Happy Apple

Price: $50.00 

Media: Acrylics On Board

Size: 8x10 in

I quite enjoyed the painting process with this one - Apples have always been a favourite of mine. Outhouse flowers are from Nanny's Garden.

Swoosh of Gold...Fish

Price: $50.00

Media: Acrylics On Board

Size: 8x10 in

Fish are just so wonderful, and expressive little individuals! What is it about fish that fascinates me so much? I learnt to keep aquariums as a child and I still love watching them - never gets old.

Summer Solstice

Acrylic on Canvas - 16" x 20" - Plein Air

This painting was created on location in Duffins Creek on the Seaton Hiking Trail in Whitevale , Pickering. It was a hot and hazy day and very lovely...

Thoughts on the Creative Process

'What can I do with what I got?' When that is my focus, what I don't got starts to loose importance.

Also, so easy for students to look at a painting in progress they are working on and only see stuff they don't like. I ask them what they DO like and then work on how to embellish that. lots of life lessons in the art making process.

Art making takes a lot of humility. I will never forget a brand new student of mine, she had never painted before. I was delighted with her very first work. She looked at it and lamented... 'It looks so amateurish!' I tell my students all the time that we need to look at what we make and celebrate what we are able to do - just like you are your own child who proudly brings a painting to show a parent... you are your own parent and you need loving encouragement - just like a child...

I find that since most folks are so very hard on themselves in terms of what they expect of their capabilities, I like to do class admiration's instead of critiques. Most folks are so good a criticizing themselves, what they really need is encouragement. We have 3 painting terms each year (10 weekly 2 hr classes)... fall, winter, spring. At the end of each session, we put the paintings up and say what we like about each of them. Only after each has been explored for it's strengths, I will make a little aside about an improvement.... Doing an admiration this Thursday.

I gave my class a little pep talk last week about the creative process, about allowing it freedom - not needing anything from it other than to enjoy doing it. Since they are already more beautiful inside than anything they could ever make, they don't need success as prop to the ego... that is where the freedom comes from. Oddly - that is also where real success comes from too.

Petals in the Breeze

STORY

I love pink trees - what can I say. When spring time comes around - it gives me a lot of pleasure to see the beautiful trees in bloom. I was blessed to get an afternoon free this spring so that I could make this painting. It was a really windy day and the clouds were rolling in. I'd been itching to paint some of the pink trees I was seeing and by the time I was able to get an afternoon free, they were starting to fade already. I wasn't going to let a little wind and rain stop me from making this painting. I knew I had to be really quick, but had some difficulty choosing a tree. I was stopped in my tracks by the beauty of a cheery tree in blossom in front of the Police Credit Union on Highway #2 in Pickering. Funny thing was - once I got out of the car, it was a smaller blooming bush just outside the old Saturn dealership that really seemed to be what I was looking for. I painted as fast as I could because I could see the storm clouds rolling in - I just finished up in time to get my painting supplies back in the car before the rain really started to come down. Hope you like it.


POETRY

'Petals in the Breeze'

Petals in the breeze
Dance the Spiral
Flow of life
With no regrets.

Blossoms bloom and fade;
Celebration
Of this day...
Blissful freedom.

Open to the now
Like a petal
In the breeze,
With gratitude.


PAINTING
Acrylics on Maisonite -- 11" x 24"
See more of my landscape paintings here:
http://www.museon.com/landscape/html/thumb-1.html

World Tree

STORY

It was a glorious fall day. The sun was shining, crisp and clear. The colours were at their height, magnified in the sunshine. The sky was impossibly beautifully blue; only gets that clear and intense in the fall when it's magnified with all the ambient orange foliage. It was after lunch and I was walking in the park with my camera just soaking in all the colour. On a forest path... just me, the trees, sky, birds and sunshine. Life has some very sweet moments.

I noticed off to the side of the path some of the most intense orange and yellows I had ever seen and had to stop to explore. The creator of that colour was a large old oak tree. I spent a long time looking at that tree. Being quiet and listening in nature, opens the heart.

This painting is my attempt to share this experience. I wanted to make a portrait of a tree... but more than that - I was trying to give a feeling of the universal tree - the lungs of the earth - supporting all life...

Funny thing about the painting process. Sometimes things just show up. I was not initially trying to put a figure in the tree - she just showed up somehow...

POETRY

'World Tree'

She stands
Arms outstretched
Connection between
Heaven and Earth.
Rooted in the seasons
Reaching through time
Watching the cycles flow
Holding love, light, life...
She stands

PAINTING

Title: World Tree
Size: 20" x 36"
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas


Gallery wrapped canvas, no frame necessary.

I use Artist Quality acrylic paints to create my paintings and my paintings are varnished with Gloss Polymer Varnish with UVLS.

Please note, the copyright watermark does not appear on the original. Also, the rights to reproduce this image remains with the artist.

Flamingos in the River

Flamingos fascinate me so much, I can watch them for hours at the Toronto Zoo. It's not only their shape and movement, but that in itself is really something. I mean really...

IMPOSSIBLE GRACE

Big pink eggs on stilts...
Terodactyl heads
On end of garden hose.
Yellow eyes watching...
Noisy commotion momentarily;
Flamingos in the River...

Not even the most off the wall afternoon TV reality show can hold a candle to the sheer drama of a flock of flamingos. These birds can EMOTE! Not only that, they do it in chorus. If you spend some time watching a flock of flamingos, you will notice that... the flock is an entity - these birds are so much part of each other - they move, sleep, eat, and fight like one.

This painting was created using a photograph I took at the Toronto Zoo. It was a quite time in the flock - most were sleeping only one bird who was looking for food in the water, took a moment to look up and make sure the silly woman with the camera was staying in her place.

PAINTING

Title: Flamingos in the River
Size: 18" x 27"
Medium: Acrylic on Maisonite

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