Painting

REACHING THE SEA original oil painting by Terrill Welch

/ Terrill Welch / 20 Comments

I never really know where a painting will take me. We start together from a humble beginning

and begin to build on those first foundations towards synergistic vision.

I find it is easy to get lost on a large canvas such as this 30 X 40 inch piece — lost in both structure and colour. I put paint markers like mental blazes in place to be able to stay on course. This is a larger colour palette than I usually select. But the painting seemed to be requesting it, so I went along.

Gradually the light and shadow references begin to take shape.

Good! Everything is still nice and loose. Unfortunately, I need to leave it for a few days. I enjoy a couple of details in the underpainting

that I know will eventually disappear.

Days pass and I walk by the painting pondering and anticipating my next chance to settle in for a good long stretch working my brush across its canvas. The time finally comes. I spend the day happily trying to “reach the sea.” But something is off. The painting is struggling and seems to be twisting on the canvas. What is it?

Hum! There that is what it is! Painting seascapes is a little like being a carpenter – measure the horizon line twice and paint once. I was down by half an inch to the left. I will let you in on a little secret. This “down a little on the left” is common for me both in painting and in my photographs. For whatever reason, I will pull down to the left. I am left-handed and see better out of my left eye so this might be part of the issue. But leveling takes care of these things nicely. How many times to I paint the horizon line in a seascape? Many. It is critical to getting the distance or depth in the paint and getting it to “settle” on the canvas. Time to pause for a moment.

There are a few challenging and unusual elements to this painting. First, the focal point is the lower top right third. Most often, we expect the composition to work from details in the foreground to less in the background. This painting is forcing the viewer’s eye past the foreground towards the reflections near the end of the reef. Hence the name of the work “REACHING THE SEA.”  Secondly, the sun is in front of us reflecting on the water creating deep shadows and light patterns that are more difficult for me to represent by having my brush following the light. It is a painting that is moving towards the viewer and demands, not asks, that the viewer meet it two-thirds of the way into the frame. That was the painting’s idea. I am usually much more polite.

We are almost there…

The painting has never really tightened up and the layers have built themselves in the generous way of land and sea in perpetual transformation. I have heard many times that green is one of the most difficult colours to mix. The green of seaweed. The brown of sandstone. The diverse blues of the sea. The brightness of the facing the midday sun. The deep shadows of the shoreline. Thank heavens for the light, softness of the sky! … I see a few wayward brushstrokes, maybe a little lighter over here and yes, a little darker over there. Done!

REACHING THE SEA 30 x 40 original oil painting by Terrill Welch

As usual, I need to paint the edges yet before putting it on the market. But very soon. I will just need to make a day of it do nothing but paint edges!

 

SPROUT: What unusual adventures has your creativity taken you on lately? 

 

© 2012 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

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Mayne Island Rain Wind and Snow

/ Terrill Welch / 12 Comments

How quickly it all changes. Yesterday’s winds have given way to rain. How those branches did bend for fear of snapping as others had in the past.

We did not go out to the shore. I get too nervous in high winds to hardly leave the house. This photograph of the valley was taken while stood at the kitchen sink preparing lunch and being thankful that the electricity was still on.

The day before however we did venture out into the blustery weather. The sandstone shore of Georgeson Island was particularly lovely in the soft light of the winter afternoon.

(image available for purchase HERE)

But this morning it is raining. I sit quietly hunkered down under a down quilt on the old couch in the loft marveling at how different each day can be from another. It was only four days ago I overheard these daffodils muttering in the snow “I told you it was too early.”

The snow is now long gone for this  young deer that browsed under the trees by at the edge of the forest, hunched up in the damp cold. I wonder where it sought shelter yesterday as the winds howled like jet planes crossing over the top of the cliffs?

A flicker had called from the beam on the covered deck to ask if I might come out for awhile.

I did. But even the oregano was snow bound.

However, it was the day I captured winter by the pond

(image available for purchase HERE) 

and enjoyed the grass against the snow…

I noticed that which was undisturbed.

This is the noticing that comes with the sudden change of snow covering much of our dark greens, grays and browns during the overcast west coast winters.

Much is still dreary though.

I thought of lighting a fire in the outdoor fireplace but then went back inside to paint – as I did yesterday. I painted on the ample 30 X 40 canvas. I wonder how the weather will be evident in my brushstrokes? We shall see on Wednesday I think. Here is a snippet of a small detail I liked that no longer exists.

The painting is almost complete. A couple of wayward blustery brushstrokes to tame and it will be done.

SPROUT: How might the weather be impacting your creativity?

 

© 2012 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

 

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Coastal Winter Storm original oil painting by Terrill Welch

/ Terrill Welch / 18 Comments

This morning as I stepped out in the dark on our side deck to hand grind my morning coffee beans, fine snow brushed my cheeks. It smelt of winter and reminded me of damp wool and hot chocolate.

COASTAL WINTER STORM  (12 X 12 inch oil on canvas) is like this.

 

It is like today on the southern Gulf Islands.

Yesterday’s post “Begin a painting with no punctuation” is the only process image I captured.  But here is a detail of the final image so you can better see the loose layering of paint.

The painting still must have its edges painted so is not quite ready for the online gallery ArtsyHome where I am the feature artist this week. (feature has the capacity to leave a comment too – which would be nice if you feel so inclined) But soon. However, you can lay claim to it now if you want. Just send me a direct message and we can work out the details. The price is $550.00 U.S. including shipping.

When I become a really famous artist I will have an assistant who will paint the edges of my paintings, add the picture wire, put them in the inventory program and then package them up to send to buyers. I shall paint and only take a break to make soup and go for long walks with my camera.

I am also a featured member in the Beautiful BC Art redbubble group this week.  You may want to drop in and see all the stunning work that is on display by other photographers, including an image by a fellow Mayne Island photographer Toby Snelgrove.

A happy customer posted the arrival of my painting STORM COMING and talks about the dilemma of where to hang the painting so everyone in the family can enjoy it.

So it seems it is a good week to be an artist and I am ever-so-grateful for you company, support and encouragement. Thank you!

SPROUT: What will you hire an assistant to help you with when you become famous? 

© 2012 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

 

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Begin a painting with no punctuation

/ Terrill Welch / 9 Comments

Starting with the underpainting, grab and sway the emotions of light, form and structure without pausing to add punctuation. Allow your brush to skip and fly across the canvas in bold strokes of unrefined passion and fragments of expression. Do not edit. Please do not edit at this time. Leave it be raw and calling.

There will be time later to decide how much to define. A paragraph or a single word will become clear only after this first brush with expression.

These are my guiding demands of self as I reach out to choose a brush, squeeze out the oil paint, set the canvas and I stand squarely to begin my painting day — a day that began with reading Laurie Buchanan’s post “Painting a Word Picture”

SEED: Laurie asked the question: Who is your favorite word painter? This got me to thinking about my relationship between painting, photography and writing. My reply is as follows:

My first choice is Colette and in particular a passage from BREAK OF DAY (1928)

“He bent his bare body, polished by sun and salt. His skin caught the light, so that he was green round the loins and blue on the shoulders, according as he moved, like the dyers of Fez. When I said “Stop!” he cut short the thread of golden oil and straightened himself, and I laid my hand caressingly for a moment on his chest, as one does with a horse. He looked at my hand, which proclaims my age — in fact it looks several years older — but I did not withdraw it. It is a good little hand, burnt dark brown, and the skin is getting rather loose round the joins and on the back.”

My second choice is Elizabeth Rosner and a short piece from BLUE NUDE (2006)

“He imagines this: cupping her breasts and testing their weight in his hands to be sure they fit when his mind has already predicted it and his palms already tell him Yes. To press himself against her, to fold themselves together seam to seam, the way certain insects mate into one flying being.

He imagines them ascending.

The body exists in space, he says to the class. There is something solid she is resting on; that shape is part of what makes her stand the way she is standing; her feet are on the ground, or she is sitting on a chair, or leaning against a wall, or reclining on pillows. The body is part of the world. Do you see?”

I have purposefully chose non-landscape or seascape passages. I wanted to share how word pictures can link our internal worlds to our external observations – that this combination is how we “see” and experience what is around us. Both of these writers do this extremely well as does the passage you have shared with us Laurie. As an artist both as a painter and a photographer I attempt to “write” this language in my visual work. Sometimes I add just a dash of words to assist me – word pictures combined with pictures expressing words. All forms expression – impressions left for the viewer to complete.

I now come back into my studio space and prepare to pick up my brushes.

SPROUT: Who is influencing your creativity today? 

© 2012 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

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THE SEA TO ME original oil painting by Terrill Welch

/ Terrill Welch / 6 Comments

Fresh brush strokes, loose and easy, flow onto the canvas of a new painting.

Lusty dank seaweed brings its dark beauty to the summer sandstone shores along the inside passage on Saturna Island. My hand remembers.

The painting swells towards completion and then seems to drift and with an unexpected unsettledness. Incomplete and shifting on the canvas, I leave it for weeks sharing only a detail.

I approach it again – defining the sea and softening the mountains into a grander relationship between sea and sky – closing in the view and leaving a greater sense of more to see beyond the edges of the canvas. Finally the painting seems to settle. However, I suspect it may always seem just a little restless, inviting the viewer into the ripples at the water’s edge with one eye skittering off to the distant mountains, then back to the rocks in the foreground.

THE SEA TO ME 12 X 12 inch oil on canvas

(Original painting is now sold. Print available HERE)

SPROUT: What are you leaving unsettled for future competition?

© 2012 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

Related articles

A painting starts with a humble beginning – reminding me of Séraphine

/ Terrill Welch / 12 Comments

Darkness is settling heavily down on an already soggy afternoon. I have worked with my daylight lamp most of the day, finishing a painting and then touching up a new one and an older one. Now, I am roughing in a 30 X 40 inch oil on canvas tentatively called REACHING THE SEA. Each painting starts with a humble beginning, filled with hope and possibility. I love this stage. It is easy to put expectations aside. Later I will have to be firm about staying in the process but not now.

It doesn’t look like much yet and as I struggled to get quick shot of it to share with you, I wished for more light. For some reason, this reminded me of the French Artist Séraphine Louis, also know as “Séraphine de Senlis,” who would work during the day as domestic worker – and then she would paint by candle light late into the night. She also had to find and buy the ingredients to mix her own paints. At this moment, I hug my digital camera and give thanks for my daylight lamp, my prepared paints and canvas, and the luxury of being able to focus just on my art.

SEED: Who is Séraphine de Senlis? I first became acquainted with her through the 2008 French film Séraphine directed by Martin Provost. Sam Juliano from Wonders in the Dark was the first to bring the film to my attention. Yolande Moreau is brilliant as Séraphine and the film won seven French Cesars (Oscars). But who is Séraphine – the artist born in 1864 and who died in a mental institute in 1942? I am off to find out!

© 2012 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

Related articles

Begin 2012 with what you have – oil painting in progress

/ Terrill Welch / 8 Comments

I am hoping to get down to the seashore for dawn but the rain has arrived first. So, refusing to be left empty-handed on the first morning of the year, I have decided to share a detail from a painting in progress.

The over all painting is still not settled on the canvas yet but I like this part of it.

SPROUT: Do you find this sometimes too – where a detail may even become the finished work?

In this case, I think the complete 12 X 12 inch canvas will come together but we shall have to wait and see.

Wishing us all the most inspiring, imaginative, creative and successful 2012! 

 

© 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

Related articles

Nothing Heavier and calling on van Gogh

/ Terrill Welch / 12 Comments

There is nothing heavier than west coast winter clouds that reach down and touch the toes of the earth for days. It is a never-ending dull dawn that is late coming and then softly sinks back into night sometime after lunch. A person can lose perspective and become disoriented as she waits and waits for the sun to make an appearance. But for now the curtain is down. Slightly disgruntled and a little restless, she slowly turns the pages in her book.

Good morning… I think 🙂

Sprout: When was the last time you saw the sun? Tell me, how is she doing?

Seed: Perspective is so much more than the relationship between the things on the canvas. I want to paint but the thought of all that gray showing up is enough to leave the paint brushes in the jar for just a wee bit longer. Maybe I will go hang out in Vincent van Gogh’s “Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun” painted in 1889. Just look at those brushstrokes!

Reference: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gogh

© 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

Related articles

Twice Around

/ Terrill Welch / 12 Comments

Today is twice around the calendar year for Creative Potager. As part of my seasonal rest period, I have not posted for 25 days. It has been almost a month since I entertained a sprout question or gathered together my thoughts for a submission to all you wonderful creative beings. Yet, I have been thinking about Creative Potager – about its purpose and how it provides a sustaining sense of direction and community for me and maybe even for you.

The year of 2011 has seen many paintings completed and photographs captured. There have been interviews and guest post on other blogs. We have entertained special Salish Sea Saving days, home studio tours and seen publications of work in brochures, newspapers and on the glossy front page of a regional magazine Island Gals.

There has been the release of my new book Precious Seconds – Mayne Island in painting and photographs which many of you now have in your possession.

There has been the successful STUDY OF BLUE solo exhibition with more than half of my original oil paintings sold and finding their way to new homes.

I have received recognition for my photography and won several website features. Paintings, books and photography and painting prints, calendars and cards have been sold to buyers around the world. The introduction of Google Plus has offered a whole new community of more than 10,000 artists, photographers and art lovers have “circled” my profile.

I have been invited by a new online Gallery ArtsyHome to show my paintings and my latest original paintings are now easily available for purchase by international buyers.

On all fronts, it has been a creatively successful fine art year for me, one where Creative Potager has been a central connection for sharing my adventures.

However, a question seems to be presenting itself without a satisfying or conclusive answer:

 

What is next for Creative Potager?

 

My Google plus has scooped up much of my Twitter community and its micro blogging with gorgeous image capacity makes separate blog posting less of a necessity and in many ways less of a hub for connecting with my much larger Google Plus community. My Facebook has always been about family and closer friends for but it is not really a place of deeper contemplation and creative connection. I link these readers to Creative Potager for this even if they reply on Facebook. Some of you are part of all of my various social platforms. Others connect only here on Creative Potager or in only one or two other networks. So there is always the risk of repeating posts for some of you and of missing out on opportunities for others. Each platform comes with its own time commitment which is starting to take away from, rather than enhance, my actual creative process. I know I must shift and change something.

 

What should I do?

 

Some ideas are taking root but nothing has grown large enough to be a distinguishable pattern of lines and shapes. So, though it is the second anniversary of our creative connection here in the blogosphere, we must be patient until such time as the flip-flopping musings inside my head settle into a discernible direction. In the meantime, I shall post more frequently in a micro blogging fashion that is dispersed across my various social networking platforms. As my readers, you can choose your favourite means of connection to engage in our conversations. It matters not really though I do like to see the comments directly on the blog post because they are more lasting here and it is easier to skip through to your own posts.

 

The “sprout question” will become more sparsely presented as simply “Sprout.”

 

I shall also add a “Seed” which is a seed for creativity, learning and discover. It is a study element that I am introducing into my upcoming year. I thought you might like to be privy to this “seed planting” as well. “Seeds” shall generally have links and will only share a snippet to entice further exploration.

 

Possibly, not all posts will have a “seed” or “sprout.” Some may only have a photograph, a paragraph or painting. We shall just have to wait and see. Posts will have no prescribed time of day or days of the week. By now I trust that I shall post regularly. I desire maximum flexibility to create and to connect with a spontaneity that keeps both fresh and engaging and exciting. This is built on my belief and trust that both shall happen without prescription because they do.

 

Intention: For me, according to the answer to my I Ching question, this is anticipated to be a year of modesty and moderation. It appears to be a time of balancing extremes and harmonizing interests and requires a modest and sincere attitude and the limiting of obvious excesses while exposing myself to new areas of experience.  This is also a time of conflict, external or internal, and one of spiritual maturing. It may lead to reconsidering my original premise. My intention is to be open, curious and unattached to what I know to be true so I can explore and honour what is yet unknown to me. Oh where might this take us? It promises to be a grand adventure.

 

As the sun comes close to setting on 2011, thank you so much for being and continuing to be part of my creative journey.

(image may be purchased HERE) 

As we shoot for the moon…

(image may be purchased HERE) 

 

with our arms full of flowers…

(image may be purchased HERE) 

 

Sprout: What is currently soft and undefined in your creativity?

 

Seed: What new might we learn about composition? Has it changed through time? Are their histories of creativity that have handled composition with different views? These are the questions I am musing about as I begin my next painting. Let’s start with a good grounding in the basics of composition that are available on wikipedia.

 

 

© 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

 

Related articles

SPILLING OVER original oil painting by Terrill Welch

/ Terrill Welch / 26 Comments

Do you remember back in early September when a following sea was making a grand entrance onto the shore? We had taken a long walk together admiring the arbutus trees and then the sea.

Well one of those photographs kept nudging at me to put it on canvas. So here we go.

From some very dark beginnings

I sketch in some guiding marks for the composition.

I begin to work in the primary forms.

If we look a little closer you can see these are easy and free strokes suggesting rather than predicting what is to come.

I build up the paint and enjoy the movement of water coming into the canvas.

At this point the canvas is getting too wet to do anymore.

Besides it had started to snow outside.

So I left the painting to rest and stuck it where I could keep an eye on it. Over the next week or so I would pick it up and work on it some more as it became clear what it was it was asking for. Finally, here is the finished piece.

SPILLING OVER 12 X 12 inch original oil on canvas painting by Terrill Welch

The painting is available for purchase in a new online gallery Artsy Home along with some of my other original paintings. Yes, you can now buy my work directly from this site using all sorts of means. Isn’t this grand? I will be adding more pieces very shortly.

Sprout Question: What is spilling over in your creativity?

Please note: It is December and I shall be on a vacation from regular blogging. You will still hear from me such a special holiday post and near the end of December I will be post a two year anniversary post for Creative Potager. Regular scheduled posts will then begin again the first week of January.

© 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