Bird Notes

Bird Notes

All of the paintings in this series started with a question...What would happen if ...? Each painting is an experiment with paints, mediums, collage items, textures, and techniques based on my original question.

I decided to base the imagery (birds, plants animals and object) on things I observe on my daily walks around my neighbourhood. This gives me a chance to wrap my ideas around something concrete while my creativity and imagination go off to play.

I discovered that as each question gets explored, three more pop up. I don’t know if I’ll ever find an end point to the Bird Notes Series. It’s Too Fun

 

 

 

 

Most of these pieces are showing at the Cole Gallery in Edmonds WA through Christmas.

View all the paintings in this series.

Two Weeks In Oakville

The last two weeks in October were spent teaching workshops in Oakville, Ontario.  I love all the wonderful painters who attended the classes.  Here are some photos of them and their work.  The studio was situated in an amazing garden right next to lake Ontario.

 

 

 

 

Island Time-Canada Style

North Rustico Lighthouse  20" x 16" Acrylic




"Spire"  36" x 24" acrylic

"Off Broadway" 24" x 20" acrylic



"Last Nice Day of Summer" 8" x 8" acrylic



"Power Pull"  20" x 24" acrylic

 

Tomorrow I head back to Prince Edward Island...a place I have loved for over a dozen years. This time it will be seriously fall.  It's hard to believe I've never been there in the fall.  I've visited in Spring when the wildflowers are rolling up every hill, and in Summer when the beaches and sidewalks and open air restaurants are lively with people enjoying the sun.

 I'll be teaching a short workshop as well, so my week there will seem very short.  Prince Edward Island almost demands that you spend time, park the car, explore on foot, window shop, laugh and linger with friends, ramble along the beaches...get sand in your shoes. I'm eager to dive into Autumn.

After my week in Charlottetwon, I'm off the the Toronto area to teach two five day workshops.  This is such a lovely opportunity to experience another town and more wonderful Canadian aritsts. I'll report back....

Click for more paintings of Prince Edward Island

Workshop Demo

Roses on the Ruins 36" x 24" Acrylic on Masonite

This weekend I taught another workshop at the Winslow Arts Center. This painting was a demonstration on using a limited palette.  It was completed in a little over an hour of furious painting.  I did it during the lunch break because I wanted my students to get back to their own work.
It was amazing to see the progress they all made in two short days.

Friday Workshop

Last Friday I taught a one day workshop at the Winslow Arts Center on Bainbridge Island.  It was so much fun.  There were some really great painters there, and everyone stepped out of their comfort zone.  Here are photos of a few of the participants work.  I will be teaching another workshop there on October 6th and 7th.

Off to Winslow

In Quiet Water 18" x 14" acrylic on masonite

   This Painting was the product of my stay on Bainbridge Island in August  where I taught a three day plein air workshop.  I go there again tomorrow to teach another workshop.  It's been a busy month with my classes starting, exhibitions going up and others coming down, meetings (blah...blah...blah..).  My commute time from my home on a little island is about an hour and a half each way.  Sometimes I feel like I'm just rushing from one minute to the next.
     Then there's painting.  It seems to suspend time...or better, time seems to stretch sideways.  And there is the added benefit of slowing down, standing for hours very quietly in front of something that inspires me...trying to observe every nuance.  The act of painting is very personal to me and frames everything else with meaning and purpose.

Recent Demonstration

Daily Ritual 12" x 16" acrylic

Ruins in the Poppies  24" x 30" acrylic on masonite

  On Labor day I did two demonstrations at Daniel Smith art materials in Seattle.  Each of these demos was about an hour and a half long.  I finished the pieces at home, and promised those brave souls who  watched the demonstrations that I would post the completed paintings.  Here they are in this form....I may still do some tweeking.  I used plein air paintings I did in Tuscany this spring as the color inspiration, and photographs I took for the composition.

Painting Paint

 

 

North Rustico is a wonderful small fishing village on Prince Edward Island.  It is populated with rustic groups of old buildings.  Recently I used many of these buildings as reference for a series of paintings based on tight, almost abstract compositions painted with realistic detail. 

I was hoping that by saying less about the building as a whole, I would say more about the poetic quality of the aging process and the movement of time.

In this technological world when the pace moves faster and faster, I loved the idea of peering through the age worn paint and rippled windows into slower, simpler time.

 

More Paintings in This Series

An Ordinary Gift

I am always on the lookout for the interesting and unusual locked inside of ordinary experiences. These become extraordinary moments that punctuate my life... a ray of light,  reflections in a table top,  the elegant movement of an arm, a swirl of fabric in a dancer's dress... elements that seem so ordinary on the surface bless me with amazing joy as I focus my attention on them.

It is like unwrapping a gift. At first I am sitting alone waiting for my iced tea, wrapped up in my thoughts, and then I see the reflection of the sky in the tines of the fork and bricks in the blade of a knife and the gift unfolds.

(left) Tea For One 14"x 11"  acrylic            (Right) Service For One 16" x 12" acrylic