The Crawl

Hello
It's been a while since I posted! I've been busy in the studio and doing some design work.

I want to give you a heads up about the Eastside Culture Crawl. Yes, our studio is participating again this year, yay!
This year it is November 18th, 19th and 20th.

http://www.eastsideculturecrawl.com/

There will be lots of great art to see, so mark your calendars and get ready to Crawl!

Back to back art nights!

Last night I went to the opening of Rebecca Chaperon's 'Like A Great Black Fire'.

This 10 canvas suite (polyptych), is striking as a whole, but almost more fascinating when taken in, one by one, for scrutiny.

Chaperon's wonderfully subdued, earthy colour palette is juxtaposed with monochromatic heroine figures whose faces are hidden from us. They appear to be delicate yet formidable. They are innocent, perhaps naive, yet one gets the feeling they may be up to something quite sinister.

The meticulous detail in the rendering left me wondering where one acquires such patience. Geometrically shaped voids and wordless speech bubbles interplay between the figures. Waterfalls, caves, ferrets and swords, whatever is going here leaves me intrigued and frankly, a wee bit frightened. 

http://thechaperon.ca/Home%20/Home%20.html

Tonight I attended the Opening and Artist talk for the new show by Bratsa Bonifacho at Bau-Xi, Vancouver. I was lucky enough to see Bonifacho's last show there which blew me away. Such a bold force with colour and pattern. His work involves letters, symbols and shapes and really appeals to one's graphic sensibilities. 

The interesting thing about Bonifacho's new show, "In Nucleo", is that this time he's really spelling it out for us. The canvases are big and covered in words, words, words. Headlines, movie quotes, politics, snippets of water cooler chat. It's internet, radio, television, news. It's the commercials in the background and the barrage of constant messaging we are subject to every day. 

He says it's the stuff he thinking about - dynamically executed in bright rainbow hues, in earthy-muted tones and some in 'say-it-like-you-mean-it', black and white. 

Bonifacho says like many artists, he is not a nice person. "... most artists are not beautiful at all".

I didn't find that about him, in fact, quite the opposite. And maybe that's the key.

He has been able to get all of that stuff off his chest, and onto the canvas.

http://www.bau-xi.com/dynamic/artist.asp?ArtistID=30

The Rotation

Since I haven't been posting for several days you may have thought I hadn't been making any art.... wrong!
I have been in the studio and in my usual fashion, have been working on some rotating pieces. Often times I will start something, then put it aside until I feel like I have something else to add to it or finish it.

These are sections of 2 pieces that are in the rotation. Who knows where they'll end up?!?

Sunday Doodle

Hope your weekend is going well!

Showing up

In relax mode on this long weekend!
The beginnings of something perhaps... just playing again.
Maybe it will go somewhere...?

Carry on... for now

It felt a bit weird to not post anything today so... here it is!
Now, don't hold me for continuing on with the every day thing! Anyone who knows me knows how I dislike committing to things, but let's just see how things unfold.

I had a conversation with one of my studio mates today about feeling unsettled and all over the place with our art. This was coming from her, but man, do I know how that feels!
We both paint very intuitively, most of the time without much plan or firm idea of an end result.

During our conversation I told her how I have recurring themes that come out when I paint intuitively, and one I've really acknowledged lately is the flower thing. The flowers that come out are abstract or motif-like, mainly because they are just out of my head! But I realized I DO need to acknowledge that and perhaps pay it more respect. Maybe that means using some reference. Maybe work on a series. Heck, maybe it's a passing phase!? Whatever it is, I realized I should accept it, respect it, let it come out and paint it, instead of fighting it. In other words, get over the "woman paints flowers" thing!

I puttered in the studio with a few things today but these were a couple of things I was "just playing" with tonight.

Hope you have fun things planned for the long weekend.

Completing the task.

As mentioned, I wasn't able to update the images I worked on when I was away. 

As promised, here are the pieces I described.

Thursday, August 25: 

a peach rendered with watercolour pencil. First shot shows the model!

Friday, August 26:
3 Sisters, ink and watercolour pencil.

Saturday, August 27th:
Ironman signs, stinky marker on neon paper, co-created with my Aseeeestants.

Sunday, August 28th, Ironman Canada Race Day:

Elite Restaurant sign, pen and watercolour pencils.

Monday, August 29th:

Peach and Cherries, photo.

Tuesday, August 30th:

Hailey in her new incredible dog park, watercolour and pencil.

Wednesday, August 31st:

Highway home photo and yesterday's MAC.

A number of people have asked if I will keep this up. 

Maybe you should keep checking back to see what happens!

Again, thanks for following along with me!