Tag: joy

This month in the Studio~the August Edition

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Hello again and welcome to the late August-ok it’s September edition!! Ok, I almost made it!

Special announcement….if you have started following me on Facebook after reading this blog, especially since my Facebook hack in June 2021, please click on the link on my homepage to follow my active Facebook page and not the old one. I recently discovered that the link was incorrect and fixed it last week. Make sure to unfollow my old account at the same time. Thank you for your attention!

I love August! Warm sunny days while the days slowly grow shorter, granted that this was the rainiest August since 1873..something like that. My birthday is in August as is my annual vacation. I started a new birthday tradition last year, a solo hike around Foley Mountain Conservation area near Westport, Ontario. I had the beach to myself while I sketched, snapped some reference pictures and ate my lunch. It was fantastic! My hike was cut short by ongoing back issues and a very rocky trail but I made the best of it. This year I purchased trekking poles to help me when I hike and they came in very handy! It wasn’t very busy when I was out and about, and I managed some quiet time at Meditation Point.

Painting idea? Possibly

While I was on vacation, I assumed that after a few days rest I’d just start painting again, kinda like turning the tap back on, but my 2 weeks went by and I painted very little. So weird. I knew it was unlike me and it felt weird. In July I signed up for an online art mentoring group that was to start in September. I seriously thought about cancelling, I wasn’t creating anything, nothing was inspiring me. I knew it couldn’t last but I was frustrated. At the end of my two weeks, my sister and I took a trip to an art festival, we made a weekend of it and had a great time. Believe it or not I came home that Sunday afternoon and sketched out 3 new pieces! I can’t describe to you the relief I felt!

Was it the time away? Seeing all of that beautiful art? Seeing some artsy friends? Hanging out with my sister? All the laughing? Who knows.. I’m just happy that I’m painting, I’ve even purchased canvas! I finished 2 of those pieces last week, one I’m super happy with and one I’m undecided about. It’s not bad, it just feels stale to me, like I’ve been stuck on the same outcome over several pieces. I am hoping my online mentoring with help me move thru that.

I am still participating in the free weekly monopalette workshops and one thing I’ve noticed is that I seem to be able to do one or the other, but not both. Either I work my own daily art practice or the workshops, especially over these last few weeks. I can’t seem to find a balance between the two practices but it I’m hoping will come.

One thing I did do on my vacation was sculpt a bear out of clay! Two actually! I’ve had clay here since last fall when I took a sculpting class at my local art store. It has been on my mind to sculpt something but I always pushed it aside. My recurring back issues made it hard for me to sit and my small space made it tight. But one Friday, an hour before my online workshop was to start I had the inspiration to start. It was awesome to get my hands, and my studio, dirty and I finished it a few days later! So in hindsight I wasn’t painty creative but still creative over my holiday.

Big Bear
Once carved, I had to hollow him out and put him back together!

Someone suggested I sculpt my big bear a buddy so he won’t be lonely so using the scraps of clay from the hollowed out big bear I made Little Bear

So much fun!

I have to remember to be kind to myself when I am labelling my time as creatively slow or uncreative. It’s ok to not be going full tilt all the time. Sometimes slowing down and reflecting are key to creativity, or at least my creativity. My art mentoring starts in a few days, I am feeling much more connected to my art practice and I still have a block of clay to use up! Stay tuned and 🎨on!!

This Month in the Studio~June/July

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June got away from me so instead of rushing and sweating out a hurried blog I decided to do a combined update of the goings on in my studio. It’s nearing the end of July now and my holidays are rapidly approaching.

I finally took myself to the National gallery in Ottawa in June during a week off from work. I needed to commune with Lawren Harris and visit Emily Carr’s collection. When I feel creatively low and need inspiration I go and sit with Lawren Harris’ North Shore and just let it refill my sense of awe. I struck up a conversation with a woman who sat on the bench beside me, who came to visit The Group of Seven exhibit as well. It was a lovely few minutes talking about Lawren Harris, travel and art schools, the conversation eventually came around to my own art and she happily asked me for a card! My inner artist was beaming ! Every trip to the gallery always ands with a stop at their excellent gift shop where I bought a book of the Collected Works of Emily Carr. In one of the weekly Monopalette workshops I participate in we discussed and used Emily Carr as inspiration. It rekindled a desire to take a deeper look into her art and her life as an artist living in BC, on Canada’s west coast. When I came home I found a book of her personal journals online so I treated myself and bought it. The book is Called Hundreds and Thousands and what I find really cool is that I can follow her journal with the Collected Works book since they are both chronological. I find it awesome and comforting to read her doubts and fears, not only about her art but about each piece that she creates, her life as an artist, as a woman and the challenges of her time. I feel a kinship with her because she feels the same about seeing Lawren Harris’ works that I experienced as well~”Something has spoken to the very soul of me, wonderful, mighty, not of this world”~

I am still participating in the weekly Monopalette workshops and we wrapped up the spring colours, shell pink, aqua blue and Naples yellow at the end of June. I will admit that most of my creative time is now working in my art journals, doing the assignments and playing around with those colours. One artistic hurdle that happened in June was two of the workshops were on portraits, not my favourite so I procrastinated a bit but eventually completed them. I think I finally found a way to create faces that makes sense to me! Since I started painting, it is my most struggled-filled creative process, so having this new technique that makes sense to my brain is such a relief and it dials down my anxiety around faces. It feels like a huge roadblock has been removed and although I still need to practice its a great feeling to not be totally paralyzed around the subject.

The new colour palette for summer, is pyrrole red, teal and cadmium orange. The first workshop was an “aha, I love this colour” revelation and it was on Canada day!

Compared to 2020 and 2021 I am painting on canvas very little this year. I often wonder if I was so prolific during the height of the pandemic that I exhausted my creative self. I have started and stopped about a dozen pieces and have only completed about the same in 2022, for or me it’s usual. I am however creating more pages in my art journals, discovering a love of collage and still trying to learn watercolors. In my art journals I finally have a place to create the memories from my all travels to Scotland. Not really canvas worthy, I never knew what to do with my desire to create art from those images and memories. Creating those pieces fills me with joy at remembering my adventures and makes me miss Scotland a little bit less.

I keep reminding myself that this art journey of mine is an ongoing evolution and to be patient and kind with my inner artist. I had a sale in June that reminded me of patience, a large painting completed in 2019 found it way to its forever home out of the blue one Saturday afternoon. I call it my “bing-bang-boom” sale; they had been looking at it for some time and that weekend it was time! yayy! Other than the sales from the art show in May, it is my only online sale of this year.

Cedar Moon #5

Maybe there’s a point my inner artist is still trying to learn..don’t judge, just create. I didn’t start making art to sell, it was always an unexpected bonus. When I make art to with the intention of increasing my sales, it lingers and acts like a vacuum to my creative doubt. The sale in June was a piece of a favourite series, Cedar Moon, and when I sat down to paint another, it came out quite easily. In one of my workshops the line “you love what you love” really stood out for me that I turned into “paint what you love” for my creative practice. Lately that has turned out to be red canoes, my Scotland memories and Cedar Moon pieces. I’ll just keep painting and sharing!

Cedar Moon #8 12″x36″ Acrylic on Canvas $450

See you next month! 🎨on!!

The Process

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My previous blog post was a great video about the process of a castle, this wont be anywhere near as fancy or put together but showing the process of my then super secret commission I painted this winter. It was a gift for my nephew from his parents, recapturing a special memory of a father & son canoe trip. This is another glimpse into my creative process.

This was a first for me, my first painting with a human in it! For some, figure drawing or portrait painting comes easy, but it is not my favourite thing to do so I generally avoid it. What scares me about portraits is the symmetry of the face and body; faces in general are no my current strength. Nonetheless I did not hesitate, I said yes pretty quickly.

The scenery was spectacular so I had no reservations about capturing the mountains or the water. His easy, releaxed, taking-it-all-in pose is what I knew I had to capture. I was sketching within minutes of getting off the phone. I committed to sending off a few so they could see that I could capture what they were looking for. A few days later I sent them off for approval.

I was happy that I had the canvas in stock and could begin right away. My intention was to grid the photos; gridding is a tool used by artists that places a 3×3 grid over the reference image to help balance scale and perspective. I am a huge fan of gridding, it allows me to accurately recreate the image in proportion as I learn to be more comfortable with perspective drawing/sketching. If you saw my previous blog post, I returned to the grid reference after every stage to keep it proportioned. This one, as it turned out, was very different.

My process generally looks like this: evaluate the image, pick a canvas, prime it, grid it and get to work drawing. With this piece I was combining 2 images of the landscape with his relaxed easy pose. When it was time to grid it, I didn’t.

It was the first time I could actually see the shapes on the canvas! So one Saturday night I sketched the whole thing on the canvas using my watercolour pencils. In one 45 minute session, the guts of the painting went down on the canvas! It was an amazing and unexpected experience.

The sketches can look wonky but I knew it was ok, a base of lines to work from.

Last year my nephew purchased a mountain scene and at this point I decided to match the colour palette of the 2 pieces so they would be complimentary to each other.
So now it’s blocking in colours and shapes all the while keeping the shape of him steady. At this point I stepped back and redid the skyline where it meets the trees.
Slowly but cautiously, the layers are unfolding. Skyline, clouds, mountain and water. I always work from top to bottom and from background to foreground, so it was more of that for many sessions. I had premixed most of my paints so I didn’t have to worry about remixing and not matching. FYI The underpainting of the hills is the same greens from his the final layer of his painting; adding to the cohesiveness of the 2 pieces. When the sky was in I did a little happy dance in my studio..it was exactly how I wanted to it to be.
Trees, water and that pinky/red/purple lifejacket. I had fun with that one! The second photo is the ugly stage of the painting and alot of artists get stuck here. I have gotten stuck here a few time myself so I recognized the feeling. What kept me focused was the sky..it was great to me. We are in the final stages now.
This was the sneak peak photo that I sent to my brother. I knew at this point it was about 80% done. From here on in it was slow, easy changes to the proportion of his body oh and I was totally in love with the hat!
I only worked on this commission during daylight hours, to ensure that my colours were true, so my weekends were for this piece! I looked forward to those weekends! Seeing it unfold in the afternoon light is part of my process and because of Covid, my weekends were free!
At this stage, I took a break from it for 2 weeks to recharge for the last push.
Sometimes the sudden realization that I am done catches me off guard! I feel like I come to a screeching halt! All that was left now was a few tweaks and checks; a few last minute panic fixes; but I knew it was done.
In a check in with my brother, he asked if I loved it and my response was this: “I give it a high five every time I walk by it!” Every day until I wrapped it up, I would come at sit with it and I was overjoyed with how it turned out.

I loved the challenge of this piece and I am very proud on how it turned out. It was wrapped with TLC and delivered on time and in time for his birthday.

I hope you enjoyed a little insight into my process and the evolution of this special piece.

🎨 on!!

More from The Garden Series

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Looking for a unique Mother’s Day gift? I might be able to help!

The collection is called Mom’s Garden and they are mainly 8”x8” acrylic on canvas colourful garden scenes.

Mom’s Garden #2 8″x8″ Acrylic on Canvas$65

Check out the available artworks menu on my website for all the current pieces. I will be uploading more as they are completed so be sure to check in often.

Shipping within Canada can be arranged in time for Mother’s Day. Please don’t hesitate to contact me through the website or on Facebook.

I’ve also uploaded a few more pieces in Garden Series too! Prices and sizes are with each piece!

If you are looking for a custom piece from either collection please get in touch to discuss your options!

http://www.annescanvas.com

🎨 on!

Everything Old is New Again

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Early in my art life I created a couple of floral paintings: nothing elaborate, because I didn’t know how to be elaborate but using techniques I learned at a Paint with Janet class. To my surprise, they sold!! And ever since, at irregular intervals, the purchaser who happens to be my massage therapist, would suggest I paint more, that she receives lots of compliments, and she was sure they would sell. I thought I was done with that style. To say I was hesitant and resistant 😏 would be an understatement.

In January, I was wondering what was next; Christmas was over and I was looking for my next idea and Amy’s words rung in my ears. A few weeks before I had reworked a few repurposed highly textured canvas and I thought they’d make nice backgrounds. So I dug out my old brushes, and some colours that I haven’t used in many years and got to it.

In one afternoon I created these 2

  • The Garden Series #3 Sold
  • The Garden Series #4 Sold

And a new/ old series was born. I have since made 5 more. (One is enroute to its new owner so I can’t reveal it yet)!

  • The Garden Series #8 11″x14″ Acrylic on Canvas $125
  • The Garden Series #9 12″x12″ Acrylic on Canvas $130
  • The Garden series #7 12″x12″ Acrylic on Canvas $130
  • The Garden Series #6 Sold

I love painting landscapes but I learned over the last month that I also need to play and create joy-filled pieces and this series, with their pops of colour on rich backgrounds; really do fill me with joy as I create them.

My available artworks gallery has been updated with the 3 remaining pieces of this series. I will be making more, no worries there! I’ve got an idea for Mother’s Day so stay tuned!