Palette

Starting a new painting is always hard for me. Why?  I usually use an image as my main source and I have thousands of photo images to choose from. This scene was taken from a photo that was taken on a gloomy grey day, but I LOVED the curve of the beach.

Still deciding on an appropriate title for it ... so for now ... it goes untitled.

Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan

Hot off the Palette

Just off the easel, and ready for a title. 

Working quickly on the background using large bold brush strokes, I wanted to create a smooth look. My reference photo had more of a sepia tone to it. My artistic license took over as I got a bit carried away with colour... I do love colour.

The trees in the foreground really framed off the painting. Now I just need a title. Any suggestions?

28 x 22" acrylic on canvas

Till Next Time ...

From the Prairies, to the West Coast and Beyond...

Susan