Village Grocer Calendar

Here is a 12" by 12" acrylic painting that I did to enter the calendar competition. I entered it under the name "Celebrate" but I think I will call it"Cakewalk" here.

ala John Stuart Pryce

I am just about to finish a landscape that I started in November in a workshop with John Pryce. He started with an underpainting in rose, burnt sienna or ochre in white-- a light mid tone and outlined the large background shapes roughly with alarizin and white. John uses retarder for softer edges with acrylics and 2 " brushes from Walmart. He prefers blue paper towel. The scene we worked on had reflections in the water and he showed us how to draw down the rocks and trees into the water. Reflections should be vertical strokes darker and lower in chroma than the rocks and trees. He prefers to work dark to light. He paints the sky last and cuts it into the trees.

Ruth and Nigar

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

Scott Adams, 'The Dilbert Principle'
US cartoonist (1957 - )

I have just returned from another two day abstract workshop with Kirstin Bojanowski of Newmarket. My perfectionism got in the way of being playful and creative. I got stuck on the parts of my work which I felt weren't working. I need to lighten up because by the time I got home I quite liked both pieces. They just need a little tweaking here and there. Workshops should be for experiencing a new techinque and the sheer enjoyment of your creative process. Here are a couple of pictures of my dear friends Nigar and Ruth, each one holding her first work from Saturday.

And now for something completely different....

'Aurora Borealis' done by a technique called "staining" at Haliburton School of the Arts.

Whispering Birch

This one I am very pleased with. I was able to get into two juried shows with this painting and so I chose it for my business cards.