Magnolias and the Galloping Art Work

April 8, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 20 Comments

Magnolias how varied and lovely are your blooms. Some as white as white

and others so pink as to be purple.

Small shrubs or large trees and star or plump petals you are always special to me.

Magnolias, may you give me courage to share the predicament of the art work which is galloping out of the studio as shown in today’s Terrill Welch Artist website post “More Canadian Landscape Paintings by Terrill Welch SOLD!” Four more oil paintings and a medium-size fine art photography print to be exact. This brings the total to eight paintings and three photography prints sold since the middle of January. It may not sound like much but it represents several thousands of dollars of art work going off to new homes.

I was asked by a dinner guest on the weekend how it felt to have my work meet with such success. I replied with a raised eyebrow and a soft shrug. You see, it is really not particularly comfortable to be in the lime light of my selling art work. Rather than being a comfort, I instead, feel a sense of panic and almost anxiety. Over the years, I haven’t been able to nail what this is about but definitely recognized the repeating result of the experience. I finally replied to my guest that it must be like other artistic expressions. Once a song is released or a book published or a painting sold it often feels like an ending rather than a beginning for the creator. There is an irrational fear that it is the last “good” one and that there will be no more. Silly I know. However, I can attest to the actuality of this emotion. Since I have been selling my art work from the time I was fourteen years old, I wish I could say it is getting easier over time but this is not so. Thankfully, the feeling only lasts until the next painting is off the easel or the next photography print is made available for purchase. Balance and clarity is then restored until the next sale. Odd isn’t it?

Well, let’s get started with balance…

Study in White Star Magnolia

(Image available for detailed viewing and purchase HERE)

If you are comfortable sharing, what quirky anxiety accompanies your creative success?

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

For gallery and purchase information about Terrill’s photographs and paintings go to http://terrillwelchartist.com

Finding the Rhythm of the Sea in oil on canvas in the art studio (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
Contemporary Canadian Landscape paintings by Terrill Welch SOLD! (terrillwelchartist.com)
West Coast Blues in photography and painting (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
The Story of the Swamp Lantern (creativepotager.wordpress.com)

The Story of the Swamp Lantern

April 1, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 12 Comments

Swamp lantern is a beautiful name for our wild western skunk cabbage or Lysichiton americanus. My first experience with this smelly beauty was when I was five years old and I was walking with my mother in the early evening along a logging skid trail.

We were living in our small portable bunk house right on the edge of the logging landing where the cats skidded the logs in and the loaders loaded them up on the logging trucks for their long trip from the middle-of-no-where in Cariboo country British Columbia to the sawmill in Williams Lake. The close proximity to the working logging area meant that we had to stay inside the small two room cabin on skids during working hours. How my mother did this with two young children and a baby I can’t even begin to image.

My mother loved to be outside as much as we did so when the whistle blew and the last machine shut down we were out the door and walking the nearest skid trail that went through the swamp area behind the landing and then beyond. In the low light of the heavily treed forest, infused with dank freshly turned earth, next to the pungent swamp, is where I encountered my first swamp lantern. Gorgeous!

The blossom petals are an unbelievably bright, almost opaque yellow accompanied by cabbage-like exotic tropical foliage. Each plant also has a distinctively phallic stamen that is somehow unavoidable more pronounced in any compositional photograph than when in the presence of the plant itself. However, all in all, this is a most beautiful native announcement of early spring. But after these beauties have been blooming for a while – the smell! Once it has traveled up your nasal passages, you will never, ever forget – skunk cabbage!

Our western variety is not good to eat because as it contains calcium oxalate crystals which would be much like eating crushed glass. This caution does not apply if you are a bear. The swamp lantern or skunk cabbage is an important part of bear’s spring laxative tonic when it come out of hibernation.

The plants large, waxy leaves were important to indigenous people for food preparation and storage. They were commonly used to line berry baskets and to wrap around whole salmon and other foods when baked under a fire. It is also used to cure sores and swelling.

reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysichiton_americanus

What wild spring flowers are powerful connections to one of your childhood memories?

P.S. Three more paintings have sold over the weekend but I will tell you more about this in another post soon. All the best of Easter Monday to you!

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

For gallery and purchase information about Terrill’s photographs and paintings go to http://terrillwelchartist.com

First Spring Flowers – Terry Thormin (vancouverislandnature.wordpress.com)
Spring: In many places, it’s earlier than ever (blogs.seattletimes.com)

Finding the Rhythm of the Sea in oil on canvas in the art studio

March 25, 2013March 25, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 14 Comments

Painting en plein air is wonderful and the easiest way to feel your landscape through the paintbrush and onto the canvas. However, weather and the size of the a work does not always make this the most practical approach. So I photograph my subjects from various perspectives. Then using sometimes years of memory about a subject along with a series of reference images, I am then prepared to work on a specific landscape in my small studio. This canvas is a good size at 20 x 40 inches. Finished paintings and blank canvases are going to have to squeeze in their edges and squish together to make room for this fellow.

While I am getting the set up and the painting roughed in I thought I would answer a question for you. I am often asked about how I get my ideas for my photographs and paintings. The most honest answer is that the ideas find me as I observe my everyday life. I capture and paint what I notice, what I see, feel, smell and hear. I am influenced by events that are happening in my life. If I am mournful, excited or weary it will show up in what I notice. What is most relevant is my daily practice of noticing. The ideas are always there. My primary task is to notice and to act on what I notice. Today’s work comes from a moment in September a few years ago when the sea rolled itself with eloquent expression onto the shore at Edith Point. Let’s rough it in and see what we have.

You may notice that I do not sketch my work onto the canvas. This is something I have never done as I prefer to make some basic marks with paint and then paint up an underpainting to guide me. Sometimes this underpainting is a complementary colour. Other times, such as this one, I stay close to the palette that will become the finished painting.

Much of the scene is in a late afternoon shadow, and the haze is heavy from the smoke of forest fires. The rhythm of the sea and the simplicity of the moment is so strong that my brush seems to know the path by heart. Hours pass with nothing but my humming and the sound of the palette knife mixing paint and the brush applying it to the canvas. The light is past its prime in the studio. I need some distance. Shall we carefully take the wet thing outside and have a look?

It is coming I think, but will have to sit until tomorrow now. My body is stiff and a bit tired from standing and reaching most of the day, but it feels good. I have intimately noticed the rhythm of the sea.

I want to continue to work wet-on-wet or alla prima on this canvas so I begin again the next afternoon and work with the studio lights until very late into the evening. Finally, the painting comes to rest.

Resting is an observable and intuitive state of a painting’s development. It is when the elements of the painting have found their place on the canvas in relationship to each other. Yet, they are still alive with energy and vitality. In this case, the sea is still rolling forward onto the shore. The trees are still tingling from the days sun. The rocks are releasing their summer heat as the water charges across their surface. I am there. You are there. The salt spray is moist on our skin and the rhythm of the sea matches our breath, our heartbeat, and answers a call to all that is knowable.

The resting period is also a time to critically view the painting with fresh eyes. Is there anything odd or irritating that can be corrected? Is there anything that can strengthen the expression of the piece? Does the painting work? Is it finished? This process of evaluation can happen in a minute or it may take weeks. For this painting I left it for seven days while I was away. I came home and looked at it and decided it is done, finished. A final photograph is required and then it will be released over at Terrill Welch Artist later in the week.

First, I must get a new show ready to hang at the Green House Restaurant here on Mayne Island. Here is a short video from my home studio sharing sneak preview of the 18 paintings that will be shown…

Well, that is it for a week in the life of this artist.

What does a week in the life of your creativity include?

I so much look forward to hearing from you.

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

For gallery and purchase information about Terrill’s photographs and paintings go to http://terrillwelchartist.com

Contemporary Canadian Landscape paintings by Terrill Welch SOLD! (terrillwelchartist.com)
West Coast Blues in photography and painting (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
Artist Studio in real time (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
Sliced with a Tear – a large autumn Canadian landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Wanted alive not perfect – still life painting with Paul Cézanne (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
Plein Air Affair honors longtime Hofwyl-Broadfield trustee (jacksonville.com)

March 13, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 4 Comments

Do you have any ideas what is the appeal of these Terrill Welch original landscape paintings that has them so quickly finding new homes? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Terrill Welch

The global economy is as dreary as a rainy day in a Gulf Island west coast winter. Disposable income for luxuries like original art is supposedly shrinking. Why then are these original Terrill Welch contemporary Canadian landscape oil paintings selling like ice-cream on sunny July afternoon? The oil paintings are possibly pricey by emerging artist standards. So it is not because they are cheap. The oil paintings are not realism, highly polished or framed. Nor are the paintings painted in the repetitive series that is sometimes common with contemporary art. So it is not because they will appeal to a conservative art buyer who is buying something similar to what other buyers have purchased. In fact, “contemporary” may even be a questionable designation, other than it relates to the present, as the paintings likely have more in common with late 1800 impressionism than most studio landscape and en plein…

View original post 504 more words

West Coast Blues in photography and painting

March 6, 2013December 22, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 19 Comments

Yes, my yes! We do have sun! I am always fascinated how our west coast blues means a bright sunny day to me and yet often other will comment that it looks rather cold 🙂

Of course it is a bit brisk for sure but not cold. I am wearing only a sweater as I press myself as close to the water as possible…

(Image is available in my Redbubble storefront HERE)

Ah the Salish Sea and our west coast blues. Oyster Bay on Mayne Island has never been more compelling. I love how these moments so easily connect land, sea and sky as one. What a morning!

Of course the very next day… I just had to take out my brushes. It was something that just must be done!

WEST COAST BLUES study 12 x 16 inch oil on canvas

In less than 24 hours after this painting study was completed it has been sold. It never made it to being posted in its work-in-progress “resting” state on my Creative Potager blog. Nor did it make it to being posted as “released” on my Terrill Welch Artist website. The buyer scooped it up from its post on Facebook yesterday. Still to wet to move, its new home is waiting for its eventual arrival. This kind of early sale of a still-wet oil painting seems to be happening more frequently than one might expect.

What do these early sales of wet paintings mean for buyers and collectors watching and waiting for “their painting” to come off of my easel?

My advice would be to make an offer as soon as you are sure about a painting. But even if a painting disappears before you get the chance to make an offer, have faith that, in time, I shall paint another you will find suitable. Or a buyer can commission a size and subject matter for a painting that they would like. Because of my painting style and my general character, I do not do specific commissions where the end result is predetermined by the buyer. Canvas size and subject are about as far as I can commit.

The other stickler that sometimes keeps buyers waiting until after the painting they would like has sold is of course – money. Even my smaller studies are pricy and are due to increase in price again by the end of the month. However, for buyers where there is some level of mutual trust, I can do a lay-away purchase option where the painting is purchased in three equal payments (or by some other agreeable payment plan) and is then delivered to the buyer when the last payment has been received. As a full-time artist and photographer, this option has always been a win-win for both me and the purchaser. If I have a few sales being made by this method, then there is always the known expectation of funds coming in and the paintings are more accessible for purchase by the buyer.

Well, enough about all that! Many thanks to all who enjoy and support my paintings and photography that are mostly of the west coast of Canada.

What creative Blues do you find most inspiring?

P.S. New Featured Oil Paintings are up at Terrill Welch Artists.

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

For gallery and purchase information about Terrill’s photographs and paintings go to http://terrillwelchartist.com

Winter Afternoon West Coast Ferry Home oil painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Sliced with a Tear – a large autumn Canadian landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Evening Thunderclouds over the Strait of Georgia – dramatic seascape sky painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Artist Studio in real time (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
Pear Trees in Winter First Light – small oil painting (terrillwelchartist.com)

Wabi Sabi Feng Shui Nature and Photography

February 27, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 19 Comments

Sometimes the grand seascapes of the west coast winter are just too gray and flat to hold my attention.

When this happens I look elsewhere to see what I can feel and see by the sea. This is when I am most often consciously drawn to beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” or the wabi-sabi nature of our natural environment.

Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, asperity (roughness or irregularity), simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy and appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes. Andrew Juniper in Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence describes wabi-sabi this way: “if an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi.” Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi

Feng Shui on the other hand comes from the discipline of Kan Yu or the Tao of heaven and earth. The term feng shui literally translates as “wind-water” in English. Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_shui

In both wabi-sabi and feng shui there is an element of human use or organization to replicate and appreciate our natural world. So, when the view on the horizon is less than inspiring, I sometimes seek to photograph these natural relationships between feng shui elements with their full embodiment of characteristics of wabi-sabi at sources – without human use or organization.

These wabi-sabi, feng shui nature photographs seldom make it to my blogs or my online galleries for purchase. They are a meditation or spiritual practice rather than an end result. However, today I am going to share a few of these images with you.

In the trees…

Arbutus Splendor

Looking into the deep woods on Henderson Hill gives way to the splendor of the the arbutus trees. Their tangle of light-seeking branches reach elegantly under and around in search of the sky.

A new conversation

Though it is just the end of February there are many signs that a new spring season is beginning here on Mayne Island. One of these is the shedding of the bark on the arbutus trees and the revealing of the fresh new skin on of these sensual trees. It is such a tactile sensory visual experience that I walk along running my hands over their smooth exposed trunks.

Arbutus Bark Natural Design

The pealing and curling captures natural the movement of time in its everyday way of being.

Out on a limb

Trees seem to have invented the strength of the spiral. In our occasional high winds I am often amazed that so few trees are blown to the ground. This spiraling is I believe part of the mystery.

On the forest floor…

While, when the big landscapes fail to impress on a heavy overcast west coast afternoon, the little things sometimes become more beautiful than ever. This is fresh new moss growing on the rocks. So very soft and lovely on the eyes and to the touch.

By the Sea…

A Dance through Time

Over and over they tango the sea and the shore until they are shaped as one. I am squished between the land and sea begging the sky to intervene. Have you been there?

Shell Sand Sea – a love story

The tide is going out. As the water leaves in a wave of salty tears, the shell of a varnish clam remains, embracing the sand.

Butter Clam 1

The round butter clam brings vitality to the gray and the stones by the sea.

Mussels and Seaweed

The connected and passage of relationships crush and sweep away any sense of isolation. Yet, the inner scream of longing cries out to be heard, noticed and cherished.

Plump Oyster

What belly can grumble with such nourishing abundance for the taking?

Another Layer

There is yet another layer of temporary impermanence. We know in this continuation we are but a moment of moments lost to infinity.

Drifting

Our live bits drifting with the dead, the dying and such shall we become.

Such is the nature of wab-sabi feng shui in my natural world of photography. May this imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete Tao of heaven and earth bring you a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing.

What wabi-sabi feng shui nature influences your life?

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

For gallery and purchase information about Terrill’s photographs and paintings go to http://terrillwelchartist.com

Feng Shui Basics (navarrahong.com)
Wabi Sabi Writing (deborahbrasket.wordpress.com)
Wabi-Sabi – Beauty in Impermanence (everydaygurus.com)
Photographing and Painting seams in time with John Daido Loori (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
Stop feeding the WOW-smacked dragon! (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
Reef Bay Morning Experienced – west coast seascape oil painting (terrillwelchartist.com)

February 21, 2013February 21, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 5 Comments

New west coast winter Canadian landscape painting FOG INSIDE PASSAGE released today…

Related articles

At Dusk a small Canadian landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)

Evening and the Arbutus Tree – a large west coast oil painting (terrillwelchartist.com)

Sliced with a Tear – a large autumn Canadian landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)

Unraveling the artistic influences and intentions behind the painting EVENING AND THE ARBUTUS TREE (creativepotager.wordpress.com)

Terrill Welch

Winter fog in the southern gulf islands is often dense and close to the sea. Islands appear and disappear as the ferries take passengers through the inside passage. The mysterious landscape has a beauty that is hard to know unless one lives with it for the long winter months of off-season quiet. This 12 x 24 inch oil on canvas is my rendering of this tactile west coast Canadian landscape experience.

FOG INSIDE PASSAGE

ONLINE GALLERIES include –

ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches

Redbubble photography and painting prints and merchandise

Work in progress BLOG –

Creative Potager – first place new work is unveiled. Subscribe to stay current.

CONTACT THE ARTIST DIRECTLY

If desired, original work can often be purchased directly from Terrill Welch. Please contact Terrill for personalized service.

Winter Afternoon West Coast Ferry Home oil painting

View original post 56 more words

Wanted alive not perfect – still life painting with Paul Cézanne

February 10, 2013February 11, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 22 Comments

There is an immediacy to painting still life that is even more evident than when painting landscapes. The subjects are closer to the painter and therefore the light moves even quicker when painting alla prima or wet-on-wet then when painting the sea or the forest using the same method. But it is my favourite way to paint and with the west coast being so perpetually grey this winter, I wanted some colour. So colour we shall have!

I grab some available subjects and pulled them together on the kitchen counter and then I snug my old easel up to it. After roughing it a view lines with paint, I am ready to begin.

The newsprint is intended to help keep the subject close to us and to provide additional reflected light and lightness to the composition. In the end, as you will see, I let go of some of this in favor of more depth and warmth. With an afternoon of painting large loose brush strokes of delicate colour, we come to about here.

There is something about a still life for the impressionist painter that brings home the need to render it alive rather than perfect. If in doubt follow the light and colour. This is what I tell myself anyway – render the light and get it alive. It is not my idea but the wise perspective of Paul Cézanne. I set it aside to “rest” and at bedtime it looked something like this.

I mean “something like “because every time I looked at the painting I made an adjustment. While the painting was “resting” I cleanup the still life set up, eat one of the pears and set a blood orange aside for morning. I am not completely happy with the painting yet. There is a lost space on the left that leaves the composition more centered than I would like. I wonder what would Paul Cézanne have to say?

Let’s ask the Web Museum in Paris:

Paul Cézanne, one of the creators of modern art, was called the “solidifier of Impressionism”. And indeed he does not draw his picture before painting it: instead, he creates space and depth of perspective by means of planes of color, which are freely associated and at the same time contrasted and compared. The facets which are thus produced create not just one but many perspectives, and in this way volume comes once again to dominate the composition, no longer a product of the line but rather of the color itself. His still-lifes, in their simplicity and delicate tonal harmony, are a typical work and thus ideal for an understanding of Cézanne’s art.

Most of his pictures are still lifes. These were done in the studio, with simple props; a cloth, some apples, a vase or bowl and, later in his career, plaster sculptures. Cézanne’s still lifes are both traditional and modern. The fruits and objects are readily identifiable, but they have no aroma, no sensual or tactile appeal and no other function other than as passive decorative objects coexisting in the same flat space. They bear no relation to the colorful vegetables of Provence — gorgeous red tomatoes, purple aubergines, and bright green courgettes. In his pursuit of the essence of art, Cézanne had to suppress earthly delights.

(reference: Web Museum Paris at http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/cezanne/sl which includes several images of his still life paintings)

Well, I am not sure I agree that his paintings “have no aroma, sensual or tactile appeal and no other function other than as passive decorative objects coexisting on the same flat space.” However, he did focus on using planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields of viewer recognition. This is what I am after in this painting. But I want to be sure the viewer experiences the life and sustenance of the subject. These bosc pears, sweet lemons and blood oranges are ready for eating. Delicious in fact. How do I get past the idea of decorative? How do I create more weight on the left side of the composition? Ah yes, questions to sleep on.

It is morning. I cut up the blood orange. I look at it. My mind goes into a long pause. I pick up the cutting board with the orange slices still on it and climb the stairs to the studio.

Rightly or wrongly, there are now slices of blood orange slid in beside the rest of the fruit in the painting. Of course, as always, when one things changes in a painting there is the need to change a dozen others. So here it is. Finished. Not perfect but still alive I think.

WINE VASE, PEARS, LEMONS AND BLOOD ORANGES 12 x 16 inch oil on canvas

The still live painting’s softness and colour harmony in this morning’s light pleases me. And do have a slice of blood orange. They are delicious! The painting will be released over at Terrill Welch Artist at some point in the future.

What might you be wanting to render alive not perfect?

All the best of Sunday to you and wishing you a marvelous week ahead!

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

For gallery and purchase information about Terrill’s photographs and paintings go to http://terrillwelchartist.com

Paul Cézanne: founding father of modern art (guardian.co.uk)

Artist Studio in real time

February 3, 2013February 3, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 10 Comments

Today my art studio is feeling and looking like a real mess.

I can see I have paint that has now dried onto my enamel table top. Not very pleasing at all. Nor is the unfinished applications for our expired passport renewals and neither are the stacks of receipts to be sorted for my 2012 tax returns either. However, there are ten completed paintings in my 2013 folder with six still to release. Three paintings have sold already this year and there are enough supplies in the studio to keep going for another few months.

But darn! Every time I think about those pesky administrative tasks, well I just squeeze more paint onto the palette, put another canvas on the easel and turn my back on it for another day. So this week I have made myself a promise. I either do passport applications, sort receipts for the bookkeeper or paint the edges on my big paintings. It is a toss-up which of these three tasks I dislike the most. The outcome is sure to be the ideal result because completing any three of these tasks this week will be a win.

Now, how might I set up the last of my large 60 x 36 inch canvases to do that fir tree painting I have been thinking about? Oh! Yeah. Hum. Must wait until edges, passport and tax files are completed….

The artist’s slumps a few inches closer to the studio floor her face longer than the gray winter day outside the window. Then, squaring her shoulders, she begins cleaning the studio. It is Sunday after all. No one does paper work or painting of edges on Sunday. Do they?

What is your least favourite “must do” task and how do you get it done?

And an ever so slightly more cheerful note, here is one of the newest paintings that is yet to be released.

AT DUSK 10 x 12 inch oil on canvas will be released over at Terrill Welch Artist later this week along with at least a couple more that are also in the completed folder. All paintings that are currently available can be viewed in the Artsy Home online gallery HERE.

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

For gallery and purchase information about Terrill’s photographs and paintings go to http://terrillwelchartist.com

Greetings Fir Tree and Your Simple Goodness – poem by Terrill Welch (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
What happens in an art studio if the painter catches a cold? (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
Reef Bay Mayne Island observation to painted experience (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
Evening and the Arbutus Tree – a large west coast oil painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Selling Art (pmontezchronicles.wordpress.com)

The beauty of the lone Tree

January 28, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 19 Comments

There are several trees on the island that I photograph over and over with the hopes to someday catch their essence with my lens. One of these trees is the one in the daffodil field. The tree has set itself in a delightful corner of the world that is often privy to dramatic or at least interesting light. Like the other day when I spotted it with the fog starting to roll up behind its naked trunk and branches.

So I wiggled my lens in a little closer to see what we could see…

But then I got distracted by its sister tree by the gate.

By the time I looked back, the mist had really started to drift up behind the other tree.

It is lovely of course but is it just right? Can we glimpse the spirit of the tree as it is revealed to the viewer’s eye. No, I think not – not quite. Almost but still I am left feeling unsatisfied. Maybe it is time to tackle it with paint brush and canvas.

Speaking of which, I have several paintings to release this week over at Terrill Welch Artist. The first post went up this morning for a 12 x 16 inc h oil on canvas “Winter Afternoon West Coast Ferry Home”