Mayne Island

First Days of January 2025 reference gathering and painting

/ Terrill Welch / Leave a comment

Wednesday, 21 October 2026

This post contains several excerpts from Terrill Welch MA Fine Art Journal because it is one steady flow of related notes in my painting practice for this time period.

Tuesday, 31 December 2025

I have only a short while to visit Reef Bay. A friend is staying with my husband so I can get groceries and come to gather references. Noon is not my favourite time of day but for the winter months it will work fine. The light is low. The sea is rough and the shells are plenty at the water’s edge. I took a short video and then settled into observing and waiting for moments to present themselves and, as always, they did…

I have my large Canon EOS 70D camera with a Canon zoom lens 70-200mm 1:2.8 IS II USM which in future will be called ”the big camera with the big lens”. My phone camera is an iPhone 11plus pro and is the tool I use most often when gathering references. Both cameras have their strengths and limitations. However, I find them excellent memory aids and an expressive art form all on their own.

I take a few images with both cameras for locational context and briskly walk back to the car.

On the 15 minute, slow 50 km drive home along windy forest-edged rolling roads, I think about how I only consider the physical context of my work for this project as being what is at the seashore. I do not include the drive or having left our strawbale timber frame constructed home with its in floor hot water heat and environmental friendly construction and living. The milk paint on the walls and seven skylights with large windows in three directions creating a seamless connection to the forests and fields around us remain invisible to the history of my work with the exception of my art studio that takes up the sunken room below the open kitchen. I wonder if these aspects of my creative environment matter. I know they matter to our life overall but do they have an impact on how I approach and do my making process? I write this to make this additional physical context visible. 

Wednesday, 1 January 2025

Usually on the first day of the year, go out to the edge of the sea on the east side of the island to watch the sunrise. This year it wasn’t possible so I went to Reef Bay later in the day. The cold air caught in the wind and sliced into my forehead and bare hands. I knew I wasn’t going to last long but it was great to be there. It is a little later in the afternoon. On this day my husband has managed his walker around the soft ground of the house and out to the car that is parked beside the gallery pod at the gate. We have come to the beach with a mocha for him and a peppermint tea for me and along with muffins from the bakery. We are pleased to be back doing some of our favourite things such as car picnics that allow him to sit and view the water and me as I walk along the shore gathering references. I am getting more time to focus on work as he heals from a fractured hip and regains his mental clarity to his previous level following the trauma of the break, surgery, opioids for pain and the confusion of the hospital. His brain injury from a previous large stroke left us unsure if he could regain his baseline. We are relieved that it has come to pass. I am still required to provide additional support and do extra work overall. But it is much better now than the first few weeks and my wellbeing has returned where I can think and hold new information unrelated to David’s health needs. I can feel a new normal settling back into my art practice and studies. 

I meander to the tidal edge and linger a little in the cold. It is good just to be alive and know that the people and places that I love are doing well. I settle low to the ground and gather just a few images with my phone. 

Friday, 3 January 2025

I have been reading and thinking and thinking and reading for the past few days. Some of that thinking is in my previous post about the theories of Dōgen and Plato. I have gone from secondary sources to translations of primary texts in my literature review. 

I go for a long hike down the central trail of Edith Point, a public conservation point that has the sea on each side with glimpses only on the north of the Strait of Georgia until the trail reaches the actual point. This is familiar land and shoreline to me. 

I have been hiking the 4.5km return trails for just about 18 years.

Still, I pause to visit with special arbutus trees while mentally making inventories of previous paintings that have yet to include this beauty. 

As I walk, I ponder. There is too much material to integrate immediately into my art practice and cover in a 3,000 word contextual study. I will have to choose and summarize the most important aspects for this point on my journey. 

Saturday, 4 January 2025

In the morning I paint red acrylic grounds on seven small 12 x 10 inch canvases for painting sketches and one larger 20 x 24 inch canvas. I have the beginnings of an idea to paint the seven smaller canvases as a series where one is a progression from the other. I am not exactly sure how this will work yet but I want the canvases ready regardless. I have again chosen the red ground for how it will provide depth under the overpainting of blues, violets and whites.


In the afternoon, we again go out and take the recycling to the nonprofit processing centre for the island’s extensive recycling efforts. After this, it is to the bakery for car picnic supplies and then to Reef Bay. I again step to the land and sea edge and squat low to the ground with my phone camera. This time I am invited to notice individual shells scattered along the edge of the tide line. 

These references, gathered over these past few days, are what I call photographic sketches. They are collected as sensory and memory aids and for exploring possibilities as they present themselves in the immediate present. I have no illusions about their purity and acknowledge that they are deeply entangled within the limits of the devices and within my life experiences, context and past gatherings and my musings about what use they will be in the future. Still, I want to collect them and desire them for their own record keeping capacities. 

Sunday, 6 January 2025

Today is a studio day. I decided to work flat on the table rather than the easel to do the painting sketches. This is an usual way for me to paint but it is also the most practical because these two surfaces are too small to easily secure side-by-side on my large easel and too large for my small easel. I move the easel around to the end of the table and paint in a direction in the studio I have never done before. It was perfect with the misty filtered light coming in the windows. 

I am still able to stand to paint and use my whole body in the painting process. Taking one of my images as a starting point I begin. 

While I am painting, I cannot help but think that Plato’s cautions about paintings being a copy of a copy that is further removed from his notion of ultimate reality by using my memory and photographic reference prompts. However, he would have the same criticism even if I was standing in front of my subject and painting. I keep thinking that his criticism about imitation and shadows of reality in relation to my inquiry into inner peace, wellbeing and resilience might have some merit. Still, I paint on while holding this intention. I curve the brush around the things we have named shells and feel the sea washing over them under my brush. I work the whole of both canvases.

Without conscious decision, I build up the paint and shapes on the left canvas.

Then I stopped. I have no reason for stopping. I just stopped. Something deep inside me has intervened. I walk away from the studio neither frustrated nor upset or even concerned. I wash my brushes, make a cup of peppermint tea and I start to ponder. What if I do not continue painting in the same manner? What if I try to expose the process of experiencing the sea floor from more than one perspective as if moving my eye and body alongside the rhythm of where the land and sea meet? What might this be like if I did this in a continuous manner with the seven small canvases? 

Monday, 6 January 2025

Could the world views of Dōgen and Plato meet together with the land and sea and my intention for inner peace, wellbeing and resilience somewhere in this making process? What might happen if I do this? Once I get this post up, I shall go back to the studio and see. 

Before I do this, I want to acknowledge to myself that I feel totally inadequate to the task at hand. I know little about philosophy and less about these two individuals and their work. I have only a sketchy understanding of both that has become coupled with a drive to bring what is ordinary in our natural environment to our collective consciousness as something of value to be cherished. Still, I will pick up my brushes and keep painting while I study and learn. I remind myself that new ideas and processes do not often come forth completely developed. They must brew in the rich soup of tidal half thoughts, partial ideas and incomplete processes. This is not only okay, it is necessary and the most useful way forward. 

Too Much For A Painter

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Too Much For A Painter

Morning came with a vibrant assault.

Deep cadmium and mineral violet

flung themselves carelessly across the sky-soaked trees.

Such promise! 

I frittered it away…

going to the post office to ship a commissioned work to an art collector, 

choosing almost ripe pears at the grocery store, 

hanging a large painting in our local bakery,

visiting on zoom with a longtime artist friend in another country, and

reading passages by Plato and Dōgen. 

Sadly, my brushes remain helpless on the studio table. 

Regrettably, 

ignored.

Maybe tomorrow 

won’t begin with such brilliance.

~Terrill Welch, January 7, 2025

Research through Art Practice – reflection on lecture

Friday, 10 January 2025

In reflecting on the lecture by Dr. Michele Whiting, I find myself pausing at the youth of research and theory through art practice. My first thought was that my children, who are in their forties, are older than this discipline. There is a freshness and excitement that comes with this newness. Everything is still malleable and art research and theory can freely borrow and consider the best from other disciplines as well as developing and establishing its own nature. I remember this dynamic when I studied Sociology and Women’s Studies in the late 1980’s and then worked on a master’s degree in the 1990’s in Gender Studies. There were also smatterings of these same elements in the many positions of my various non-art careers where I repeatedly took on jobs without job descriptions and I later developed these positions through the process of doing so as to reach the desired outcomes. I find myself in a somewhat familiar place with research through art practice and I’m filled with great curiosity for what might be possible through rigorous exploration and critical thinking. I have no doubt that my painting practice will be the better for it, regardless of any other result, and this is the most important reason I am taking this MA of Fine Art. 

Now to the reflective questions:

My position as a researcher and maker – 

As a person with an established painting practice and who primarily works from my own references, imagination and inquiry, I am driven by a researcher’s attitude to making. What I am hoping for with this specific project is to create a formal structure for my inquiry that will result in a deeper understanding about how I get the results I endlessly seek and place them within the larger contemporary art field of research. Basically, I am seeking excellent company to propel my work forward! I sense that the approach of ‘Reflectivity and Reflection’ that is outlined in the lecture demonstrating a circular relationship between the studio and contextual and theoretical research is a particularly useful method of working for my inquiry and it is possibly the most natural fit with my personal sensibilities.

Has your understanding of research in a fine art context been changed, and if so, how?

Yes. Before starting this programme, I was only considering my actual making as my research and practice. I am now clear that my process of making needs to be considered from a much more inclusive perspective and take in my observation and reference gathering as well as the actual painting process.

How can you relate the lecture content to your own processes?

My endless iterations through reference gathering decisions in the field are where I have many chance encounters in my creative process occur. This process continues in the studio and then is taken back out to my field of inquiry and discoveries happen in my work through the wholeness of this process. Somehow, I had separated these two aspects as distinct processes and I have been considering only the later studio work as being valid a process and material for research inquiry. 

What would you change or work towards and why?

I will be taking a more wholistic approach going forward. 

Due to their importance, I have taken the liberty to gather together the references cited in Dr Michele Whiting’s recorded lecture ‘Research through Art Practice.’ There are a couple additions added from my research into the references and I did not include references to the quotes in the slides.  

Selected and Important Works Referenced in presentation and Additions:

Dufourcq, Annabelle. “The Imaginary as Introduction to Ontology and Then as Fundamental Ontological Model.” Contributions to Phenomenology, 1 Jan. 2024, pp. 343–350, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73826-5_21. Accessed 11 Jan. 2025. (Speaks to Maurice Merleau-Ponty “For an ontology of the Perceived World” 1954-55)

Frayling, Christopher. “Research in Art and Design.” Royal College of Art Research Papers, vol. 1, no. 1, 1993, researchonline.rca.ac.uk/384/9/frayling_research_in_art_and_design_1993_OCR.pdf. Accessed 11 Jan. 2025.

“Front Page | Journal of Artistic Research.” Www.jar-Online.net, www.jar-online.net/en. Accessed 11 Jan. 2025.

Gray, Carole, and Julian Malins. Visualizing Research. 11 Feb. 2016, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315547923.

Loveless, Natalie. “How to Make Art at the End of the World.” Dukeupress.edu, Duke University Press , 2019, www.dukeupress.edu/how-to-make-art-at-the-end-of-the-world. Accessed 11 Jan. 2025.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The World of Perception. Routledge, 31 July 2004.

Puig de La Bellacasa, Maria. “Matters of Care.” University of Minnesota Press, 18 Mar. 2024, www.upress.umn.edu/9781517900656/matters-of-care/. Accessed 11 Jan. 2025.

Rose, Gillian. “Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials | SAGE Companion.” Sagepub.com, 2016, study.sagepub.com/rose4e.

Schön, Donald. The Reflective Practitioner. 1983. https://studenthublive.open.ac.uk/sites/studenthublive.open.ac.uk/files/reflective%20practitioner%20-%20schon.pdf

Verbeke, Johan. “The Intrinsic Value of Artistic Research.” Architecture, Design and Conservation – Danish Portal for Artistic and Scientific Research, 2025, pp. 123–125, adk.elsevierpure.com/en/publications/the-intrinsic-value-of-artistic-resrearch. Accessed 11 Jan. 2025.

Time between studio and another sea floor painting process

Sunday, January 12, 2014

As new oil paintings rest on my easel, the passage of time and space between studio and sea seems to narrow with purpose. I have gathered some of this flow in my reference material and the resting point of the works in progress.

In an early post I shared where I had stopped with this loosely diptych pair of studies…


The week has transitioned between reading about theories of objects and things, human perception, Plato’s constant abstract true reality and Dōgen’s continuous change in the particulars of ordinary life combined with my driving need for immersive time beside the sea and in the studio where I bring my conversations with the sea with me to share on the canvases. There is no doubt about our flawed and limited sensory information. I will expand on the science and specifics of this later on. However, this process of exposing, defining and creating meaning around these observation flaws beside the sea is a mystery that continues to sustain my art practice. It is within this process that I find inner peace, wellbeing and resilience. Still, that act of thinking about sensory experience does, as you will see, have an impact on what perspective I choose and how I curate my conversations with the sea on the shores of Reef Bay onto my canvases.

The following are snippets of observations between the full stop in the studio and the completion to resting of two small studies. In my painting practice “resting” is the place where I have completed all I can in that moment and I am waiting to see if the work demands anything more. I keep the work where I can look at it from time to time out of the corner of my eye. I wait. Then I make a final decision to either change something or call it done/completed/resolved. 

My next step after the full stop was to consider movement and the effects on what we observe and how my eyes try and catch glimpses of objects and shapes that can quickly be categorized and named… even if I get it wrong. My brain will make and hang onto a mistake until further information can refine my observations rather than leave a void. I develop the second canvas with this in mind.


I am disappointed. Now neither canvas works for me, either separate or together. What to do? I could still scrape them and start again. I decide against this and leave them to dry to the touch and return to the sea.

The sun softly lifted a heavy mist down at the bay. It had me thinking about how inner peace, wellbeing and resilience are something we put ourselves in a place to receive and then create from what is available. The three gifts from gratitude are always present and then form from our own making. This takes more effort if the materials are scarce but it is still possible and always necessary.

The midday winter tides are high and the long reef trenches of shells are outside of my reach.

A few days later, I go to sleep in evening thinking about big movements and large landscapes of the sea depicting small areas, something close and intimate and yet grand. I have an idea for my third study and a notion about changing the sea floor perspective from above to beside just as I would with a more expansive geography composition. First, I work on the pair of studies that I had started and continue to paint them together. Now I am more satisfied with the conversation being shared in these two.


I had found a way to attach the two canvases securely together to my small easel. I found I didn’t like working flat on the table at all. My trifocal lenses made it difficult to see properly and there is a glare on the surface that interferes with being able to read the values as I am working. Finally, my lower back complained about being held in the new position for several hours at a time.

I leave the painting sketches and head for Reef Bay again in the hopes I might find something to practice my new perspective idea.


The tide is still higher than I would like but there are some interesting possibilities to explore.

At first I scan out from the shore.


A floating mussel shell catches my attention.


I drop the phone camera down as low as I can without getting it wet and wait as the sea wash moves back and forth.

Sometimes the seashell is completely covered providing more visual interaction between the sea and sky.

I move a little farther along to a collection of shells just close enough for me to reach. The seaweed flashes back forth with the movement of the tide.

I repeat the low angle perspective tilting the camera out towards an unseen horizon.

Hummm…. let’s go lower yet. There! Time and spacial relationships seem to entangle in the flawed camera rendering of a copy of the landscape depicting the small along the sea shore that is then further distorted in my own viewing as as my human eye and brain scramble to make meaning of what I observe.

This then, and a few close up captured cousins, will become my muse for my next painting study.

In the meantime, these two studies are resting together and a part.

They do seem to speak well together about my experience and conversation with the sea. Yet, they may need a little more space from each other as if they are two separate paragraphs in the same story rather than one long run on sentence.

“Butter Clamshells Near Shore I Study” by Terrill Welch, 12 x 10 inch walnut oil on canvas.

Artist notes: I stare into the winter sea tides and wonder at the rocking of the shells that shift with each incoming and outgoing wave.

“Butter Clamshells Near Shore II Study” by Terrill Welch, 12 x 10 inch walnut oil on canvas.

Artist notes: I stare again into the winter sea tides and wonder at the rocking of the shells that shift with each incoming and outgoing wave.

I have no idea if this new line of inquire in perspective of the landscape of the small will be fruitful in my exploration of how nature can instil inner peace, wellbeing and resilience but it is exciting to consider and so I shall.

Gaining Momentum When A Studio Practice Stalls

/ Terrill Welch / Leave a comment

Monday, 14 September 2026

This week has been one thing after another that has pulled me from my studio or out in the field gathering references or plein air painting. It happens but that doesn’t mean it should be allowed to erode my forward momentum. I am waiting for some new art supplies and there are other art business tasks to complete before I embark on a week-long painting trip at the end of the month. However, the truth is I have many ideas on what I want to begin in the studio and nothing is settling yet. So my solution is often to work on what I do know as a way of moving myself forward. In this case, I know for sure that I need some grounds on surfaces that are dry and ready to go. So, I begin there. 

I have begun to add Tri-Art, a Canadian brand of acrylic paints when I need replacements for my Golden acrylics that are made in the United States.

This is one of my many small moves to help protect and build our Canadian economy. The principle is that we can do more for each other than anyone can take away from us. The Tri-Art paints do handle differently and are more fluid in consistency but I am willing to give them a try, especially for grounds which I want thin anyway. We each must do everything we can, consistently and repeatedly, as citizens and as small businesses.

Now, I have two larger linen canvas and three small boards ready to go. Ta-da!

That is likely all the painting I will get done today but it was necessary and important work in preparation for another day. I am now not stalled. I have moved forward in a meaningful way to support the next couple of weeks of my painting practice. 

What about you? What do you do when you are working on a project and get stalled? 

Now I am off to check the mail and see if I have a notice in the mailbox for those art supplies I am waiting for to arrive. 

Oyster Bay Late August Painting Data Collection

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Monday, 7 September 2026

Painting Data Collection 

Title: Oyster Bay Late AugustDate Completed: Friday, 28 August 2026
Materials: acrylic on linen board 
Size: 8 x 10 inches (20.32 x 25.4 x 0.51 cm)

Figurative/Abstract Self Assessment Band-Scale Rating between 1-10: 5

This is a plein air contemporary impressionist quick acrylic study to capture sensory information in the moment. 

Reference Gathering: 

The references for this work were observations in the moment as I stood on the top of an exposed piece of sandstone in front of my easel in Oyster Bay on (what is now called) Mayne Island in British Columbia, Canada. 

Setting up to plein air paint at Oyster Bay in late August. Photograph by Terrill Welch, Friday, 28 August 2026.

When I began there was a couple making their way along the shoreline and a couple of construction workers building a bench up above them. Other than this, I had the place to myself for the painting session. 

Making Process:

The painting process was direct and immediate as I captured the light first and then began to build up the forms of the sandstone.

Work-in-progress — Oyster Bay Late August by Terrill Welch, 8 x 10 inch acrylic on linen board. Photograph by Terrill Welch. Friday, 28 August 2026.

I was working with an older palette from a previous painting sketch that had ran a bit from being tilted in my plein air backpack. But it worked.

Work-in-progress 2 — Oyster Bay Late August by Terrill Welch, 8 x 10 inch acrylic on linen board. Photograph by Terrill Welch. Friday, 28 August 2026.

Eventually I managed to get everything blocked in and was able to slightly refine the piece before my available time came to an end.

Still on the easel — Oyster Bay Late August by Terrill Welch, 8 x 10 inch acrylic on linen board. Photograph by Terrill Welch. Friday, 28 August 2026.

Finished Painting:

Oyster Bay Late August by Terrill Welch, 8 x 10 inch acrylic on linen board. Completed August 28, 2026.

Making Notes:

I set the plein air easel on top of the sandstone and looked east over to the rocks exposed in a low tide. The day is pleasant with blue skies holding shapely clouds in the late August sun. I stay for a while with my brush in hand and drift through an hour of painting. It is my birthday and this is my gift to me.

Reflective Analysis:

I had been offered a chance to go out on my own while knowing someone was with my partner who has dementia but still is able to stay by himself for a few hours at a time, if set up with a note to remind him when I will be back and where I have gone. But it is always more freeing if someone is with him. It was a generous offer. She thought I could go for lunch with a friend or something for my birthday. I responded that what I would like to do is go plein air painting because I already had family coming over to visit on several different days for my birthday. She laughed and replied — of course you want to go paint for your birthday! 

Reflexive Analysis: 

One of the odd things to me about being a full time caregiver is that I do not crave time with friends or other people so much. We go out for breakfast or lunch a couple of times a week and then there are the times I see people when getting groceries or picking up produce at the Saturday market plus, I engage daily online while presenting my work. I was invited to join a philosophers café that meets once a month and I accepted as a way to have meaningful deep discussions in-person on topics of interest. This complete package of in-person engagement with others always seems like enough socializing for me. What I crave most is just a few hours at a time on my own. I can still get this but it can’t be for very long at a time. Two hours is ideal and three is stretching my partner’s ability to feel confident on his own. So when given a choice to go for lunch or go plein air painting, the painting wins. This is because I am certain that my time at the easel will offer regeneration and delight. It fills my personal bucket like nothing else has ever been able to do. Just me and nature working together for a focused 45-60 minutes. This is all it takes. Hiking the trails alone does a similar thing but painting is the very best! I always come home filled with satisfaction and refreshed. This is the reparative element to my painting practice in action. 

Key Findings: 

I thought I would do more with this small study back in the studio. But as I spent the next few days glancing at it on the window ledge amongst various other small works, I decided nothing more I did would improve my impressions of this time beside the sea. So I have left it just how it was when I packed up to come home. 

Anything else: 

I am still considering what or if I will do anything on larger surfaces with these recent small painting sketches. I am in no rush to make a decision. The weather to best enjoy painting outside with the golden fall light is brief and will soon come to an end. I can decide once the rains keep me inside more. 

Memories of Mornings by the Studio Window Painting Data Collection

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Painting Data Collection 

Title: Memories of Mornings by the Studio WindowDate Completed: Wednesday, 19 August 2026
Materials: Acrylic on linen board
Size: 8 x 10 inches (25.4 x 20.32 cm)


Figurative/Abstract Self Assessment Band-Scale Rating between 1-10: 5

This work is a quick impressionist study. Attention has been paid to light, relationships between elements and sensory records of the fragrance of dark coffee, fresh morning air through an open window and the softens of wool socks cozying around bare feet sticking out from under the edge of a blanket. 

Reference Gathering: 

References for this study are minimal with most mark making relying on repeated mornings of similar moments that created a bank of memories. 

But there are two images that provide a starting point. 

Sun catching the hill as seen from the chair beside the studio window. Photograph by Terrill Welch Sunday 28 June 2026.
Mornings in the chair of the studio window. Photograph by Terrill Welch Sunday 28 June 2026.

Making Process:

The making process is equally sparse because once I settled down to paint, I forgot to take many photographs as the work developed. But there are a few. 

Work-in-progress collage of images for Memories of Mornings by the Studio Window by Terrill Welch, 10 x 8 inch acrylic on linen board.

Finished Painting:

Memories of Mornings by the Studio Window by Terrill Welch, 10 x 8 inch acrylic on linen board. Completed Wednesday, 19 August 2026.

Making Notes:

So many mornings seated in the studio window with coffee and breakfast just like this morning. I worked from memory though there are references. My attention drifted from what I might be reading to the dark savoured bitterness of the coffee then over to where the rising sun is catching the far hill in the valley. The fields are cut and dry and a cool breeze is coming in the window next to the one I am sitting beside. There is a precious sense of optimism swinging on the branches of the fir trees. I sigh and blink my way into the day. This quick sketch is a brief reminder of something that as of yet has no words other than the importance of waking up.

Here is a digital room view for size context. 

Digital viewing room with Memories of Mornings by the Studio Window by Terrill Welch, 10 x 8 inch acrylic on linen board.

Reflective Analysis:

Mornings have always been an important part of my day and this appreciation has deepened over the years. Though I most often rise early it is not a busy time of day. I like to wake up before others can have any demands on my time or my thoughts. Sometimes, this is only a brief ten minutes. Other times I can be gifted a couple of hours. It all feels like the intervention of chance really. I used to swear that my young children heard my eyes flutter open and then they leaped out of bed so as not to miss out on anything. Now, my partner often does the same. But there is always a chance that everyone will sleep just a little longer and I can watch the day begin, wrapped up cozy, from one window or the other. 

Reflexive Analysis: 

Strong dark roast black coffee is my morning beverage of choice and comes with a whole ritual of hand grinding (by hand, no electric whirring noises for me) locally roasted coffee beans. The beans are coarsely ground for a 30 year old stainless steel insulated French press. Once brewed, a cup is poured into a favourite Italian mug and the rest is put into a heated stainless steel thermos that takes me most of the morning to drink. This ritual is a mix of childhood references of the practices of my parents and a west coast of Canada coffee culture that started developing around about the late 1980’s, early 1990’s, while I was going to the University of Victoria with two young children as a single parent, who also worked part time while going to school full time. Now, when I sit peacefully in the art studio chair by the window, still in my pajamas, drinking my whole first cup of coffee while it is hot, without having it answer questions, sign notes for school, add a child’s birthday party coming up on the weekend to my calendar, be reminded to pick someone up after school, I feel particularly blessed. I loved parenting and yet, I am still thrilled when my mornings begin by easing into the day instead of starting at full throttle. 

Key Findings: 

When I think back, I remember one of my high school principals who picked me up while hitchhiking in our small village to the place I was living a few miles away in the rural farmlands. He was very clear that, though I had graduated grade twelve, I was going to grow up to be poor white trash. I was unmarried, pregnant with my first child and not yet 19 years old. I mean — who says this to a young kid finding her way after having made some difficult choices!? I am ever-so-glad that I simply just didn’t believe him. I have always had a strong inner self-motivating pull to problem-solve around ways to achieve whatever is of most driving interest to me. These ritualized morning coffees are the foundation for my thinking and of my organizing structures. It is when I prioritize the items written into my calendar into the order that either must be done that day or that I have the most desire to complete. It is also where I look ahead over the coming weeks and months and see what needs to be refined and it is when I measure how well I am fulfilling any intentions I might have set. This small sketch holds all of this for me. 

Anything else: 

It is usually the case that we can accomplish far more than we and others think we can. There is a cost of course and this can’t be discounted. This isn’t usually what stops us from trying. More often than not it is a fear of failure or fear of something awful happening. I have learned to ask myself during my morning coffee — what is the worst that can happen and can I live with it? What is the worst that will happen if I do and what is the worst that will happen if I don’t? If I can live with the worst in relation to the decision I most want to make, that will generally be the route I will take. Who knew a small painting study of a person sitting in a window having a morning coffee could hold so much? 

Defining “Close to Home” as a focus within my nature-centric, reparative painting practice

/ Terrill Welch / Leave a comment

Monday, 17 August 2026

“Close to home” at first, brings up familiarity, safety and comfort. It is where I live my daily life most of the time. Geographically, these days “close to home” is usually limited to within a day’s drive in any direction which gives the concept physical parameters. There is an ordinariness that comes with these sustained intimately observed passages of time in one place doing “the usual” things such as getting groceries, hanging laundry on the line, grinding the morning coffee beans, paying bills online, going to the dentist, getting the car serviced, working in the yard, hugging my partner, children, grandchildren and friends between taking long hikes, painting in the studio and promoting the gallery and artworks. I ask myself, why is this focus on “Close to Home” in my painting practice important? 

Developing red collage paper by Terrill Welch. August 8, 2026.

To answer this question is to first observe aspects of my contextualized autoethnographic references. The first and most obvious factor is that I am a full-time, primary caregiver for a partner that can quite happily no longer go further than the geographical territory mentioned above. I remain close to home because, to provide the best care for someone else, I must. The alternatives are to place my special human in respite care or to have someone come to stay with them. Neither of these options are easily workable in practice. By the time I get someone or someplace up to speed on this special being’s needs and them familiar with something they don’t want to do, the brief break becomes more of a traumatic ordeal for both of us than an actual opportunity. At least, this has been our experience so far. Eventually when regular weekly respite breaks become necessary, we will then have someone familiar providing additional support on ongoing. This might then present some opportunities for longer breaks for me to be able to at least go see my elderly parents which is a 7-10 day round trip visit away. For now, primary caregiving responsibilities take a central role, as a wife and as the human that is closest to the person in need. There are children. But the personal care needs and ongoing vascular dementia monitoring and prompting have gone well beyond their comfort levels and therefore not an option except possibly during a short term emergency until other care could be put in place. Community health home support services have been limited and expensive for what is provided. This leaves just me for now. We muddle through as best we can together which for now is pretty well. As an almost 68 year old white woman of settler ancestry, living on a rural small island on the southwest coast of Canada, I am resourceful, resilient, organized and pragmatic with a strong work ethic. I will face poverty level cash flows if/when the time comes to manage only on my own pensions. For now, there is enough to comfortably support both of us. But this reality is partly why I spent the past two years completing my MA Fine Art degree. It is a way to recognize the seriousness with which I take my painting practice that then might possibly lead to my artwork offering a small financial buffer if it is needed in the future. Global instability may make this a difficult proposition to realize but it would be even less of a possibility as an older woman artist without doing this degree. 

Yellow gauche covered collage paper by Terrill Welch. August 8, 2026.

This brings up other aspects about being “Close to Home” including a sense of loss of freedom, of heavy sadness/grief about slowly losing someone to their disease, as well as facing my own limitations and mortality. How long can I reasonably keep up with these responsibilities? How long can I manage living on this rural island as the only person who is able to drive?

Three sheets of collage paper created by Terrill Welch. August 8, 2026.

Then I return again to my painting practice and its central role in making all challenging situations much more possible, pleasurable and endurable. This is especially true if I turn my painting practice directly towards what is challenging. In doing this, I seem to find my footing and my strength as well as my joy and pleasure with simply being alive.

These are the thoughts that came to mind as I created the collage paper, cut it up and then decided I wanted to paint instead. So, I packed up the paper cuttings and put them in a bag for another day.

Collage paper cuttings and a sketched ready to paint in Terrill Welch’s art studio.

I expect to have much more to discover about my focus on “Close to Home” as I proceed but for now, it is time to work on a small painting sketch featuring morning coffee in my studio chair.

Lady Arbutus Painting Data Collection

/ Terrill Welch / 2 Comments

Painting Data Collection 

Title: Lady Arbutus Date Completed: Wednesday, 5 August 2026
Materials: oil on linen covered birch wood
Size: 14 x 11 inches (36 x 28 cm)

Figurative/Abstract Self Assessment Band-Scale Rating between 1-10: 4-7 

The background offers a loose abstract network of brushmarks while the tree is given figurative prominence with large shapes holding the composition within a visual space of warm morning summer light. 

Reference Gathering: 

This is a commissioned work and stems from an art collector’s shared love of this specific arbutus tree that resembles the long legs of a woman elegantly reaching for the sky. I have references going back years but chose just a few, between August 2023 and August 2025.

Collection of reference images between August 30, 2023 and August 20, 2025 by Terrill Welch in preparation for painting “Lady Arbutus” in August 2026.

Making Process:

My studio making process proceeded over a few days in 2-3 hour painting sessions. I required pauses to really listen to the painting and what it was asking of me. I also mentally invited the art collector into my musings with nature so that I could draw on the abundance of influences between us three. The focus is on a portrait of the arbutus tree while keeping a sense of context and hints of the ocean behind and beside the viewer. I have a special relationship with not just the arbutus tree but also the polar trees on the middle left. There are very few on Mayne Island but they grew in abundance around my childhood home. 

Collage of work-in-progress images for Lady Arbutus by Terrill Welch 14 x 11 inch oil on linen covered birch wood.

Finished Painting:

“Lady Arbutus” by Terrill Welch, 14 x 11 inch oil on linen covered birch wood. Completed Wednesday, 5 August 2026.

For scale, here is the painting in a digital viewing room.

Digital room view – Lady Arbutus by Terrill Welch, 14 x 11 inch oil on linen covered birch wood.

Making Notes:

A ferry whistles in Active Pass on the other side of the island and echoes a response to the August sun pressing towards it through the trees. The calm ocean behind me pools at the bottom of the ridge next to a group of scrubby polar trees. Deep shadows offer a counterbalance to the bright trunks of the arbutus trees and rich soft greens of the grove. What would it like to be this arbutus tree tucked in next to a few strong firs beside the Salish Sea? I can feel the effort of stepping up on the weathered sandstone beside it as I traverse the narrow trail from the point. I like to pause for a few moments and just share its company before moving on. The artwork is a complex interconnected view to render in paint between dancing sunlight and thick growth reaching for the skies. Much is left to interpretation in an integrated network of suggestive figurative to abstract mark making.

Reflective Analysis:

For this painting, the complexity of vegetation and terrain was demanding to navigate into paint on a surface without over simplifying or offering so much information that the poetry of the moment is lost. I held significant pauses as I worked in order to make decisions about the order of things and then worked in a flurry for a while only to pause again to consider. The types of brushstrokes were decided by subject as I was mindful of only offering just enough to bring the work to life and present the essence of being this specific arbutus tree on this specific day. 

Reflexive Analysis: 

Commissions are different from work that is solely decided by my commitment and curiosity. I do have a formal process that allows maximum artistic freedom but it is still unique from my self-directed body of work. With my commission process, the art collector chooses the subject and size and a price is determined. I gather my own references and then paint the subject as I see fit. The art collector then decides if the work is to their satisfaction. If not, the work goes into my inventory and I try again. Payment for an artwork happens once a final decision to accept a painting has been made. This gives me maximum freedom as the painter and is the lowest risk for the art collector. Over the years this has been a win-win for everyone. That said, I only accept a very few commissions each year as they frequently take me away from whatever I am working in my studio practice. Not this painting though. It fits nicely into my current focus. 

For this painting, I am aware that there is an alignment between how I approach my work and the lived experience of the art collector. So there is the Lady Arbutus tree and her immediate environment on this specific day that is then enriched by around nineteen years of my having walked and sat next to her in all kinds of weather and throughout the seasons. Then there is my awareness of the art collector’s numerous similar experiences and her many conversations with me over about half as many years. The art collector has entrusted me to bridge these various experiences and bring them to the surface of the painting in as much of an unencumbered way as I can imagine. But influences are like seed burs. They sink their hooks into my  experiences and come along for the ride every time I dip my brush into the paint. It is something I must notice and also make peace with in order to bring the best I have to whatever work I am creating. Like all experiences, painting is not a pure isolated practice. The process is embedded in a multitude of interrelated and related variables. From this sea of information, a painting comes to rest uneasily on a surface as if by some alchemical, divine intervention. Even though the brushstrokes are made by my own hand, from my own observations and study, no one really owns these results in a lineage sort of way. It would be like saying that the dried thyme added to a stew was the only ingredient that mattered. It is important but, as with the painting, it wouldn’t be much without everything else. 

Key Findings: 

This painting was a great reminder to trust my creative process and stick with it, even when small doubts creep in around the edges. 

Anything else: 

The directness of working on this painting reminds me that I can benefit from creating without direct canvas and paint contact, even if it does not result in finished work. While I finished this painting, I also made some painted paper to cut up for collage puzzles. These never seem to amount to anything but they do offer a sort of different texture to my practice. Now that I have finished this work, I have set my paints aside to further explore these bits of hand coloured paper while I think about my overall research question and working definitions for this next body of work – Close To Home. 

Solace Between Sea and Sky Painting Data Collection

/ Terrill Welch / 1 Comment

Painting Data Collection 

Title: Solace Between Sea and SkyDate Completed: Saturday, July 25, 2026
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 31.5 x 27.5 inches (80 x 70 cm)

Figurative/Abstract Self Assessment Band-Scale Rating between 1-10: 

This work sits primarily at “4” with Camille Corot and April Gornik (Impressionism is a five and in the middle between figurative at 1 and full abstraction at 10). Yet it is a closer more intimate view that has us crouched next to the arbutus tree for company. The foliage above and below is abstracted but not noticeably so. The rest is clearly a figurative tree, sandstone shore, sea, sky and distant shoreline.

Reference Gathering: 

My references are from an early morning walk that saw me at this location on Edith Point at just before 7:00 am on Monday, July 6 2026. The sun had risen a couple of hours earlier but there were still hints of warm morning light. There is the arbutus tree of course but it was the totality of the morning’s walk that will later resonate in a more complete memory onto the canvas. The sandstone shore wasn’t just viewed. It was walked on and sat on while I ran my fingers over its sandpaper-like surface. The sea sounds were as soft as warm morning air flickering across my cheeks. There were other trees close by but I chose the arbutus and in the end its company is outside of our view. 

Reference inspiration for Solace Between Sea and Sky by Terrill Welch.

Making Process:

My painting process begins with a few composition lines. I have the notion of painting the tree “From the Ground Up” so that I can feel the forest overhead as well as under my feet. Yet, how will I create such a feeling? I also wanted to be standing “with” the arbutus tree rather than looking “at” it. I am listening to the arbutus tree tell me its story of time in what is a long and meaningful conversation. The painting process takes place over 12 days with moments of pause so layers can dry. But also pauses for the painting to decide what it needed from me. The last image in the collage is not the final painting yet but all significant decisions had been made at this point. My simplifications and exaggerations are in full view. Memory is often like that. We leave things out and make up other things to capture the inner resonance of what we want to convey. 

Painting process for Solace Between Sea and Sky by Terrill Welch.

Finished Painting:

Solace Between Sea and Sky by Terrill Welch, 31.5 x 27.5 inch oil on canvas. Completed July 25, 2026.

Making Notes:

Early in the morning I hiked along the outside trail early of the Edith Point Conservation Lands next to Strait of Georgia. During the summer the sun rises far enough north to slam this shore in brilliant sunlight for the first view hours of a day. The receding tide leaves small pools of seawater along the lower parts of the sandstone shore. Low clouds on the horizon still have a bit of an orange popsicle hue. What might it be like to be this specific arbutus tree rooted deeply along the high part of the bank and stretching day after day for every casual ray of sunlight? It is a quiet determined striving that I can take solace in. I soak up the moment for as long as it can last. Seconds really. Or maybe an eternity. Each brushstroke contains purpose and random execution at once. It is not the mystery of discover so much as knowing where I am and wanting it stay. This painting opens up under my first viewer’s gaze. I can feel the grandness of expanse filled with early morning’s comfort and possibilities just as I remembered it during my hike. 

Digital Room View for size reference:

Digital room view using the Canvy app showing at scale “Solace Between Sea and Sky” by Terrill Welch.

Reflective Analysis:

At this specific time, I am beginning a new thematic body of work that I have yet to form into a rigorous research question. I just know, I want to be with the trees and look down onto the seafloor where I have spent the past two years at the tideline painting close up work that I composed primarily vertically into “landscapes of the small” or “child’s view” compositions. One must hold the expanse of the shoreline above one’s head doing this work. I want to hold a grand view perspective again, even if I still crouch close to the earth. 

Reflexive Analysis: 

The title has the “solace” as a primary reference. I find in a moment of solace, as here in the company of the arbutus tree and taking in the sea and sky, there is also acknowledgment of pain or grief. The desire or need for solace necessarily describes the other. From my first viewer’s gaze, maybe due to my own painter’s hand, I can fully sense both of these halves that make a whole. I was raw and tired as I pushed hard to get the last of my assignment materials ready for assessment. We had lost our home support services due to retirement so my partner and I were working out how we were going to best do his showers together, just the two of us. We found a way but new routines are harder, for both of us, when someone has dementia. But in the end we came up with an even better solution than how he was showering before and a method that allowed him more independents under my prompts and supervision. So this arbutus tree is not just comfort but also a symbol or inner strength, perseverance and resilience. Standing with this tree, I have company during my most challenging doubts and fears and exhaustion. I come away from the view and the easel ready to continue and step just a little lighter from the warmth of such an early morning expanse and the recognition that all things are interconnected and whole, for this brief moment. 

Key Findings: 

I had the desire to keep a wide range of brush marks between figurative and abstract but that isn’t what the painting asked for and I knew better than to question its lead. The process from inspiration to completion of the work took 19 days plus another two days to organize my thoughts and data collection to write about the process. So if anyone asks how long it took, the answer is 50 years of a nature-centric, reparative painting practice plus 21 days of focused attention. This work doesn’t come easy. The paintings are moulded out of the blood flow that makes up my full sensory life and contemplated experiences. 

Anything else: 

The solution to an attempt that falls short of my intention is to try again. Keep painting, I tell myself. Just keep painting. 

What might you do to continue with something that you haven’t quite yet succeeded in accomplishing?

The Spiritual Connection in Painting Arbutus Trees

/ Terrill Welch / 2 Comments

Monday, July 13 2026

I crest the low ridge just after seven in the morning as sunlight slams into the lower sandstone shoreline and dances across the sea to meet a soft mostly cobalt blue sky once it lifts over the fog resting on the water near the coast mountains. My eyes scan the elements and square up the view. It will work. I am sure it will work. I begin to gather references, shifting my feet and contorting my body to get the angles I desire. Nothing is perfect of course. I do not expect it to be. This is why it will need my imagination, a canvas and paint. References are a memory link and a starting point for later.

Now in the studio with the ground dry on a 31.5 x 27.5 inch canvas, I begin to block in various elements. A couple of hours pass. I take off my paint smeared red apron and document what I have so far.

The beginning of painting an arbutus tree along the shores of Edith Point by Terrill Welch.


It is almost noon. While boiling water for tea I begin to ponder. What does it mean to be this specific arbutus tree on this specific ridge overlooking the Salish Sea? If I was this tree, what would be the most dominant element? Would it be that soft peachy morning sky or would I give priority to the sea? Or maybe it would be the squishing of tiny roots spreading through the salal that I am standing in that is taking up the most attention. Perhaps it is the wind whistling through dried lower branches as it cools the first rays of sun? I am not sure I can guess. I sip my tea and look at the messy beginnings.

I have painted these arbutus trees many times but I am never done with them. There is a spiritual connection that seems to happen with arbutus trees. I imagine laying my hand on the large exposed root at the base of its trunk and let whatever is troubling me drain down into the earth on its long spidery tentacles. Losses and grief are good compost and best turned over and released into the soil rather than being compartmentalized and carried between my shoulder blades. 

I reach for a new book I am reading by Martin Gayford, How Painting Happens (and why it matters). Gayford begins where a painter knows he must – “Painting is difficult. Or rather, making a truly powerful and original painting is very hard (Gayford, 2024, p. 12). He goes on to explain that part of the problem is the long history of painting that has been practiced by brilliant artists ahead of me and that it is hard to find new areas to explore. This has never really stopped me from trying though. Not because I expect to paint anything particularly brilliant or ground breaking but because painting is a way of holding a conversation between nature and me and then later, with the viewer. What is the alternative? To remain silent? Better to paint something that is less than brilliant than to say nothing at all. 

Reference list: 

Gayford, M. (2024). How Painting Happens. Thames and Hudson Ltd.

Kitchen Table Studio Day

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Singular drifting snowflakes on this Monday afternoon hint at the forecast for the week ahead. I paid no notice as I prepared three new paintings for release.


The second leaf was still in the kitchen table from a family visit on Sunday. Great! This will work perfectly to prepare a show frame or two and get new work into the inventory while also preparing an online private viewing room by special request for consideration of a specific landscape in a particular size range. Done! Plus, the work is also now set up the gallery pod for physical viewing over the next couple of days.

Next, it is time to pack up another painting for shipping to art collectors for a trial hang before they make a final decision.


And Done! “China Beach in Late February” 20 x 30 inches is now ready for travel. I might make it to the post office later today but my guess is that it will be tomorrow morning. I am still waiting for gallery visitors to arrive yet this afternoon. Still, overall a fairly productive Monday for the last week of November. This is the final day of the “For Love of Trees” show. Starting tomorrow, the gallery pod will host a flow-show and be open only by arrangement until sometime in February. In the meantime, I will be focusing on creating new work in my home studio. Therefore, I am mostly close by and can go out and turn the lights on easily in the gallery pod upon your request. Please feel free to ask. It is no trouble at all. Honest.

Tomorrow will hopefully be the start of another painting day. The ground is dry and if I can just squeeze out a couple dedicated hours, I shall make it happen. With two of the latest three releases already on hold, I am feeling like it might be a good idea to spend some time with the paint brushes in front of a canvas.

This is all from your landscape painter in woods on a small island off the southwest coast of Canada. All the best to you as always!

Terrill 🙂 👩‍🎨🎨❤️

ONLINE GALLERIES include –

ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches currently available

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Website: TerrillWelchArtist.com 

Winter Light is a Painter’s Light

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Though the daylight hours are limited, it is the winter light that is most promising to my painter’s aesthetic. It is that moody warmth and abundance of soft edges that grasp my brushes into its clutches.

From morning to the end of the afternoon, there are days that only seem to have a glow through the fog.

This was my yesterday. I did work in the studio but by 3:30 not even the studio lamp helped much. It is on my to-do list to make arrangements for a track lighting bar to be installed. Soon I tell myself. Soon. In the meantime, I was painting a night scene from a late ferry ride on our much loved Mayne Queen on Monday. The Mayne Queen will be retired from service on November 20, 2022. There is a farewell gathering at the terminal but I am not sure I will go. In fact, I am pretty sure I won’t. Public goodbyes are really close to being beyond my capacity at the best of times. So instead, I put all my memories into one quick painting sketch from our last ride starting with a few swift brush marks to find my way into the composition.

And here is “Last Ride on the Mayne Queen” by Terrill Welch, 11 x 14 inch acrylic on gessobord.

Artist notes: We got our own private goodbye with the Mayne Queen this evening. There was no cake but the Big Dipper was present and the steady rumble of that diesel engine gently lulling us across the calm water. I will miss this old gal and the views she offered up with humble assurance. Good night she whispers softly just ahead of the crackling of the announcement – This is Village Bay Mayne Island, Village Bay… and the deck lights come on. Safely home on this sturdy old ferry boat for the final ride. Thank you for your many years of service Mayne Queen as your November 20th 2022 retirement day draws near. ❤️🥂🍾

This reminds me to tell you about a stormy winter day when the wind was whistling a wild tune. All the big ferries were holding and waiting out the weather. We didn’t think we were going to make it home. But after a slight delay, we were loaded on the Mayne Queen. The deck hands told us to put on our parking breaks and go upstairs and sit down. After a few minutes the captain came on the loud speaker and repeated the same message. Make sure the parking break is on. Stay up stairs and do not walk around unless it is necessary. To say the least, that was some ride!

But getting back to painting, in order to sympathetically render such winter day or night light, one must be a colourist. This is because all of the greys and darks are leaning towards some other colour and it is not the same colour they are leaning towards everywhere. Once a painter starts to understand this, and paints with this in mind, then the paintings seem to come alive on their own within the directional brushstrokes. Yes, painting takes practice but also study, knowledge, applied understanding and then finally forgetting so that the painter can work intuitively from a solid foundation. Rendering a subject in paint is not particularly challenging. A painter can be like a copy printer from life or some photographic image. Yes, you still have to understand colour and composition to make a decent replica but it is usually not particularly difficult and requires limited investment of the painter’s vulnerable self. However, to render a subject with vitality and inner feeling racing across the surface in a way that engages a viewer who has no experience with the subject, that there is magic! There is a barely controlled expressive rawness to such work. Even quiet peaceful paintings can have this. It is the secret something that allows a work to stand strongly on its own once it comes off of the easel and is removed from its creative context. The moodiness of soft winter light gives a painter an advantage in being able to access this special magic. At least, this is how I experience winter light.

ONLINE GALLERIES include –

ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches currently available

Redbubble painting and photography prints and merchandise

Website: TerrillWelchArtist.com