Art and Technology

I have been tweaking my website and blog lately, trying some new styles and themes.  Technology and the ease of creating your own website (I made mine by just following YouTube videos) can be a great help to artists.  It can also be a large time waster!

I find when I am stuck on a painting or hesitant to ruin a new canvas, I start looking for inspiration on Instagram or on-line, or start doing 'business related' tasks.  Anyhooo... that's what is happening now.  I have a painting I am trying to do in acrylic vs oils and I am unsure about my background - so I am changing themes and styles and working on the blog.  Above is a video recorded in time-lapse mode on the iPad of the drawing portion of my painting.  The process for making these time lapse videos used to be longer and much more challenging - now most phones have a time-lapse button and you can have that sucker on instagram faster than should be allowed.  Ah, tech... I love / hate you.

Night painting

I have wanted to attempt a 'nocturnal' painting and have done a couple of sketches in the past.  This is my first attempt with oil colours.  It's from a photo of my brother, getting the bonfire started for our Christmas sledding and fireworks party.  I think I will attempt a larger scale one this year, maybe squeeze in more of the family.

11 x 14 Oil on Canvas

Another Process Post

the grid and drawing

One of the BEST places to visit on this planet is Haida Gwaii, on Canada's west coast.  It is spectacularly beautiful.  I travelled there with my family a few years ago and we had a wonderful time.  We learned a lot about the Haida people's culture and history, we ate great food, we met friendly people and we took an epic trip on a zodiac boat to one of the culturally significant sites.  I have painted a couple pictures from photos, but I took soooo many photos that I could probably keep painting.  I hope to get back there again some day to do some Plein air painting.

starting in with the oil paints

Nearing completion - picky details will take another couple of days

Winter Update

Winter has arrived and so I attempted some paintings of winter streams recently, as well as tackling some Christmas needle felting.  Also, work is always a bit busier in November / December so I haven't had as many opportunities to paint.  With Christmas around the corner, there will be lots of visiting, merry making and outdoor activity, so I don't foresee too many paintings flying off the easel for a little while.  Hope the Holidays are peaceful and joy-filled for all.  More posts next year!

16x16 Oil on Board

Wool Needle Felted Ornaments - my talented son did the penguin

More wool felting

The start of another creek painting - some more work is required on the shrubbery

NOTE:
About 2 days after my last post, I received an email that the Federation of Canadian Artists would be opening a Chapter in Edmonton, early in the new year, so YEAH my wish for some artist contact has come true.

Memberships to Artist Groups

Being an artist can be a little lonely as you tend to work by yourself most of the time.  Joining an artist group is an option for some.  The different memberships for art groups I belong to are mostly arms length, where I get info and can enter artists calls, but I don't actually get to see other artists unless I attend occasional workshops.  Sometimes I reeeeaaally would like another artists feedback on some problem I am encountering, when a painting is going sideways.

I have been a member of the  Federation of Canadian Artists for a few years now.

"The Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA) is a registered charity founded in 1941 by professional Canadian working artists including Group of Seven luminaries... It has members throughout Canada and Chapters in Alberta and B.C.. The FCA is dedicated to raising artistic standards by stimulating participants to greater heights of knowledge and achievement by offering what is believed to be the first completely artists' sponsored gallery in Canada. Currently the Federation is the only national-level visual arts organization that manages their own full-time art gallery."

A group of us met in the past year to try to get a Chapter started in Edmonton, but do not currently have enough Active members to form one.   So for now I submit my art to the Federation of Canadian Artists main gallery shows in hopes of being juried into one of the shows or competitions.  Finally I managed to get the following painting, The Usual Suspects, accepted into the Active Members Exhibition starting January 7th, 2020 until January 19th, at the Granville Island Gallery in Vancouver, BC.  Hurray!  I can work my way toward being a Signature Member, I just need to get 5 more paintings successfully juried into other shows over the next 4 years.

The other painting I submitted, The Royal, was accepted but just into the on-line show - it will not be on display at the Federation Gallery on Granville Island.  It still counts toward my Signature status though, which is nice.  

In the past the Federation had on-line critiques, done by signature members, but that did not happen this year for some reason.  So I go back to relying on my family for feedback.  They are great, but often too generous or sometimes too vague - they aren't really sure what is wrong, know something is bugging them.

Start to finish

A little blurb on the painting progression for 'The Royal', 20 x 20" oil on canvas.

My photo reference I took, with the hubster, child and dog baby in foreground.  I saturated the colours in my photo editing as much as possible

Toned the canvas with orange acrylic wash

Gridded the canvas and started my drawing (long process!)

Laid in the large areas of sky and mountains - boosted the size of the mountain

Changing a few things along the way - eventually I got rid of the high power lines and the mural as they were distracting my eye  too much

Nearing the finish.  In the completed version I got rid of most of the cars, the mura,l a few power poles, added some power lines where I liked them.

Values vs Colour

Value in a painting, refers to the lights and darks that are used.  Currently, I am working on a piece that I did some plein air painting on this summer, and took several photos of (it is not yet done, as I am just getting to the foreground reeds now).   As you are working away sometimes you know that things aren't 'reading' exactly right, so it is always helpful to get rid of one thing to simplify the process.  So... getting rid of colour by putting your photo in black and white and then taking a photo of your painting in black and white is very useful.  

 NOW... it is easier to see that the background mountains are a little too mid-value when they should be a bit lighter value and probably a bit softer and fuzzier.  The closer trees on the edge of the lake could go a bit darker too.  You can almost paint this in any colours you choose and as long as the values 'read' correctly it can be a very interesting painting.  I think that is what I would like to experiment with next... some crazy hues of colour, within the correct shade of light and dark.  For now I am just attempting to finish this one first!

INKTOBER - Draw it out!

'Ring - yup yup yup - phone'...ah Sesame Street, what would I be without you.

Mindless - Day 2 prompt

It is always a good idea to keep your drawing skills up.  September the life drawing classes start again. October is Inktober 2019  where you follow a prompt (if you like) and draw every day in October.  The first 2 days have been easy - might get more challenging as it goes along!

Art Refreshments

Sometimes it is necessary to take a break from painting and go out and enjoy some fabulous art.  I was lucky enough to tag along on my hubby's work trip to London last week.  We spent our first 2 days in relaxing Bath, UK.  Then it was full on art galleries for 3 days in London.  I managed to get to the Mall Galleries, the Royal Academy of Art, the National Gallery, the Portrait Gallery and the Tate Modern. I think my step count on the ol' fit bit was over 22000 steps most days.  Ah... but it was artsy heaven.  Below are some pics and captions of the trip.

Bath, UK - beautiful city, relaxing spa day!

Looking through the bone sculpture toward Kensington Palace  in Hyde Park

The Mall Galleries had the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition with some cool paintings

A Claude Monet painting at I think the National Gallery

This was a painting by Van Gogh I had never seen before, but loved the colours and movement

Laurits Anderson Ring - Danish Painter - This one reminded me of home

An interesting immersive exhibit by Olafur Eliasson at the Tate Modern

The tower of Babel - tons of radios playing random things

Monet's waterlilies - Tate Modern

A relaxing spot to sketch and rest my feet in Hyde Park

Strathearn Art Walk - Fun in the Sun

Finding some shade!

On Saturday, I  set up my booth at the annual Strathearn Art Walk.  It was a beautiful day, with lots of great artists / vendors and the weather helped draw a record crowd. This was my fourth art fair experience and probably the most successful one.  I had lots of wonderful people stop by and received some very positive feedback.  I managed to sell 3 original paintings, a few prints / cards, 3 potential commissions and made some great connections with other art minded people.  

Thankfully, my wonderful spouse helped me haul and set up / take down everything and gave me a break part way through.  I managed to race around the site to check out other booths - there were approximately 300 of them, so it took me awhile.  I especially enjoyed meeting some of the other artists and seeing their work.  I held a free giveaway draw for one of my prints, which was a good idea, as I now have a potential commission from that.

So my take-aways from this art fair:

1)  WEATHER is probably one of the biggest factors to a successful amount of traffic through your booth.  Not much you can do but come prepared and hope it is nice out!

2) LOCATION - the park was a really nice spot and most booths had great flow through of people.  Mine was right on a walking path, lots of people wandering by, you did not get to choose though.

3)BOOTH SET UP - not too crowded with stuff, lets more people wander through and looks clean.  

I did not bring a lot of extra art, so when I sold my pieces I didn't have much to replace them with - lesson for next time

4) SIGNATURE PIECE - wow, so many people stopped in because of my large central painting of the mountain town - trying to guess where it was.  Excellent way to start a conversation.

5)BE PREPARED - I finally had my Square credit card reader, a proper cash box, wrapping material for sold paintings - lots of business cards.  I seemed professional this time!!  I did run out of drinking water for myself and so did many food vendors, so I was pretty parched by the end.  More water and snacks next time.

I brought my Plein air easel and paints but as it was sooo busy I didn't have time for that.  I still think it is a good idea if it were a bad weather day though.

Check out this link for some good tips I reviewed (afterwards for some reason) Bob's ideas for art shows

Completed Series

Well this is the second painting of the old blue truck, entitled 'Out to Pasture'.  I enjoyed trying to get the rust and I really liked the bright purple peeking through here and there.  I am attempting a quick dry in the sun, so that the painting will not be tacky on Saturday for the Strathearn Art Walk.  It is the second largest art fair in Edmonton, with tons of vendors, music, food trucks, etc.  Hoping the weather holds!

Recent process paintings

I am working on a few paintings inspired by my wandering this summer.  I loved this old truck, sitting out in a field that I have been driving past almost daily.  I finally stopped and took a pile of photos.  I did several sketches from my photos and decided on 2 ‘poses’ that I liked.  Then I gridded it up onto a 12 x 12 canvas and began the painting.  I have a second pose on the go as well, and will try to post it soon. The photos are out of order and not complete as I am posting with my iPad, which seems to be glitchy.  Check out my Instagram post @tessastanleyart to see the proper process.

Step1 get some ideas

After a small sketch - grid up and draw on canvas

Add caption