Tuesday, 27 October 2026
It is worth noting that when I make these copy posts from my art journal, the gallery images make it to the online version but not the email that is sent which seems to randomly gather images from the media section instead. Therefore, I highly recommend when you get the email to click the “view ion the blog” option top right. I have attempted to fix it this time by converting them to a list of single images rather than a collage arrangement but we shall see.
Excerpt from Terrill Welch MA Fine Art Journal
January 20, 2025
While I was finishing up the previous pair of paintings I began thinking about a way to get really low and do a landscape of the small at the water’s edge of the sea. I have been working most recently with the composition of all-over paintings of seashells and the sea floor by looking down rather than out. I started gathering a few references that I entangled together to come up with a workable composition.
Then I spent the past week painting to see if I could get it to work. The canvas is 24 x 20 inches as I needed more elbow and visual room to test out this notion and as usual, I am working with walnut oils over a red acrylic ground.
I started with the sky and distant mountains across the strait as these would hold the keys to the light for the rest of the painting.
Then I moved to the foreground before putting the darks in. This is a little of a reverse in oil painting practice but I didn’t want to lose or be heavy handed with the subtle value shifts between the far back and what is up close.
Now I can slip in those darks in relation to the rest of the work.
I kept painting until I had the whole canvas roughed in but it has taken me a while and the work is getting tacky.
I will now have to let it completely dry to the touch before continuing.
Several days later I settle in and work the whole canvas while making thoughtful changes including to the sky which was taking too much attention away from the foreground. Let’s start with a few details of the resting painting first.
Here is the completed resting work but I am fairly confident that it is finished.
Artist notes: I sink low to the shore and look out over a calm Salish Sea with mountains in the distance across the Strait of Georgia. When back in the studio, my brushes drift over the shapes and play with the colours while pulling the composition together in an imaginative way. It could be an actual moment in time but it isn’t really as memory and references are unreliable partners between artist and a canvas though the rhythms of the land, sea and sky remain constant.
I am satisfied that it makes a painting and is successful in this regard but I am not convinced that I have pushed the idea as far as it can go yet. I am going to try some further looser close ups to see if I can have us sitting small within a larger landscape. In this one, I feel we can still stand back and observe as a viewer and this isn’t what I want for the work.
So closer, let’s go closer. I have a sense that if I do this, the painting will feel more abstract even though it is figuratively based. However, these are going to be small studies so let’s be adventurous!
