The bar at the Arts & Letters club, Toronto
The Grand Hall at the Arts & Letters Club, Toronto
Monthly Archives: May 2007
The Studio at the Arts & Letters Club, Toronto
I had a fabulous day yesterday, attended an oils portrait alla prima workshop with master portrait artist Juan Martinez yesterday. This is the studio where we did the workshop, isn’t it great? Above I have posted a pic also of the bar in the club, and also the Grand hall where the group of seven often met to discuss art with their peers. The grand hall is preserved exactly as it was 100 years ago in it’s Victorian time back in 1908.
Night Skating - watercolour - 15″ x 11″
Sorry it’s a little out of season…but I’ve been interested in doing night scenes and had some resources from Christmas hanging around.
Night LIghts - or - Painting the Town Red - watercolour - 15″ x 11″
Night Cap - oil on board -12 1/2″ x 9″
Beyond the Blue Gate - oil on canvas - 10″ x 8″
Afternoon Near the Barn-oil on canvas- 10″ x 8″
Had the loveliest Mothers Day. Dave made me a little wooden painting box to hold my oil supplies, which fastens onto a tripod. I spent the afternoon painting the yard.
Peter’s Plumeria - oil on canvas, 60″ x 24″ triptych
I’ve been busy this month getting a painting commission finished. For this triptych painting I wanted to relate to the viewer the feeling one gets when one moves close to smell a flower..first you see it, then move closer to it, then your face is right next to it savouring the heavenly scent. I so enjoyed working on this piece because doing so gave me the opportunity to think of fond memories of our friend Peter who passed away a couple of years ago. It was his Plumeria tree which was just outside the door of his house in Hawaii. His wife Jean requested it, and I just dropped it off to her new house in Ottawa this week. Of course, in this picture it is still unfinished…I added more depth in the shadows and in the centres of the flowers, but you’ll just have to imagine what that is like because I forgot to take a pictue of it after I finished it!! That is so typical of me!
AEmilia the Brave - oil on canvas 14″ x 14″
Went to the Juried Art Salon opening reception last night. Well I actually went early as I was setting up for it, arranging flowers/food&beverages for the evening. It went well, it was a huge turnout. The above painting is in the show. There was a lot of interesting stuff there, quite a mix of medium and form. The prize money is getting more substantial each year, thanks to a generous doner…the Linda Morris Fund. Nice to see the arts crowd come out and mingle. Julie Davidson-Smith won first prize ($1500) for her piece ‘Joyful Darkness’. It is an amazing encaustic piece. Hanna Back also won for a beautiful ceramic sculpture called ‘The Blue Inside’. Also photographer Martine Bresson won for her recent work photographed in the Congo. It’s really exciting to see what is happening for the visual art world in Kingston. The one thing we now need is a larger venue to hold the event in and everything would be perfect!
Spring Run-off - oil on canvas - 30″ x 40″
Sometimes I’m feeling kind of disconnected with my art. I am finding that there seems to be longer and longer stretches between paintings, and this interuption causes a fractious ‘fits & starts’ sort of approach. I am interested in discovering what I have to say in my work. The message isn’t always evident to me….this painting began after watching the stream a few fields over from my house…the early morning sun was rising over the trees on the right side of the river bank and peeking through in places onto the stream…no message here, but i had to paint it.
