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

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.