A whole lot of things on the go…

I am flying out to Vancouver tomorrow for a few days to help out my brother with some things…my sister and I are going out together…it is going to be an interesting trip and, I hope, a productive one…

I will be back from out west for a day or 2 and then I am heading off to Haliburton to take a week long art course with a girlfriend - LT – the one who came and led the painting party back in February. We are going to the Haliburton School of the Arts and are going to take one of the summer courses - Oil Painting – Introduction to Plein Air. I am so excited and so terrified all at the same time! Of course, my nasty, negative voice is telling me that I am going to make a fool of myself…that I am insane to take a class where I will be expected to actually paint something that looks like what I am looking at…I have never done that…don’t sketch, though I would love to…what my nice, supportive voice is trying to tell me, over all this negative din, is that I’ll do fine…I am not taking this class thinking that I will somehow instantly turn into a realist painter…I don’t even what to…but I am hoping to learn a bit about mixing colours and maybe adding some depth to my abstract paintings…if I can come away having learnt anything, it will all be worth it…and I am sure that at least that much will happen…and if I can come away with some additional skills - great…and if I can come away with some fledgling, early stage abstract landscapes…then I’ll be ecstatic! Just to be surrounded by creative people for a week is going to be a joy. Add to this that LT and I are staying with another girlfriend of mine that I used to picture frame with and haven’t seen since I left Orillia. We are going to be staying with her at her cottage for the week…it is going to be an all round fantastic week…old friends and creativity!

I have been flitting about in my studio this past week or so…have started many paintings…am just about to finish 1…I am still having so much fun playing with the various gels and modeling compounds…they are such fun but take so long to dry! So I keep starting more and more canvases…but this is all good because I also just found out about a week ago that I got juried into a show this fall instead of juried out!!! It is a 1 day festival on September 19th. It is the Old Ottawa South Music and Art Festival. I just had a look at the web site and my name is up there and one of my paintings…wow…how exciting! Looking at everyone’s pieces, it looks like it is going to be a good show…there are painters, potters, glass artists, sculptors and jewellery makers…this is going to be fun!

So…it is a very good thing that I have lots of paintings on the go! I am also looking forward to a burst of inspiration and creative activity to result from the art course. As well, just before the Festival, I will have had almost 2 weeks at the Island – my sister’s cottage – where I go each summer to re-group, relax and feed my soul.

Summers used to seem so long…when I was young, we would get out of school for summer holidays and everyone would go off to do whatever they did in the summer and in the fall when we all came back to school, it seemed that so much had changed…we had changed…so much had happened. Now, the summer seems to sneak up on me and it is half over before I even realize it and once I take a look and get everything ‘booked’ and sorted out…it’s gone! The only time I get a slight titch of the old summer feelings is after I have been at the Island for about a week and have wound down and slipped into ‘cottage mode’…then I get a fleeting sense of those long summer days…but as soon as it comes, it is gone again. So sweet when I can sense it though!

I have some shots of a big painting (24”x36”) that I have been working on…not sure if it is finished...

I started out with a base coat of phthalo green and then slathered on some modeling gel for an overall background texture


















Missed some progress stages in here…but I divided the canvas into 3 sections, added more gel to make each section’s texture different, divided the left section into 3 again and started painting…













Details…































Finished painting the lolly-pop flowers and then decided that I didn’t like the middle section…it was too empty…













So I painted 3 small canvases…2 of them have elements that directly link to the big canvas and the middle one has elements that link it to the 2 small canvases…I am pretty sure that I like the addition of the 3 small canvases…but haven’t stuck them on yet…am going to live with it for a bit first…













Details…



































I think I originally started this canvas back in February…did the base coat then…then it sat for a few months until I got inspired by the modeling gel…I guess that was only a little over a month ago…it feels like I have been working with it for a long time…I am almost sorry that I am feeling finished with it…

Oh...I also had lunch with a friend on Friday...she runs the ArtSpace wall at the First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa...there is a group show for the months of July and August...we were going to hang the show after lunch but she had to head out of town, so she will be hanging it tomorrow...I left her 5 small paintings to put up...I'll have to get in to take a picture...