Building Art Edmonton Day, April 26, 2018

 Lately the posts have been few and far between.  I have been working on 2 commissioned paintings for Alair Homes to celebrate April 26, 2018 which is Building Art Edmonton day.  Thanks to Natalie Harper, from Harper PR for including me, I have had much fun painting these 2 pieces - which I will post next week after the celebrations.

Work at the Art Gallery of St Albert has been pretty busy this spring, too.  The kiddos in the art classes are feeling full of spring cheer - FINALLY the snow is melting and we are all thrilled to see the sun!!

Small portion of a 16x20 acrylic on black gessoed canvas

Busy... Busy...Busy

Yike, it has been too long since posting.  However I have many good reasons almost all art related.  

- I went and got all my paintings framed that I am putting in my graduation show.  THANK YOU TO Kamena Art and Framing for their awesome service.  They manage to do a great job and help me out when I am in a time crunch too.  My graduation show is occurring in May to June, I will post more on that in May.

 - I started a sketch in watercolour for aFederation of Canadian Artists signature submission, with the hopes of getting accepted.  I need 7 accepted paintings to gain Signature status one day.  So far I have had 2 rejections for other shows, so I gotta step it up a notch!!

 - I have been commissioned to do 2 paintings for an event that will be happening at the Art Gallery of Alberta sometime in May I believe.  Exciting!! I will show those here after the event happens.

-We had a wonderful Easter / Spring break and went to ski and visit the Family for a few days.  It was great.  I started to question my snowboarding skills on one of the icier days and suddenly realized my snowboard is about 20 years old now.  So now I am blaming my issues on the age of my snowboard not the age of my body!  New snowboard next season!!

- I began a painting today to thank my Bro and his family for always hosting us when we go skiing / boarding.  Pictures below of the start of my process.  Full size sketch on brown paper, then I cover it with chalk and trace my sketch onto a black gessoed canvas.  Then I will paint!  I will post that later too.

Whew... I forgot to mention work always get busier this time of year teaching art for the Art Gallery of St Albert, so there is that too.  Feels good to be busy though, love it!

Folky style

When I use acrylics I tend to like the bright colours and am drawn to making them a bit more 'fun' and folk style.  I am attempting a series of iconic things to be found in Edmonton in acrylic paint.  This painting is of the Princess Theatre, I went on my first date with my hubby here.  Also included is the guitar playing, rollerblading, buff dude that can be seen on Whyte avenue in the summer time.  He whips by with hardly a care, makes me smile every time I see him.

Acrylic on canvas - 14x16

What is art?

Starting to add some colour

As an 'emerging' artist I am always interested in learning new things and trying to improve my art.  I was looking up a residency program in Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan when I came across the following:

"Have you always wanted the intensity of a day or 2 (or 3) in a large earthen hole with one other person?

In the Hole is a short-term residency located in an earthen hole on Treaty 6 territory in rural Saskatchewan, Canada. Each resident will spend 6 hours each day in this hole as a participant in this residency. Residents can come for one day up to a maximum of 3 consecutive days. There will be one person at a time at the Residency.Have you always wanted the intensity of a day or 2 (or 3) in a large earthen hole with one other person?"

You can check it out yourself by clicking residency in a hole.  I admit I did laugh, thinking that this was a joke and I pictured a camera being set up to take pictures of whatever unsuspecting sucker came along who actually took it seriously.  Trying not to judge.

Anyhow..back to the ongoing struggle.  I am working on the larger version now of my smaller study of Cypress Hills.  Trying to use lots more paint and make it more 'impressionist' in style.  I found the beautiful paintings of Erin Hanson to inspire me.  We shall see if this larger one turns out.

What's up with that?

I often feel like I never get enough time to paint. I still prioritize other things like housework, community commitments, etc before art.  I think because art doesn't feel like work, I feel guilty working on it when there are 'other' things that need doing.  However every good practising artist I have met says you have to treat it like a job - 9 - 5:00 pm and paint if you want to actually get serious about it.  I am hoping to take that advice and get serious.

Since my last post, I have kept busy on lots of projects. As a board member of our community league I planned and helped carry out a Canada 150 celebration - 500 people showed up and it was almost a full time job in the week or two leading up to it.  I also created a couple of giant puzzles for Art in our Park and ran an interactive painting project for the crowds.  That was fun and went really well too.  Here are the puzzles, one was after Lemoine Fitzgerald's The Harvester and the other after Emily Carr's Haida Totems:

Fitzgerald - The Harvester

Emily Carr - Haida Totems

I am also taking a Figure Drawing night class.  Below is my attempt at a self portrait.  I can't post much else from this class as it is mostly nude figures we are sketching.  Figure drawing REALLY helps improve the ol' drawing skills.

self portrait - sketch on paper

The proof is the proof

Proof 6x9 Oil

He has been working hard to show his proof.

The actual quote "A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." Jean Chretien.

Today too busy for clever portraits of Prime Ministers.  Instead it is a quick painting of bannock.  Sticking to painting Canadian themed things - bannock to me is very homey. Most Sunday's after church we would head over to my Granny's for her homemade bannock with delicious homemade jam.  I cooked up this bannock and slapped on some saskatoon jam, snapped a photo and then before eating realized the jam was from 2013.  Yike.

Bannock with Saskatoon Jam
6x8 oil on gesso paper

There are those who argue that Fry Bread is bannock.  To me they are 2 different things but equally delicious in their own way.  Fry bread is like a donut for dessert, bannock is breakfast.  I have included recipes for both so you decide.  The bannock is my great-great grandmother's recipe and the Fry Bread is from some Metis sisters in Saskatchewan who shared it with me.

Justin Beaver #3

Justin Beaver
8x11 oil on black gessoed paper

HA!  Art can be fun.  Today I enjoyed attempting to paint our current Prime Minister, the beaver was fun and much easier to paint.  I spent a lot of time working on JT, his likeness was a challenge cause he is gosh darn photogenic and his face is plastered everywhere, so it's got to be right.  Oh well, I have completed 3 Canada themed paintings so far only 147 to go.  I already know what is coming next!! Stay tuned...

Oil and Acrylic don't Mix you Hoser!

I suddenly realized last night, that in order to paint 150 Canadian paintings, I have to do at least 1 painting every 2 days (1.7 days to be exact).  I guess I didn't think that through very well, but I will give it a try.  Anyhooo... below is the start of painting #2.  It is John A Macdonald with Doug Mackenzie style toque and a beer in hand (when its all done).

John Eh Macdonald - the Original Canadian Hoser
8.5 x 11 oil on black gesso paper

This painting is just 8 x 11 ish and was supposed to be a quick acrylic for fun.  Unfortunately I learned a lesson today - I had all my oil paints from yesterdays work, on the same table beside my acrylics.  Accidentally grabbed the green oil paint and wondered what was wrong with it when it wouldn't mix in with yellow properly.  Since you can't layer acrylic on top of oils, it is now going to be an oil painting.  What was going to be 1 hour will now probably be about 4, cause I am repainting everything, plus I am kind of enjoying this painting and decide I want to keep him around.

Canada 150

'Build the Habit of Art Production'

In the book I am reading 'My Real Job is Being an Artist', de Wal recommends building an art habit.  Popular belief is that if you do something daily for 3 weeks, it will become a habit.  No matter what  is happening you must spend time daily creating some art if you want to get 'good enough'.   I am not great at this, life happens, so I am going to make a concerted effort this year to put in some more hours.  So, my challenge to myself is to create 150 paintings and or pottery pieces with Canadian themes for Canada 150.  Our big national celebration is this year and I am jumping on the bandwagon with artists such as TimothyWilson Hoey and Carla Perkins among others, and choosing Canada related themes to paint.  Also check out Canada 150 Projects for other interesting projects happening this year.

Here is the official start of painting #1 - this is just the underpainting, which is the base to establish values,

before I tackle the oil painting on top of this. Hope to get it done sometime this week.

Underpainting of a bridge in Jasper, AB

the photo by my son

A 'Real' Artist

In my constant struggle to become a serious 'real artist' I try to find books to help me learn how to do this.   Aletta de Wal's book, My Real Job is Being an Artist, is probably the best book I have found yet and I am attempting to work through the strategies she recommends and get SERIOUS.

One of the first things I need to address is producing more art in order to develop a signature style.  I spent a couple of hours today 'getting my creative space organized', which de Wal recommends you do right away.  I know this is very important for me - as I find if there is too much clutter or mess going on I just can't seem to get focused - Clear Space, Clear Mind.  The picture below is my art space and home office.  I also committed to doing some art today, so I sketched a fish while eating breakfast to get me off on the right foot.  I plan to tackle some painting this evening, too.

Back to the blog

And so it begins...again.  I have been busy, working since September, teaching outreach art classes in elementary schools for the Art Gallery of St. Albert.  They have tons of great classes for kids and adults, check it out by clicking here.  I have also been working on some paintings and some pottery when I have time.  Below are some of my attempts at both.

Nyhavn
Completed painting 48x20 acrylic on canvas

Small soya sauce pot for your sushi set

 

My pre-fired 'chicken bowl'.  This is a batter bowl, taken from the pages of a ceramic artist magazine, it reminded me of a chicken so I decorated it appropriately

The inside.  Unfortunately, as I am new to this gig, I used a yellow underglaze on red clay.  It looked good enough when it was in the greenware phase, but when I did the final glaze and firing the yellow almost disappeared and the bowl came out a sickly greenish red tinge.  Back to the drawing board!!

Oil painting started from a photo I took on the Skyline trail in Jasper Alberta (below).  Still working on it as I am trying to make it less blah and pop in some bright colours here and there.

In order to update my son's room he chose a graphic of a skier and I made it into a large mural for his wall.