30 in 30....day 7

Confession:  This was not painted today.  But recent-ish.  I spent the day putting away Christmas and just didn't get around to pulling out my paints.

This is a very large painting I did early December when I should have probably been doing about a dozen other more pertinent things.  I have wanted to paint a reindeer for about 3 years and never took the time.  I finally decided to be selfish and stubborn and ignore all responsibilities.  This is the result.
My reindeer.  "Waiting for Santa"

The photo quality is poor.  Actually, all my photos are not great.  I've been using my I-phone and our home has a lot of bright, warm walls and generally by the time I'm done painting for the day I have lots of lights turned on so colours are distorted.

I will need to take some time to pull out my good camera and set up on a bright clear day and retake all my images, but particularly this one.  It is sparkly and kind of magical.  This does not do it justice....but here it is anyway, I'd rather post a poor picture than none at all.  When I take on a challenge I generally stick to it, stubborn like that!

See you tomorrow!

  

48 x 24

acrylic on gallery canvas

30 in 30....day 6

Again trying a slightly different style today, I will eventually get back to my tried and true method to painting but I do find it really weird how no matter what I set out to do when experimenting I get completely different results than what I was actually aiming for!  I guess that's a sign that I'm no true expert...or at least not a very good fake!

What I had in mind was that I was going to create a series of seasonal paintings...I've done the same concept before but another style that time too...I was thinking of a painting made almost entirely of circular organic shapes, with extra colours and circles within circles....inspired by the likes of Norval Morrisseau, bright bold colours, very graphic...and so on.

What I ended up with was something very different. Mr. Morrisseau would no doubt NOT be impressed, but in my defence I abandoned that concept almost immediately after beginning.

My head was in the clouds today. I've been thinking of a couple people who've lost those very close to them in the last couple days, considering spirituality, mourning, grief, letting go and such.  So perhaps that's why this ended up looking like it did.   I "think" I like it but I don't consider myself much of a romantic and this looks like that to me.

(I also so hope that heaven is a little more rockin' than this too....assuming I'd be admitted that is...and that this isn't my subconscious giving me a window to the great hereafter!)

Perhaps it ended up like this only because it was my spring version??  A little sticky sweet, perhaps I can make a winter storm next or a really miserable autumn day...more matching to my volatile character!        

I do like the globs of paint, it created a bit of texture which is hard to see in this image but pretty cool when the board is in front of you.  I will continue the series for the remaining 3 seasons and hope when they're all together it looks cool.

12 x 16

acrylic on canvas board

30 in 30....day3

A quick little painting I did for day 3.

Always have fun when I do this kind of out of "my" ordinary style of painting...done from the big, old maple tree in our front yard which I like to think of as our "home" tree.  ;)

6 x 8

acrylic on canvas

30 in 30....day 2

Back again for day 2 of the 30 in 30 painting challenge...

Here is my work for today!

From a photo I snapped while biking with the kids this past autumn (they kept asking why I had to stop so many times to take so many pictures....an occupational hazard I suppose)

'Twas a brilliant afternoon...everything really was this glorious-for real!

I've always been intrigued by the old lane way, the house has been torn down and it is now only used for the fields which surround the yard that was the location of the homestead.  Usually makes me a bit melancholy to see homes fallen and forgotten but with the light the way it was on this particular day I thought it had a festive air.

Wouldn't you love to travel home to this maple lined lane?
 

12 x 12

Acrylic on Canvas

March Break Art

The kids were on March Break a couple weeks back. 
I had also been asked to teach an art class for kids as a fundraiser for the Pontiac Artists' Association which didn't transpire.  Hope is that next year more people will be looking for activities for their children and register.  There is a plethora of super talented instructors in our area who anxiously share their skills with kids one week a year at the Young Artists' Workshop and this was to be an expansion of that.
I was to be the novice teacher and had bought the supplies before the classes got cancelled so half way through the week when we were all going stir crazy I pulled out the canvases and told them "Today is art day...put down the electronics and follow me."  and so they did.
The project I picked was Kid's Silhouette Art.  I found the tutorial online, but the link I used is eluding me completely!
What we did was pretty simple:
-I used a light and traced their outlines for them.
-Set them up at the table with Black Sharpies and told them to draw things that they liked, were about them or important to them within their images.
-I then brought out tempera paints and showed them how to use them like watercolour and fill in their images. (Sam decided he was done slightly before filling it all in...and I decided that was fine...a true reflection of his artistic fortitude at the ripe old age of 6)
-After the paint was dry I pulled out black acrylic and had them paint around the images (mom did that step for Sam)
-All done! 

I've always liked Silhouette art and yet have none.  Although these are pretty flashy and bright, they are really stunning and look incredibly fun in their rooms....and the best part is they say this was the best thing we did over the March Break!  Points for mom!...Gotta love that! ;)

Just Breathing

I don't know about you, but I think for many rural individuals the seasons set the pace of our lives. 

In spring the urgent rush to prepare and plant the fields seems not unlike a long distance race where results are never immediate but the outcome is imminent and the only way to cross that finish line is to invest copious amounts of time moving steadily forward one foot in front of the other and never ever giving up. The list of tasks seem endless and urgent and yet there's a celebratory note in spring because we've just survived the winter, that enthusiasm propels us forward, has us take on things we'd otherwise never make time to do, we are energized and refreshed by the smell of earth as it thaws, the gentle breezes, the warm rain and the reappearance of life, first little bubbles appearing in the earth as it drinks up the melting snow, then tiny blades of strong lime sprouts push through last year's dead, dried grass.  Finally the song birds return home for the season and the land erupts and the season that seemed like it would never quite come is upon us and explodes chaotically all around.  Plants grow so quickly the daily results are measurable and never, ever cease to amaze. 

Then quickly and quietly summer arrives.  She comes in a blast.  One day you are working in the garden, a gentle breeze on your back and the next you are stifled with a wall of heat so thick that it takes your breath and streams of sweat run down your back.  Flowers bud and explode.  One day a garden plant bears a tiny blossom and the next long, crunchy beans, squash or peas appear.  The world becomes a buffet but the work is harder and hot. Still we adapt, the icy waters of spring quickly warm and become our playground, we alternate between basking in summer's hot rays and thick dappled shade to plunging into it's warm refreshing pools.  Summer stifles with her intensity but all too swiftly just when we wonder if we'll ever need the blankets on our beds again or if a breeze will ever ruffle the curtain, if those peepers in the pond will ever stop their incessant night time chatter she gracefully bows out and gives center stage to Fall. 

Autumn comes with a change of clothes from green to yellow.   We welcome his cooler days and are reinvigorated once again to tackle jobs that Summer's heat just couldn't inspire.  We cannot help but pause and marvel at all his splendour, he simply amazes with his riotous brightness from leaves to crops, to the squawking of flocks as they fly over beginning their journey to warmer places but he's a fast one that Fall...in a shaking of his robes the brightly coloured leaves swirl and madly whirl around encircling us with a frosty promise that work will soon slow down.  First, we must hurry, we have things to tidy, harvests to collect, jobs to finish because Winter is waiting.

Sometimes Winter sits impatient on the doorstep and she can be harsh and merciless and we don't want to be caught unprepared.  She blows into every corner sending chill everywhere.  The trees become lifeless statues frozen in her stillness, buried deep inside themselves as they set up a long vigil against her icy madness, swirling blizzards and deep cold.  She is also beautiful this winter, with her long, thick robes  that glimmer on moonlit nights and blind on sunshine days, but for me winter is a time to breathe, regroup and reorganize as the world around lays blanketed thick and white.  A time to rest and plan for the cacophony of spring that is sure to follow.  A time to not wish away but to enjoy and breathe because all too soon the cycle will start again.

Already the days are longer and I know my rest is coming to an end.  I am trying to collect myself, my thoughts, my ideas and organize them in a way that they won't spiral madly out of control at the first sigh of spring.  For now I plan and slowly I will begin again just as the seasons unfold, I guess time will tell exactly what that looks like and what the world has in store for me but for now I chose to simply be and appreciate all this world has to offer us if we only just open our eyes and see! 

Changing Seasons

   

Where's My Purple Paint?

I always lose my purple paint

                                               and I always need it. 

You see, I have a system for sorting my acrylic paints and I guess it needs some tweaking because I never quite know where to put and therefore where to find my purple paint. 

I have a basket that has three sections and so I divide my colours into three categories which makes sense to me for ease of retrieval when I’m in an inspired painting frenzy.

They are few and far between lately therefore I cannot risk a loss of focus!

 

I have a neutral section which houses the browns and a tube of black I’ve had for 20 years.

The warm colours section holds the yellows, oranges and reds.

Finally the cool colours section has a medley of blues and greens.  

I dump my purple anywhere; it does not have a home.

Is it cool and therefore does it go with the blues and greens? 

Or is it warm due to it’s proximity to red and therefore should it get mixed in with those and the yellows? 

Or finally is it neutral? 

Yes, I think that must be it.  In my life purple is most likely a neutral.  I use it everywhere. While I do not have a purple wall anywhere in my home I have tried, my usually very complacent husband put his oar in there and said NO WAY!  He apparently does not agree with me on the “purple is a neutral” train of thought!  Actually neither do I -there’s no way purple would be neutral on a wall!

 So where should it go?  I still do not know.

But for my art… purple is as essential as breathing. 

There is never a painting I do that doesn’t have a lot of it in it.  (Having said that a little purple goes a long way, it is very concentrated, in case you wonder.)   I paint purple cows…I never use black, a left over tip from art school days that  suggests the creation of black from other pigment adds a deeper, richer dimension to the colour on canvas.  Purple creates life, depth, shadow and fullness.  Therefore my cows are purple, my leaves are purple, the skies, the sheep, well just about it all!

On our wedding day many moons ago I remember the minister’s sermon.  She spoke of our small community and the landscape, the hills and valleys and likened the view to the patchwork quilt my mother had sewn as a wedding present.  She included the people that you see every day in passage.  The ones you speak to and the ones that might only get a cautious nod, even a very few you may go to great lengths to avoid.  She said in the incredible view that is our valley home there is richness and depth because of the dark spots, the forests, the deep dark lakes and even the questionable individuals.  Without all these “shadows” our views would be flat, lifeless and shallow.  In my naivety and youth I wondered why she needed to cloud our special day with such moody talk, but realized soon enough she was equating it with a marriage, a relationship and the shadows that would inevitably fall. 

These shadows are my purples.  In almost 16 years of marriage we have experienced many purples.  The really incredible thing about purple is not it in itself but how in spite of it’s somber intensity it does add life and vitality to our world.  Purple has a vibrancy all its own. Purple compliments and makes yellows sunnier, pinks more vital, blues deeper, greens increase in range a million fold.   Without the purple of life, the sorrow as it sometimes is, the injury, the darkness which carries a whole life of its own, there is not a doubt the fun times wouldn’t be as spectacular. Once you walk through the purple and realize that it was the shade that brought cool relief on a sweltering day, the depth that made leaves pop bright against the autumn sky would you really never want to experience it and are you not richer for it?  Would our lives be as sumptuous if the shadows weren’t in them?  I imagine life would be kind of flat. 

I like purple.  I have faith and perseverance to get me through my darkest purples and it illuminates by contrast the wonder that life holds in all its other array of colour and emotion.  I hope that in my art I have used it sufficiently to instill depth and richness which is so very essential in keeping everything from falling flat.

May your purples be bearable.  May you see them for what they bring and what they illuminate.  Tolerate the dark days as the celebrations will be all the sweeter.   Life is short, shadows fall, but it is a wonderful, amazing, awe inspiring trip.  So breathe it all in and enjoy.

Now back to my palette I go…so concludes my ode to purple. 

Don’t even get me started on Green and for the record, I do not have one of those but many, as they are life itself…another rambling for another day!