Seasoned Drama Queen

Enjoying one of life’s great mysteries as no two days at the beach are ever  the same. 

(image is available for purchase here.)

Seasoned Drama Queen

Old sandstones baked on the reef until lustfully sultry,

while awaiting the sea’s caress.

Together with the sky’s blue,

these three perform like a seasoned drama queen,

making so much out of so little.

Sprout question: What sensory experience has your creative juices flowing?

STUDY OF BLUE  solo exhibition opens Thursday June 30, 2011.

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

FromMayne Island,British Columbia,Canada

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com

Sunday Morning

 Inspired by Dashin’s post SUNDAY THOUGHT and last evening’s walk.


 Sunday Morning

A raven speaks of valley news while small birds warble their fragments of gossip.

Sweet, warm air rides the sun in through the studio window.

My coffee cools.

Best of Sunday too you!

Sprout question: What is your Sunday Thought?

STUDY OF BLUE  solo exhibition opens Thursday June 30, 2011.

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

FromMayne Island,British Columbia,Canada

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com

Port of call – Mayne Island

Near Mayne Island while traversing the inside passage from either direction, the Gulf Islands B.C. Ferry vessel loudspeaker will crackle. The captain then announces variations of “We are approaching Villiage-Bay-Mayne-sland. This is also the transfer point for passengers going to…..”  This last part of the announcement changes depending on what ferry you are traveling.

It is pretty hard to miss your stop. But knowing if you even want to come or how to get this far in your trip can be a little tricky. Fortunately, our Mayne Island Community Chamber of Commerce makes it easier.

Regular Creative Potager readers may recognize the photographs on the front panel and the inside of this four-fold brochure. Yes, they are mine.

Earlier this year I was asked by a chamber member if I would consider submitting some photographs for use in the brochure. There had been a community-wide call for submission. I hummed and hawed feeling that my images are not really marketing sunshine and fun. They are often quiet, subdued, reflective and moodily dramatic. Since most of my photographs are taken in low-light during fall/winter or during the bookends of a spring or summer day, I wasn’t sure what I had to offer. But I agreed to let the committee have a look at my redbubble portfolio. To my delight they chose these two images. This is the second time this year that my images have been requested for promotional purposes – a pleasant addition to my artistically aimed photography.

But you might be saying “where is Mayne Island anyway?” The Chamber brochure has a pictorial answer on the back panel. Off the west coast of North America, snuggled into a cluster of Canadian Gulf Islands and the United States San Juan Islands, that darkly coloured island is home.

Now I bet you want to know exactly where Creative Potager is on Mayne Island – right? If you open up the brochure there is a map of the island. I love the crunchy tactile unfolding of maps. This brochure has a particularly satisfying soft and earthy feeling to the touch.

Creative Potager is marked by a white-squared number 35. See it there, just below the Mt Parke Park signage near the centre of the island.

The white-squared number 35 Creative Potager home studio is open by appointment.

The best way to get a home studio tour of our timberframed strawbale la casa de inspiracion is to email me at tawelch@shaw.ca .

You will need a brochure, or wait for the chamber website to be updated, to know exactly what else is marked on the map. I can tell you that yellow-squared numbers are accommodation, green are farms, orange real estate, red services, and white shops and galleries. If you would like your own brochure it will be on the ferry or drop me a line and I can mail you one.

My STUDY OF BLUE  solo exhibition of 15 original oil paintings, opening Thursday June 30, 2011, will be held at the yellow-squared number 9 and blue-squared number 17 which is the two listings for the Oceanwood. One is for accommodation and one for the restaurant.

Fly into Vancouver or Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, rent a car, catch a ferry and you are here. It is just that easy. During the busy summer season it is recommended to make reservations for the ferry from Vancouver to Mayne Island and for accommodation while you are here. I look forward to seeing you sometime soon.

Best of the weekend to you!

Sprout question: What is your creative port of call?

STUDY OF BLUE  solo exhibition opens Thursday June 30, 2011.

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com

Promise of Summer

As the grasses begin to head, even the cool weather can’t deny the promise of summer.

The first fawn of the year moves in the shadows.

We take to the beach for an afternoon weekend read.

There is a heron fishing in the shallows.

Finally it catches a dinner.

We promise ourselves many more days like this – it is the promise of summer.

Sprout question: What is your promise of summer?

STUDY OF BLUE  solo exhibition opens Thursday June 30, 2011.

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

FromMayne Island,British Columbia,Canada

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com

Pure Joy

Well, it has been more than a week since I posted. I am thinking about what to post. I want it to be good! It could be my newest photo of wild sunflowers but no, that is just not quite right.

Or it could a photo of our large extended family walk while we wait for the grandparents and great aunt to arrive (or great grandparents and great-great aunt depending on who was doing the referencing). Which is okay but probably only significant to me.

However, what I most want to post is about a moment of pure joy simply because I keep thinking about this moment over and over again.

You see, my sister and her family have a pool with house.

Actually, the house was there first and the pool was built last fall. It has a filtration pond and the swimming pool has no chemicals. Here I am dipping in my toes with the youngest family member.

You can see the filtration pond behind me. It will be filled with water plants in mid June.

Looking very natural and as if it had been there all along, the swimming pool has a great admirer – one nine year old boy. The water is about 17 degrees Celsius or 62 degrees Fahrenheit.  But this doesn’t seem to be a problem.

He is going down!

And he is in!

Somewhere in there?

The look of happiness.

Pure joy is unmistakable.

We have a camping trip for a week to plan this summer. Do you think it should be someplace where we can swim?

It was the most grand of grand weekends in a long while. Special thanks to my sister and her family for having us.

Sprout question: What could you have shared today but didn’t?

Best of the weekend everyone!

STUDY OF BLUE  solo exhibition opens Thursday June 30, 2011.

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com

KEEPING WATCH original oil painting by Terrill Welch

Here it is! The last painting, KEEPING WATCH, of the 15 that will be in my solo exhibition, STUDY OF BLUE  solo exhibition opening June 30, 2011 is complete.

The painting started out in the usual Terrill-Welch-fashion with an underpainting ready to start working up into a painting.

The large upright canvas did not fit on my easel so I painted down in the sun room which is a deliciously bright place to work.

The canvas had held the movement in the scene from the beginning of the underpainting and I can see that one of my jobs will be to retain that energy right through to completion.

You may guess by now that I am painting my very most favourite arbutus tree overlooking the Strait of Georgia by the light house at Georgina Point. This tree will be featured in one of my photographs on the front cover of this year’s Mayne Island Community Chamber of Commerce brochure and be distributed up and down parts of the west coast of Canada and the United States.

The painting is now starting to breathe on its own, talking back quietly to me as I work.

Now I am close. It is not finished but I am undecided as to what to do next.

I let it rest for a few days and then I finish it up.

KEEPING WATCH 36 X 24  by 1.5 inch original oil painting by Terrill Welch

If you want you can use your inspection skills and see if you can discover what I changed. One change is particularly obvious. The others not so much so.

Please NOTE: I am taking a week off from blogging. The next Creative Potager post will be Friday May 27, 2011. It is time for a little creative downtime before shifting gears into the final preparations for the opening.

Sprout question: What does creative downtime mean to you?

STUDY OF BLUE  solo exhibition opens Thursday June 30, 2011.

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com

Apple Blossom Special

I am so close to, but not quite, finished my last painting KEEPING WATCH of the 15 that will be in my solo exhibition, STUDY OF BLUE, opening June 30, 2011. You are going to have to wait – maybe Friday, depending on how my week goes.

To sustain you until then, I have some lovely apple blossom photographs.

and another….

and another….

and another….

until finally, they are dancing on the branch….

(image may be purchased here)

By the way, I had the most amazing Friday the 13th. Two of my original oil paintings were sold in pre-sales and will be off to new homes July 27, 2011 at the close of my upcoming show.

ORANGE SEA will be off to a collector  in Victoria, B.C. Canada.

HEAVY CLOUD will be off to a collector in the United States.

May the pieces enrich and bless their new owner’s lives for years to come.

Friday must be one of my good luck kinds of days!

This now means that three of the fifteen paintings to be shown are already sold. A very good beginning – don’t you think?

STUDY OF BLUE  solo exhibition opens Thursday June 30, 2011.

Sprout question: If you could choose anyone of the STUDY OF BLUE paintings to hang on your wall which would it be and why?

(and please don’t say the one I haven’t finished yet, it just might hurt my feelings)

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com

AUTUMN BOUNTY and COURTNEY IN THE MOONLIGHT by Sue Wiebe

As promised here are two more original oil paintings on canvas by artist Sue Wiebe.

Learning and practicing how to create depth and shadow is an ongoing process for most of us that apply paint to canvas or paper. COURTNEY IN THE MOONLIGHT provides a direct work out for this artistic muscle.

COURTNEY IN THE MOONLIGHT, 12 X 16 inch original oil painting, by Sue Wiebe

Well done Sue! Exquisite!

Sue painted this next oil painting, AUTUMN BOUNTY, during the time that she was working on WATCHING, the painting of the cougar.  There are only so many hours an artist can paint fur before there is an unrelenting desire to break free. This painting certainly does this in spades.

AUTUMN BOUNTY, 11 by 14 inch original oil painting on canvas, by Sue Wiebe.

I have AUTUMN BOUNTY as my laptop background at the moment and smile every time I sit down to do some work.

Sue, thank you for being our feature artist this week. It is always a pleasure to have you here at Creative Potager. I look forward to seeing your work in person in a week from now. There is nothing like a studio walk and a face-to-face viewing.

Sprout question: What creative muscle are you exercising at the moment?

STUDY OF BLUE  solo exhibition opens Thursday June 30, 2011.

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

FromMayne Island,British Columbia,Canada

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com

WATCHING original oil painting of a cougar by Sue Wiebe

I have a treat for us today with a feature post and a painting by another artist. I hope you enjoy the adventure.

Do you ever get that feeling that you are being watched? Then you turn around, slowly, and sure enough you are being stalked? In this case, artist Sue Wiebe’s daughter, Courtney, found that it was a cougar and was able to take a photograph of it that Sue used as a reference for her original oil painting WATCHING.

Fortunately for us, Sue took some photographs of her painting in progress. We will start with a look at the underpainting.

Next we see the painting building and coming alive.

In the finished work it feels like the cougar is ready to spring from her hiding spot under the edge of the log – those ears slightly flattened, attentive, watching.

WATCHING 20 X 30 inch original oil painting by Sue Wiebe.

I asked Sue if she could tell us about her experience of painting this incredible painting:

It is the biggest oil on canvas I have done so far.  It taught me to painting standing up so I had a better range of motion.  But the truth of the matter is, I think, the name says it all.  The cougar watched me through the whole painting.  I would set her aside, sometimes for long periods of time, as other aspects in life needed to be attended to or I puzzled over achieving the effect I wanted, but she was always watching and waiting.  Sometimes, even demanding, that I take the time to finish.  She is finished, and yet, she watches.

If you remember from time to time over the winter Sue would comment on Creative Potager about the hours it was taking to paint fur. Well now you know the rest of the story.

Sue has been featured on Creative Potager in the past but for those of you who didn’t know she is my sister. Painting is something that we share with equal passion. On Friday I have two more of her paintings that I will post for you to see. They are a still life with the most stunning shades of orange AUTUMN BOUNTY and a limited palette painting called COURTNEY IN THE MOONLIGHT.

Sprout question: What is a creative passion you share with a sibling or other family member?

STUDY OF BLUE  solo exhibition opens Thursday June 27, 2011.

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

FromMayne Island,British Columbia,Canada

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com

Guess who I met on the road?

If your read Monday’s post “Story of the Henderson Hill Original Oil Painting,” you may remember that we had to go into Victoria for dentists appointment and to pick up my dear 20-year-old blue Ford F150 4X4 pick up – Miss Prissy. I am happy to report that she will likely be of reliable service for a few more years yet.

While we were at the dentist, we had a guest come to see us. Can you guess who? Does this help?

He traveled by grey hound and city bus for over an hour just to say hello. Coen was a bit of a weary traveler and took to a nap after visiting and taking yet another city bus ride when we were through at the dentists.

Of course he wasn’t traveling alone.

In fact he doesn’t go very far from his mom at anytime yet. Who can complain about seeing the dentist with visitors like this? Not me, that is for sure. By the way, these three photographs were taken with a little android phone because that was all we had.

On another note, I didn’t get anymore painting done yet this week but I do have a photograph you may want to see.

(this image may be purchased here) 

The photograph Underneath is akin to sitting under a table as a child. It is about being in the forest looking out onto the rest of the world. I like the privacy and the unusual perspective that the image offers.

Sprout question: Tell us about a time your creativity came from underneath?

Best of the weekend to you!

STUDY OF BLUE  solo exhibition opens Thursday June 30, 2011.

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com