Art Classes coming up

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It is hard to believe that it is time to register for my fall and winter Art Classes.  Where has the year gone!?! I will be teaching a range of classes that are for beginner students. There are only 6 spaces in each of the classes.  The level 1 classes filled up in a matter of 36 to 48 hours.  Make sure you get registered as early as possible. Registration opens Friday September 1st at 12:01am.  (Yes I will be up at that time getting all the links prepared to go live)

For dates, times and more information head over to my website by clicking HERE

Below are some of the classes from last year. 🙂  And to read what some of my students testimonials click HERE

Watercolour 1 & Acrylic 1

Acrylic 1 in the fall

Drawing 1

Drawing 2

Acrylic 2

Watercolour 2

Open Studio Advance Classes for Acrylic

I hope you will join me this winter to begin to explore your more creative side!  See you soon.

ARTIST of the MONTH at NACC!

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I have been really busy painting in preparation for my show at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre for the month of April.  Ian and I hung the show yesterday…no photos taken!    I have to say I am pretty pleased with how it looks.  I tried to leave space for the viewer to really get to look without being overwhelmed.  There are some older pieces and there are 10 brand new pieces both in watercolour and acrylic.

I continue to explore beautiful flowers and the new, never before seen acrylics are of birds!  🙂  

Claim the Sky 2, 12x12in, Acrylic

I hope you will stop by for the Opening Reception on Friday April 7 from 6 to 7:30 pm at NACC!  See you there.

This week I am teaching!

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This past few weeks have been very full with teaching.  I have completed 2 of the three foundation classes: Acrylic 1 and Watercolour 1.  This weekend I complete the last foundation class Drawing 1.  I am finding that the teaching space is far more comfortable!

I have mentioned that our house has experienced the death/rebirth cycle!   We are finally feeling settled in our space. There are still boxes that need to be gone through,  one box that seems to have disappeared…but for the most part we are settled. What a long time it takes to get this all done.

new photo of the room set up for the class.

In other news I finally got my video done for my Luminous World Art Show.  I took a series of videos just hours before the Opening happened on October 28, 2016 but when I went to process them my old computer wasn’t being at all cooperative.  Now that I have a new computer I was finally able to do the work to get the video together and up on YouTube.  Check it out!

Thanks for dropping by!  See you soon.

Luminous World with 60 paintings in 60 days

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So I have been working on a video to attach to this blog post, but my computer is 6 yrs old and has decided to be decrepit and ancient…there sadly won’t be a video until I get a new computer.  Soon (I hope).  The photo above is the first sale I had on Friday, which went to  Russell who came into the house to fix something and he also checked out the art.  He stood in front of this painting (photo below) and chuckled.  I loved his response because that is exactly how I felt while I was painting this Ice Road Batman!  It made me very happy.

My 4th annual Art Show and Sale  called “‘Luminous World’ with 60 paintings in 60 Days” is complete!  And it was amazing to see all the work I had been doing for the past 10 months up on the wall.  The new hanging system worked rather well.  As you can see in the photo below:

Each of these little paintings were done in a day (if I was lucky, most took 1 1/2 days  andsome took 2 full days) and I put them in a binder in protect plastic pages.  I continued to add to this binder until I had 60 paintings.  It is funny how 60 paintings don’t look like that much when they are in the binder, but as soon as they are framed and hanging.  Wow that is a lot of work! 🙂

 

I still have some 2017 calendars for sale.  If you want one you can order one here on my website. There are 4 different shipping options to choose from.  I had one person order one for Yellowknife, one for Canada, and one for International…they were all shipped and delivered to the various places!  🙂

Here are a few more photos of the “Evening with the Artist” event!

Thank you for checking in on me.  There has been a lot going on and so my time for blogging disappeared.  But I  have it back and will start slowly.  See you next Thursday.  Have a great week.

Thursday – How I paint a Donut Video

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“Afternoon Delight”, 8×10 inches, Watercolour

Well this weeks video is now live!

Head on over and subscribe to my YouTube Station!

I think I will be back to painting tonight…well maybe…could be a possibility…

I am trying to figure out my new routine now that I have added videos as well.  I have to figure out the time it takes to edit, narrate and so forth.  This is #3 so next week I think I shall actually time the whole process.  That will give me a better sense of things.

I plan to attempt to do a painting about the amazing thunderstorm we had on Monday night!  Thunderstorms are not common even in the summer, so to have one in April is highly unusual.  If you want to see a video and read more about it head over to CBC by clicking here!

Well I will see you after the weekend.  Thanks for dropping by.

Sometimes…

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…You just have to tear it up and start another painting.

I have been struggling with this painting and this afternoon I thought “Enough!”.  So I cut the painting off the board and did what I needed to do!  🙂  What a sense of relief it is when you let go of what isn’t working.  Maybe I needed more thinking time so that I could come up with a better way of approaching it. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of “thinking” time right now.  I am 16 painting days away from having to get ready for my show.

I stretched a couple more 16×20 papers so that I can do some smaller pieces.  I drew out one flower and another one is in drawing process for the smaller paintings.  And I am working on a background of a larger piece…never a dull moment in my life.

My frames arrived today!  So now i can order the glass or plexiglass for the larger paintings.  🙂 That is a tomorrow job.

It is coming together.  Slowly but surely.  See you next week sometime. Have a great weekend.

Thursdays ramble

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Well I have been painting, painting and painting.  I finished a large watercolour piece today…well mostly finished.  I will wait for a few days so that when I  look at it with new and rested eyes, which will help me to see what is not quite right.  

As I am preparing for my show I thought I would test out teaching a class at this time of the year.  The jury is out to whether I will do this again. I will see how it is afterwards.  I have 37 painting days left until my show.  I am starting to feel a bit panicky when I think about leaving my studio do to other stuff.  So I am now in shut down mode.  🙂

I finished a small painting today as I will be having a small display of 6×6 and 5×7 acrylic paintings at ‘Moments of Beauty’. These paintings will cover a range of themes.  Anything that interesting to me!  You never know what that will be. 🙂

‘Seagull 1’, 6×6, acrylic

I remembered my camera when I went for a walk in the spring and caught a great photo of seagulls standing in a wee puddle on the ice on Frame Lake.  Here is 1 of 2 paintings that fit together.

See you on Monday. I hope to have more completed paintings to share a little snippet of.  Happy Fall!

 

 

Moment of Beauty

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Save the Date!

As of today I have 44 painting days left. My 2016 calendars have arrived. I will be starting to fill out the Invitations for the “invitation only” part of the show.   I finished one of my very first square paintings! I am thrilled with how it looks.  And, I have started on the flower that is 20×30 sized painting the other day.   I am also working on some small acrylics as well.  Lots going on as I prepare for my 3rd Annual Art Show.

Time to hit the sack as my  to-do list is long!  So I best get at it. I will be coming every week to tell you what I have been up to.  Watch for updates.

I am back!

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I am back in Yellowknife after our grand adventures this summer.  The weather is rather cooler than it was in Boston when I left Saturday morning but I am enjoying the lack of humidity.  🙂

Today was a sorting day.  I spent the morning and afternoon sorting out my studio and putting all the stuff – like oil paints and things away.  Then I needed to find places for the new still life items that I found at various antique stores! Oh I can’t wait to play with them in the next few months.

While I was away I took many, many, many photos.  I haven’t had a chance to download them yet…that is a tomorrow job! I hope that I have a number of images to inspire me to paint.

The ultimate goal today was to get back to painting.  Heres the proof that I have started back at it.

I am off back into my studio because I hear the painting calling me! I am back to my regular schedule of posting twice a week. See you on Thursday.

Did you know I do Commissions?

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“Robertson Davies’ Whore”, 14×14 inches, Watercolour, Commission

On Sunday I brought over this painting to the person who commissioned me.  She is one of my biggest supporters and cheerleaders!  I am very pleased to say that the peony painting was very well received.  Nothing better than a very happy client/collector!  That made me smile for a long time afterwards.

Here is a little bit I know about why she named the painting “Robertson Davies’ Whore”.  William Robertson Davies  (August 28, 1913 – December 2, 1995) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada’s best known and most popular authors, and one of its most distinguished “men of letters”, a term Davies is variously said to have gladly accepted for himself and to have detested.

In  his novel “What’s Bred in the Bone” he had a young character become aware of the world

“The little boy nodded at the peony and the peony seemed to nod back. The little boy was neat, clean and pretty. The peony was unchaste, dishevelled as peonies must be, and at the height of its beauty.(…At this point in the text there is something about the flower being a whore) Every hour is filled with such moments, big with significance for someone.”

I hope to have it available at my Show in November so those who are close by can see it in person.

So how do you commission me to do a painting?  You can check out my website under the title of COMMISSIONS.