Well, here it is – July, humid and not too hot. Its time to get started on my upcoming pieces for my artshow in October. I’ve been doing paintings lately of areas close to where I live. Canola fields are one of my specialities and I never get tired of driving around looking at the bright yellow against our expansive blue skies. What a wonderful sight. These fields are luscious….at least to me, and I feel so much joy even when painting some rendition of them. So there will be more of these in my show along with some other themes of Rural Alberta. I can’t tell you what they will be….you will just have to come out and see my show! (Or wait until the show is on and I put them up on my website.)

This is a new beginning for me…I’m not particularly computer savvy, however it is time that my presence and what I’m about makes an announcement. Artists work mostly in solitude, at least that has been my experience if I’m trying to get my best work done. We also need to come out to breathe! Once in a while I even like to be around other people who are creative. We inspire each other, discuss our processes – both inner and external around how we came to get to the place we’re at. This is what I will do on this site….expend a bit of creative energy expressing my process, my challenges, and perhaps even my observations around how I got here, today, and maybe what is coming up for tomorrow – whatever that may be. It could be an event, a new art showing, a commision. There will be something. Please stay tuned!

Today I will spend most of my time in my studio working on a 20″ x 40″ painting. It is something new to me to paint….trees, trees, and more GREEN trees! I don’t know about anyone else, but painting green anything is not easy! Green things aren’t just green things. Green is made up of many different temperatures….that’s my experience so far. The atmospheric combinations in the image present by the addition of perspective particularly, changes. Greens get cooler, grayer and more diffuse as they receed into the distance. When they are in the foreground they are generally brighter and more charged up with green intensity.

When I’m struggling with greens mixed with purples, yellows, blues, yellow ochre, white, etc. to get just the color I need, I’m in a constant dialogue with myself. Push…pull, pull more color into focus here, push more color into the background there. Its a dance with my knowledge and what I’m still learning. Green is my challenge always.

I’m a rather realistic painter, at least that’s the way the paintings come out most of the time. So for me, to gain some mastery with any part of my process means that I have to practice a lot. I’m practicing painting trees (which are also another new beginning to work with) in the springtime. I have a current project with doing this image, and that is that this painting is going to hang in my own home. AND I will be teaching a group of new students how to do the same thing – paint green things and make lots of trees. I think it will be interesting for all of us, and I hope not too challenging in the level of difficulty. I’ll keep you posted about that. I’ll also put the painting up here once it is completed.

In the meantime, if you have any tips you would like to share about greens, trees, or anything, I would be more than happy to hear about them! And feel free to explore the rest of my site!