What have I been up to? Well! I’ve reorganized my little art working space to accommodate larger canvases – hooray! I’ve also started working on a large 3′ x 4′ painting in oils for my Windy Day series. I love a good windy day.
So here’s my new large canvas Windy Day painting, in progress. Boy do oil paints ever take longer to dry than acrylics!! Which gives me lots of fantastic thinking-time I suppose 🙂
June 2015 Project – incomplete
New studio space for larger canvases
Windy days are my favourite kind of day. A gust of wind can catch a person off guard and surprise them with a forgotten memory.
8×10″
Acrylic on canvas
It was a windy day, and a foggy day, and a rainy day. I was standing at the end of the pier, one of my favourite downtown places in Victoria BC. The ocean swallows all of the downtown sounds. It sounds like the ocean, and it smells like wood docks, and it feels like standing on the ocean. I love windy days, and I love foggy days and I love rainy days. In Victoria we are very fond of golf umbrellas for everyday use. Did this one escape from its owner, in the way that umbrellas like to escape in a gust of wind? It was floating along in the harbour. It was exactly the colour of blue that I would expect a golf umbrella to be. An umbrella mystery on the ocean.
8×10″
Acrylic on canvas
I spent this past weekend busy with lots of things, and lots of driving across town in various directions. On my way I found a tree that I was looking for, so we pulled over and I scooped up some pine needles to see about making a pine needle basket. So, with some found tree bits and some raffia that was lurking around in my art supplies, I worked way too late into the night for the past few days, to finish my little pine needle basket. I’m quite happy with the results. Maybe with the stormy weather outside there will be more long pine needles for me to find soon.
5.5″ in diameter and 2.2″ high
Given the choice between flying or driving, I choose to drive. Moving through spaces, sometimes constantly changing and other times seeming to go on, exactly the same, for an eternity. I like coming across things that I didn’t know were there.
36″ x 24″ oil on canvas
Getting lost in thought, daydreaming while on a wander somewhere.
Oil on canvas
8″ x 16″
Some things I love so much that I paint them over and over.
Acrylic on canvas
16″ x 8″
In Duncan, BC, there is the most charming, lovely, tea farm. You can sit and have tea selections from the menu, and fancy desserts. Their garden is always beautiful, and they’re always happy to see you. The last time I was there, all the yellow black eyed susans were blooming in the sun, having overtaken the low lavender, now hidden in the underbrush. A forest of fir trees at its edge, this secret garden is hidden amidst our natural west coast forest.
8″x10″, acrylic on stretched canvas
There is a certain type of hopefulness that I feel when looking out at things that are far away. Living on the coast, where the land is lumpy, I catch refreshing glimpses of the distance during my day, from the tops of hills and from the edges of land.
10″x8″ Stretched canvas
My favourite day trip is up to Long Beach, near Tofino. Before we leave, we check the tide tables, to make sure we’ll be there when the tide is lowest. We leave early, as early as we can, and stop for a quick, cheap breakfast along the way. The beach is foggy in the morning. If there are Sasquatch out there, they could be easily hiding in the dense fog there every morning. The beach is long and with the fog we can’t see the ocean. We walk on the beach and if we look for the horizon, we can’t see it, just a gradual shift from sand to sky, morning mist everywhere. Little sandpipers rise and then settle, in flocks. Later on, the fog clears and sun reappears, we eat our picnic: sandwiches, fruit, chips, drinks. Ravens try to steal our chips. We can see the surfers and the crashing waves. By the time we head home we are tired, drunk with the ocean air.
Chasing Freedom II
Stretched canvas
8″ x 10″
Friendly Forager 