Just recently, I taught a two-day workshop on taking your painting to the next level.  I had a great group of participants and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

This workshop was targeted to painters who have become comfortable doing what they do but who would like to take their art a bit further.  In my experience, this generally requires more focus on design and composition and being pickier about what you choose to paint. You want to choose something that you are excited about.  The passion will show.
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On the first day, we discussed composition and looked at some tools to explore the subject more completely before starting a painting.  I am talking about thumbnails, value studies and notans. I had some reference photos handy on my computer, picked one that struck me in the moment and created the following thumbnail as a demonstration of picking about 4 values and blocking in shapes in those values.

Choosing a good format (what size and proportion of canvas) figured extensively into the discussion.  Multiple thumbnails allow you to experiment with different proportioned sizes and to choose the one that works best.
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Later, we took a promising thumbnail and did a notan (just black and white) to simplify the design even further and to see if any issues needed to be addressed. The top notan was a bit busy and was too even (50% white and 50% black). The lower notan assumed a high key painting (over all lighter) and gave me a more interesting design.

When getting organized for the workshop, I had planned to use a different reference for a painting demonstration but I was not excited about it.  As the day wore on, I became even less excited about it.  A value study demonstration really showed the weaknesses of the reference. But the reference, thumbnail and notan that I had done as demos that morning did grab my interest. So, on the spur of the moment, I decided to go with that as my demo painting.
​
The demo painting went well.  I did a quick underpainting on day 1 and on day 2, demonstrated how to correct value issues and also various painting techniques.  Here is the painting (finished after the end of the workshop):

​Once I finished the painting, I was curious to see if my painting reflected the composition I had worked out in the thumbnail and notan.  I used Photoshop Elements to change my finished painting into 4 values and 2 values:

This painting may or may not be an award winner but I think it is a very solid effort.  And it clearly demonstrates the connection between good planning and good painting!
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Happy painting!

November 26th I will be doing two presentations at OPUS Kelowna on Mastering Perspective in Your Landscape Painting. I will also be doing this presentation at OPUS Victoria in March and at OPUS North Vancouver and OPUS Langley in April.

Here is a copy of the PowerPoint presentation I will be giving (fully annotated!).  Saves taking all those notes! Enjoy!

So this is the painting that started life as three separate demos.  The topic was Negative Painting for Positive Results and I used this tree as the subject for several of the demos.

When fellow artist Carney Oudendag brought some of her paintings to my studio to be photographed, she suggested that I could combine these three into one large painting.

I was delighted with the idea because I didn't feel that any one of them stood up as individual paintings.  Together, they make one great tree!

It took me some time to complete the triptych as other things kept getting in the way but I am very happy with the way this turned out.

Thanks again, Carney, for the Best Idea I Never Had!

So, this is the story of the best idea I never had!

A couple of days ago, fellow artist Carney Oudendag brought some of her paintings to my studio to be photographed.  I met Carney at last year’s Lake Country Art Walk in one of those 15-minute Paint Off’s. As I was processing her images on my computer, we were chatting about this year’s upcoming Art Walk and about doing demos for OPUS and other art organizations. I mentioned that I had a stack of unfinished demo paintings.

While she was waiting for me to finish, Carney started to look through my stack of rejects.  “These are really quite good – for demo paintings” she says in a bright cheery voice.  While I was trying to figure out how to process that, she brings three out. They are each pretty much of the same section of the same tree.

I quite like these three but felt they didn’t stand up as individual paintings.  When I demo, I like to have the same image in different stages of development so I can demonstrate a wider range of techniques but individually – I didn’t know if they are all that interesting.

Then Carney did an amazing thing! 

She stacked up the three paintings one above the other and declared “look, a triptych!”

As you are likely aware, Opus has a great program called "Visiting Artist Demos" where they bring in artists like myself to do a presentation and demonstration of various topics.  I enjoy attending these demos - I love to watch people paint!

I have participated in the Opus Kelowna program and am now pleased to be taking my "show" on the road.  I will be doing presentations and demos of "Negative Painting for Positive Results" at the following Opus locations:

Opus Victoria - Saturday, March 25th 11:30 - 1:30 and 2:30 - 4:30

Opus Langley - Saturday, April 22nd  10:30 - 12:30 and 2:00 - 4:00

Opus North Vancouver - Sunday, April 23rd   11:00 - 1:00

Opus Granville Island - Saturday, July 29th 11:00 am - 12:30 pm and 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

If you are interested in attending, call the Opus location to reserve a spot.  Below are the slide presentation and supply list.

On November 20, I will be doing a Visiting Artist Demonstration at Opus in Kelowna.  I am really looking forward to this as it is on one of my favourite topics.

 Negative Painting for Positive Results
Positive Painting:

• The leaves of the bushes in the foreground.
• Painted over top the background.

Negative Painting:

• The trees in the background
• Green underpainting
• The ocean was painted negatively to make the individual trees stand out.

Unfortunately, both demonstrations are full.  If you didn't get a chance to register, or if you saw a demo and would like a copy of the presentation or the list of products I talked about, here you go:​

​Art Walk 2016 was a huge success!  Thank you to Sharon McCoubrey and her team of volunteers who put on such an amazing show every year.

This year I got to participate in one of the Paint Off events which provide 3 artists with 15 minutes to create a painting from a still life display of train related items.  The paint was really flying! Lucky members of the audience get to walk away with a masterpiece!  This is my painting from this year.
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My booth was in the Memorial Hall this year.  It is considerably quieter than the Large Gym and with a smaller number of artists, there was a nice sense of camaraderie. I made some new friends!

For those of you that didn't make it to the show, here is what my display looked like.
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I was thrilled this year, to have 5 of my paintings selected for the Calgary Stampede Western Showcase Art Gallery!

Two acrylics and three Ink Resist paintings will be on display at the Art Gallery from July 8 to July 17.  If you are attending the Stampede, please drop by and take a look.

I attended the Stir'Up event on July 6 which is an invitation only preview of all the art.  What a show!

Having been a Monty Python fan in years gone by, this phrase was the first to come to mind when I decided to write a blog about my most recent exploration.  The work produced couldn’t be more “completely different” than the work that came before it and yet, somehow, it is still completely “me”.

Last October, I attended a workshop with Suzanne Northcott.  I wanted to explore different ways of applying paint.  I learned so much from Suzanne during the workshop; I reread my notes at least once a month.

After the workshop, I set out to explore transparent paint application and produced a couple of landscapes I was pleased with.  One of them “The Clan” has been accepted along with 4 other paintings into the Calgary Stampede Western Showcase Art Show. Click here to see the blog on the creative process behind "The Clan".

​Thinking about what kind of subjects would be interesting to explore with transparent paint, water came to mind.  I have some photo references of spawning Kokanee salmon so decided to give those a try.
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My first Salmon painting was a bit of a fight between chroma and value.  I would glaze to increase chroma but that would darken the area.  Using veils to lighten the area lost the chroma.  I resolved the painting to a reasonable compromise. I discovered that molding paste is highly absorbent – when paint is applied over top, no matter how thinly, it absorbs enough that the area goes dark.

I started another Salmon painting with more limited use of molding paste.  I put thin washes of mostly fluid and high flow acrylics (Opus Fluid Paynes Gray and Opus Fluid Yellow Ochre).  You can really see the difference of where the molding paste is.

​I built the painting up with washes of fluid acrylics.  When an area got too dark or too busy, I used white applied with one of the Catalyst tools (like a spatula) to lighten it up or quiet it down.  I was very pleased with the result.

I decided to continue to pursue this subject matter and process to see where it leads. This time I started from scratch - no photo reference. I did a couple of sketches and pulled out a couple of large canvases. I played with some of my fluid acrylics to come up with a colour scheme (Golden Fluid Transparent Red Iron Oxide, Opus Fluid Phthalo Turquoise and Winsor Newton Alizarin Crimson and Naphthol Red for the salmon).
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Again, I started with molding paste and then applied the fluid acrylics thinly in shapes that suggested rocks below the surface of the water.  I added large stokes of white applied with the Catalyst tool to suggest the movement of the water and reflections. The final results are semi-abstract: there are fish in there but the rocks and water are not painted as much as felt.

​I am very pleased with these two paintings and am imagining other subjects that could be suggested in a similar way. Stay tuned!

I find as I progress along the journey of making art, my creative process undergoes changes as I absorb information, attend shows and participate in workshops.  I find it useful to periodically record how I went about creating a particular painting. Here is the story about how I created "The Clan", a 36" x 18" acrylic on canvas that I just completed.

Concept
I saw this group of trees while Bill and I were out getting firewood.  I sketched a similar group that was across the road while we were there and took numerous photo references.  I worked out the concept on a thumbnail sketch and decided to make more transitions in the background to avoid a line going across the middle of the canvas. I decided to go with a format of 36 by 18 to really emphasize the tall thin nature of the trees.

Beginnings
I put on an underpainting of reasonably thick paint (not just a diluted stain) so that any areas that did not need further coats would have a reasonable quality of surface.  I put on the underpainting in sections so that I could spray, scrape and move the paint around to get some texture.  As I was developing the image, a strong diagonal from upper left towards the lower right appeared.  I left this and accentuated it in later layers.  I painted two gradations for the background hills to provide atmosphere and depth and another two for the middle and foreground trees.

Then I painted in the trunks of the trees paying attention to the spacing of the trunks and the thickness, working on maintaining variation.  I also referred to the reference photos and picked up interesting twists and turns in the trunks.

Middles
I started to work around the painting, adding some transparent and translucent layers to the foliage and to the background.  I worked in sections so that I had the time to spray, wipe, scrape, etc to soften transitions and develop texture that suggested the subject matter. I painted in the dark green of the fir trees on the sides but the contrast was too harsh so I sprayed with water and wiped a bit to soften it.  That worked very well to push them behind the aspens.

I also worked on the light on the trunks, painting the darker middle, a duller, reflected light on the right sides and a brighter, direct light on the left.  I started to suggest more branches.
At some point I took some very diluted sky colour and splattered it around the painting.  Later I glazed over some of the splatters to muted them without losing them.

I added some texture to the foreground using paint mixed with gel medium and applying it with a painting knife. When that was dry, I dry brushed colour over it to give the suggestion of grasses and brush.

Endings
After evaluating it for a while, I decided that the value of the trunks and the background were too close so I lightened the trunks and reworked the direct and reflected light. There was a nice diagonal happening with the twists of the trunks so I hit them with some extra light in key places.

I repainted the top right corner sky.  It was too light and too busy so I went with an ultramarine blue thickened with some gel.  The colour was a beautiful complement to the foliage’s yellows and oranges. I painted a limited number of sky holes and ratty edges to the foliage, trying to repress my urge to play with the patterns too much.  I also applied some transparent stains of purple and green in parts of the foliage to give a sense of the light coming from the left.

I used the Fineline nibs and some of the High Flow Acrylics to add fine branches to the trees.  Some of the lines, I modified with a small brush to widen and merge with the trunks.
The last thing I did was modify the foliage that was on the left coming down into the foreground and I added some dots here and there of leaves.

So on my last post, I tackled a spring painting with a different palette than I have been using.  I added some new colours to my palette (mainly in the yellow and red family) and purposely left out some of my “go-to” colours.  I showed you the reference photo and my initial underpainting.

So here is an update.  Welcome to the scary stage.

Did you think “established” painters don’t go through the scary stage?  Well, lots of them do, including me – on a regular basis.  Especially those that are willing to step outside their comfort zone or try something new. I have enough experience now to just push through it.

Here is where I am at now:







I encountered the following six steps in the creative process online somewhere:

1. This is awesome!
   
2. This is tricky
   
3. This is s**t
   
4. I am s**t
   
5. This might be OK
   
6. This is awesome!
   

I regularly go through this cycle.  In my current painting, I was at step 3 yesterday.  Please forgive me for waiting until I got to step 5 before writing the second installment!

Here was my painting at Step3:

It was just about two months ago that I put away my acrylic sta-wet palette.  I had been painting fall trees and even snow scenes all winter with lots of yellow ochre, quinacridone gold, burnt sienna and sap green.

Since then, my husband and I travelled to The Pas, Manitoba where we fished for over a month at Cormorant Lake.  I got to experience spring all over again as spring in BC had been very early and was all done by the time we left.  The colours in Northern Manitoba this year were very vivid due to the clear air and sunny skies.  I painted various parts of Cormorant Lake and Frog Creek in watercolours in vivid yellow greens and the crimsons of the red willows.

Now that I am back in my studio in Kelowna, I want to hold on to those colours of spring for just a little longer.  I selected a photo reference I had taken in April of the pond behind the Father Pandosy Mission and got a 24” x 24” canvas ready.

But when I went to lay out my paints on a nice fresh palette, I realized that my “go to” favourites just weren’t going to work for what I had envisioned.  I paused, pulled out my pastels and played around with some spring colours to get some ideas.  Then I squeezed paint out on my palette, using several tubes that have been unopened for some time (a pair of nutcrackers were required to get the caps off) and leaving some of my standard colours in the paint box:

• Azo Yellow Medium
  
• Cadmium Yellow Medium
  
• Quinacridone Burnt Orange
  
• Quinacridone Magenta
  
• Indanthrene Blue
  

Plus some of my standards:

• Burnt Sienna
  
• Dioxazine Purple
  
• Cobalt Blue
  
• Ultramarine Blue
  
• Green Gold
  

For the underpainting I wanted to keep the colours light – more of a stain, really and to get a sense of that burst of new growth.  It will take me a couple of weeks to finish the painting.  I will write another post when I am done!

When I first heard that the Federation of Canadian Artists was holding its first ever Digital Exhibition (for works created digitally), I thought that would be perfect fit for my technical side and my creative side.  A creative spark was born!

I made several attempts to create something with Photoshop, a program I use extensively to crop, combine and alter photographs prior to painting them.  But the attempts I made to create an image by selectively cropping and combining photos fell flat and the painting tools just didn’t work for me. The creative spark dwindled to a small ember.  The deadline was looming and I wasn’t getting anywhere.

But the idea stuck with me and I spend some surfing time browsing software that would allow you to paint directly on the computer.  I found a program I liked called ArtRage and downloaded the demo.  Over the next week or so, I played with the demo, experimenting with the various tools and figuring out how to get the colours I wanted out of the colour picker (where is Burnt Sienna anyway?).

Then I got some news that fanned the small ember back into a spark!  The deadline for the show had been extended! I purchased ArtRage and got to work. A day and a half later, I had my first digital painting.

I submitted the finished image to the show and was accepted.  Success!  But wait – that meant I had to get it printed and mounted on canvas.  Got that done and sent the painting in to the FCA Gallery on Granville Island in Vancouver.

I was very pleased just to have met the challenge and combined my computer skills with my artistic side.  So you can imagine how pleased I was to hear that my effort won an Award of Excellence in the show!

Thanks to the FCA for recognizing this new medium and holding a show to display what can be done with it. 

The Kelowna Painters Studio Society, a group of twelve local artists is pleased to present the 3rd Annual

"Art in the Garden" 

This show and sale of original art work by members will be held rain or shine.  Please join us for wine and cheese and leisurely stroll though the art filled orchards and gardens.


Date: Saturday, August 9th
Time: 10:00 am to 4:00 pm
Location: Pleasant Pear Orchard, 
2379 Rojem Road, Kelowna.  

Click here for map.

A portion of all sales will be donated to the Kelowna Food Bank.

I hope you can attend and look forward to showing you my latest work!.

For the last year, I have been investigating a different method of creating an image.

It is called Ink Resist and it makes you paint the image in the opposite way from normal.

After creating a drawing on a heavy duty piece of watercolour paper, I mask out what ever parts of the image that I don't want to become black. I use white gouache to do the masking.  Then I flood the whole image with india ink.  Once that has dried, I take it to the kitchen sink and wash it off.  The gouache lifts, taking the india ink in those areas off.

The resulting image is somewhat unpredictable and has an interesting graphic nature similar to print making.  I then complete the image using watercolour.

I find I am enjoying the risky process. To finish off, I mount the watercolour paper on a cradled panel.

Here is a more detailed description of the process:

I will be participating in a new art show that will hopefully become an annual fixture in the Okanagan. It runs the weekend of April 26th and 27th, Saturday, 11-5 and Sunday 11-4 at Mount Boucherie Secondary School, West Kelowna. 

This will be the First Annual Okanagan Rotary Art Show.  It is being organized by the Rotary Club of Westbank and Mount Boucherie Interact Club.  Proceeds from the sale go to Hope Outreach in Kelowna to help homeless youth and Shelterbox Canada a Rotary supported charity that helps those caught in World Disasters.

I will have quite a number of paintings on display including new and older work.  I hope you can drop by the show and have a chat!

There is a great art event coming up in Kelowna on May 10th.  It is presented by the Central Okanagan Chapter of the Federation of Canadian Artists.  

The event includes an juried Art Show in the Galleria of the Rotary Centre for the Arts running from May 1 to May 31. An Inspirational Symposium will be held on May 10th.

Symposium Itinerary: 

Morning Session - Guest Artists presentations followed by a panel style discussion with questions from the audience. 

• Rick McDiarmid, SFCA, NWWS (www.paintedlightart.com). Topic:  “Transitions” - a presentation 
• blending my personal journey with some thoughts on the changing dynamics of art production, art distribution and art appreciation. 
• Suzanne Northcott, SFCA (www.suzannenorthcott.ca). Topic: Finding your own creative voice. 
• David Langevin, SFCA (www.davidlangevin.com). Topic: Success in the art market, it ain't a
  bout the art. 

Noon - Award presentations for the Art Show. 

Afternoon Session - Guest Artists will demonstrate their work in separate sessions. Dennis Weber, SFCA, will host an open critique for Symposium attendees  who wish to bring in a painting.

This event is an excellent opportunity to interact with see how these professional artists create their paintings. I would highly recommend it to artists and art lovers alike.

Tickets: $25 each,available at the RCA Box Office at 421 Cawston Avenue, Kelowna, by phone 250-717-5304 or on-line at www.selectyourtickets.com (Recommended to anyone with an interest in the Visual Arts).

For more information, visit: 
http://centralokanaganfca.com/shows_exhibitions

Many painters work on several paintings at once.  Oil painters, in particular, will have more than one painting on the go at a time as the drying time of oil is quite slow.  For some reason, I tend to work on one painting at a time, starting the next as its predecessor goes through its final evaluation and tweaking.  When I work on more than one painting at a time, I seem to lose focus.  Fortunately I work in acrylic so drying time is not an issue.

Last month I had the pleasure of teaching some workshops here in Kelowna, BC and to be invited to do a demonstration of my underpainting technique to the Thompson Nicola Shuswap Chapter of the Federation of Canadian Artists at their meeting in Chase, BC.  As a result of those demonstrations, I have 4 paintings in various stages of development in my studio.

It took me a while to decide which painting to pick up.  I decided to work on this painting.  I had done the underpainting before going to Chase for the TNSC demo and had developed it during the 2 hour demonstration.

Looking at the painting, I generally like what I see.  In particular, there is an area of blue tones in what could be the middle ground of the painting.  

I don’t remember intentionally creating a middle ground of trees behind and obscured by the foreground trees but I like the colour and the pattern it helps create.  

I want to expand that pattern into the two areas shown above.

After the next painting session, I feel I am starting to get the atmosphere I want and some nice patterns in the background.  However, the very light patches in the trees in the lower left of the painting are distracting and some areas are a bit busy.

After refining it some more and emphasizing the atmosphere of the location (Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island), I think it is done! The name of this painting, “From the Dark Side” is about seeing the light from the dark side of the forest but it could also be a description of how the painting evolved from the dark forest to the light streaming through.

I hope you enjoy it!

This year's theme for the Kelowna Art Gallery's Members Show is "Past to Present" and is explained as:

"What, or who has influenced your art? What was the catalyst for you becoming an artist? Is there an historical work of art that fascinates, or inspires you?"

When I look through my Art History books or browse art images on the web, the paintings that recall being the first to make me want to paint were those of Tom Thomson (his painting, Jack Pine, above).  

I particularly feel moved by his studio pieces, with their strong Art Nouveau influence.  When I look at my more recent work, I can definitely see an echo of his work.

I am not sure, yet, if I will paint a piece for the Kelowna Art Gallery's show but the search into the past has already been a very rewarding one.