Why Paint a Landscape of Avignon France?

July 7, 2014July 7, 2014 / Terrill Welch / 12 Comments

Fingers pressed to lips and on tiptoes I invite you to quietly join me in the loft studio this morning. You see, I don’t believe that my page full of “to do” items including paintings to be shipped to their new homes and time management will exactly approve of this diversion. But if we keep it quiet, maybe no one will notice us. So come on up. It is a little early so we will need to turn on the studio lamp.

With all the gorgeous west coast landscapes to paint you might wonder why I would travel half way around the world to paint a landscapes in France. The truth is I wanted the tension of a shorter, but still substantial, span of time. We might say that North America offers this with its more recent European occupation. However, what I experience on the southwest coast of Canada is thousands of years evident in the landscape and then the present interruption of humankind. Most buildings and such on the west coast still standing are less than two hundred years old. Yes, aboriginal people have been here for a few thousand years but they have left few footprints on the landscape. Europe and France in particular are different. We can still see evidence for easily over 600 years in one gaze looking across the Rhone River in Avignon France. This is somehow important to me as I intuit the tension in a landscape. We live in environmentally parlous times of exponentially climate change. In 2012 about half the world’s population lived in urban areas and this percentage is expected to continue to increase – quickly. the result is that our agrarian sensibilities and relationships to our natural surrounding on the whole are weak. For those populations that survive the next few hundred years, I believe this must become a strength. Yet, as we abstract our way through internal and external elements of our human creations, the natural landscape appears to hold little interest other than a thing of beauty and a place of recreation. This objectification of our natural surroundings places us and it at great risk through our false sense of possession or proprietary combined with ever-decreasing regard and understanding of the lines of tension and intersection of our relationship. These are my musings anyway and is the backdrop for my most resent painting MORNING BY PONT D’ AVIGNON (24 x 36 inch oil on canvas) and its cousin below of the same size which is still in its underpainting state with bits of masking tap marking lines of intersection and tension.

Judging from the plein air acrylic painting sketch I did, once the painting is completed these tensions will be mostly felt rather than seen (though now that I have so explicitly shown them to you, I am sure you will notice them more readily.) I anticipate that our eyes will keep roaming the scene searching for something until it unravels these tensions to the mind’s satisfaction. My desire is that we will know that it is more than a beautiful view, someplace to gaze, to sit, to stroll or to sail. I want us to intuitively sense the strength and fragility of this landscape – after all there are hundreds of years of human intersection with the environment visible in this painting and my intention is to inviting us to take the time for such an exploration. Our west coast of Canada has a much harder time offering this same invitation. It is much more immediate, wild and possibly even too forgiving of our ignorance – until possibly it is too late. So I have called on a morning in Avignon France with her abandon bridge across the Rhone to give us a hand.

I know! Here you thought I was on vacation and this was all about just painting another pretty picture. It could be I suppose. But I intend to instill such strength and tension in my brushstrokes that you will stay long enough to get past the beauty and to the substance behind this work. The act of painting is a spiritual exercise, a meditation, a recital of a poem and possibly even a practice of prayer. The subject in this case, in most cases, has to do with our fragile, temporary and continued existence.

Now, if you will excuse me, I must do a wee bit of painting before that “to do” list comes charging up the stairs and demands to know where I have been.

What invitations are you accepting to strengthen your relationship to our natural environment?

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

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

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

Canada Day winner of the FOUND IT painting draw

July 2, 2014 / Terrill Welch / Leave a comment

With entries from all over North America and beyond, the winner of the FOUND IT PAINTING draw for SEASIDE MAYNE ISLAND STUDY is from my birthplace. Image that! An email has been sent to the winner and I am awaiting a mailing address. Though this painting had the possibility of going to many excellent homes, this one will be perfect. I am sure it will be well-loved and very happy there.

Also, EARLY NOVEMBER SEA 14 x 18 inch oil on canvas has sold.

Thank you everyone who participated in my Canada Day Special event. Finding homes for paintings is not always an easy task and you have made it an enjoyable, fun and rewarding exercise.

As always it is a pleasure to share my work with you.

Other work currently available can be viewed in my Artsy Home online gallery at:
http://www.artsyhome.com/product/Seaside-Mayne-Island

All the best of today to you!

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

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

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

Happy Canada Day from this Canadian Artist to YOU

June 30, 2014June 30, 2014 / Terrill Welch / 4 Comments

The painting below A Tall Tale of Autumn Stuart River 16 x 12 inch oil on canvas is the “Poster Painting” for a rare 40% savings special on all of my Canadian oil paintings available at Artsy Home to celebrate Canada Day – starting NOW until midnight PST July 1, 2014.

A Tall Tale of Autumn Stuart River 16 x 12 inch oil on canvas by Terrill Welch 2013_12_24 003

Here is what you do – go to my Artsy Home online Gallery at:
http://www.artsyhome.com/author/terrillwelch

Choose your painting and send me an email using the “make an offer” option located just above my name and below the price, shipping and product number on the right hand side of the painting.

The email should say – Request to Purchase as Canada Day Special. It is a first-email-received-request-for-the-work that will be accepted.

I will then confirm if you were the successful request for the painting and we can proceed with purchase details at that time.

Also, there is ONE original painting in the Artsy Home gallery that is available for a draw. It has in capital letters FOUND IT at the bottom of the description. If you find it, send me an email using the same “make an offer” option that says FOUND IT and your name will be added to the draw for the painting. You must find the eligible painting and enter the draw before midnight PST on July 1 , 2014. The actual draw will take place the following morning. As is understandable, a purchase offer will not be accepted for this work unless no one finds it. Then it will become available again after the draw closes.

Please let me know if you have any questions or if some part of this offer is unclear… it is a spur-of-moment, west coast sunny morning influenced decision and so enjoy and have fun browsing the over 60 original paintings that include landscapes and still life works from our wonderful Canadian Living.

I hope you enjoy this rare opportunity to start or add to your collection my original paintings.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

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

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

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

Tumbling Red Pears – a still life from conception to painting

March 3, 2014March 3, 2014 / Terrill Welch / 23 Comments

How does it happen that a painter notices red pears in the local grocery market? Then without looking at the price, she grins widely, grabs a handful and comments “they are for a painting!” How does this happen? What did she see in those pears that was more enticing than say the lemons or the oranges or that green skin of the avocado? Nothing. She picked up an assortment of these as well. But it was the red pears that she knew where going to be the main attraction.

Back home she arranges them this way…

and then that way

She settles on “that way.”

You see, she was caught up in some ideas about “seeing” and realism in a conversation that was hosted by artist and colleague Lena Levin on her G+ profile. Partly because of this conversation, the painter kept thinking as she was painting – what am I seeing? What is the influence of what I have seen before? Where are my mental shortcuts? She has no answers but starts and continues to paint.

As is common, there is no drawing to guide her brush. Her eyes must be her guide, along with her experience which is where the problem lies. It is in her experience that the mental shortcuts are developed and her eyes and brush stop noticing and actually “seeing” what is before her. She is even, in her noticing, not looking for details but rather relationships between light, shadow, colour and to-a-lesser-degree form. The painter understand that our brains construct images from rapidly gathered information from small areas that the mechanism of the eye scan and then the optic nerve delivers to the brain for translation and construction of a visual image. However, there is more information that is gather from the painter’s other senses that also assists in these constructed images. To name just a few bits of other sensor influence, there is the smell of the orange and linseed oil, the feel of the fabric and the planks of the wood floor with her bare feet and the sound of water dripping from the eaves. Then too there is all the previous data gathered about what a bowl of fruit looks like. There are all the bowls of fruit ever noticed and seen – both in real-time and in photographs and paintings. There are all the rules and breaking of rules about composition, about the actual process of painting as well as those about noticing, really noticing what she is seeing. Of all of this information, what will be the resulting rendering of THIS still life?

Well, the painter did not get very far before she decides to enhance what she is seeing. She adds a lemon on the bottom right. Yes, she says to herself, it should be there. And so it is.

What could be the harm of adding one imagined lemon? I mean really. It is only a little bit of yellow right?

The painter chooses to ignore that her noticing had resulted in imagining a whole lemon.

She determinedly continued to focus on the bowl of fruit. In fact, she focused so hard that the red pears began to tumble forward out of the painting.

This is about the exact point where the still life painting made a notable separation from its visual reference. It is that blue curving line on the left at about the middle of the painting that did it. Then, without any ability of the painter to rest the brush, another blue line of motion appeared on the bottom right. She knew then that even the slight visual impressions of the paintings in the background would go. They would be replaced by the gold fabric and the light leftover from the blue in the sky of one of these paintings as an easy reference for the light coming in from the skylight and the window behind the still life set up. This was now a deliberate mental shortcut.

Memory and imagination had conquered the physical evidence of what the eyes were actually seeing.

The intention of the painting had clearly become focused on the illusion of red pears falling out of the bowl – a focus that intends to encourage the viewer to hold out their hands and try to catch the fruit before it tumbled out of the painting. The painting is set aside until later in the evening and then, with a few edits that lead the painter’s work through to the next morning, it comes to rest.

TUMBLING RED PEARS 20 x 16 inch oil on canvas

It won’t be released just yet as the painting still needs to sit for its final photo shoot once the paint is dry.

Now we can ask the painter – did you know you were going to paint these red pears tumbling out of a canvas when you saw them in the grocery store?

The painter blinks, slightly confused and unable to answer as she comes out of her painting trance – her deep practice of noticing what she sees, a seeing that uses all of her sense, a seeing that is disrupted by her memory and is enhanced by her imagination. At this moment all she can remember, all she can “see” is tumbling red pears – the ones she imagined, the ones she painted on the canvas. This is her painting of reality.

When have you most acutely recognized that you were “seeing” more by your imagination than with your eyes?

Before I leave us, I want to thank everyone who shared last week’s Art Studio Spring Thaw Event post. Your ongoing support is what warms my heart and also grows the global awareness of my paintings and my photography. Without your efforts my ability to financially sustain my studio practice would be gravely hampered. So thank you, Thank you and THANK YOU!

Also, I am lighting a small candle each evening to focus energy on a peaceful resolution in the Ukraine. My mantra is – use your words. Listen and talk it out rather than bully and fight it out. My focus is calming energy sent to Russia’s leadership with this message. However, it isn’t narrowly directed and I disperse it as a blanket over all global decision-makers and citizens. You are most welcome to join me in this practice. I am an artist yes, but I am also more than that. I am a human-being and I desire to live in peace and I desire this for all of us. This, like the effect of full sensory “seeing” in this painting, is a tangible practice in attempting to render my desired reality.

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

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

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

One Brushstroke After Another

February 10, 2014February 10, 2014 / Terrill Welch / 21 Comments

Life as an artist is pretty simple – just going along, one brushstroke after another. Home is where you hang your brushes and your socks to dry.

I took this photograph for my eldest grandson who has been known to tease me about my single-use devices. So, though I still wear a watch on my wrist that has the single purpose of telling time, this chair is a multi-use device. It is used for sitting on with guests in our great room. It is used as a prop in my still life paintings. It is used to keep paintbrushes, paints and water close while I work on a painting. And most importantly, it holds my wool socks while they dry.

On this particular day I drag this chair and my french box easel over by the kitchen to paint.

bowl of winter fruit still life painting in kitchen by Terrill Welch 2014_02_05 032

I desperately want some warmth and cheer. A few hours painting this still life bowl of winter fruit is just the ticket.

winter bowl of fruit in the kitchen by Terrill Welch 2014_02_05 016

There is a roundness of shapes in the warm winter light that is drifting through the kitchen while paint remains paint.

The finished painting BOWL OF WINTER FRUIT 12 x 16 inch oil on canvas and a poem that goes with it are posted over on my website Terrill Welch Artist HERE.

What are you doing one after another?

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

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

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

The Painter’s Horizon Is Seldom Visible

January 20, 2014February 7, 2014 / Terrill Welch / 14 Comments

Most days I have little idea what direction my painting is taking me. I like to think I do. However, it is a myth. What I have are intentions. My intention is to explore how my specific historical experience impacts my work with more conscious awareness.

But right now, I have a long list of tasks that must be accomplished in preparation for three months travel in Europe beginning in April 2014. The round trip tickets are purchased. We are committed. I updated the most urgent items that must be accomplished to a separate list on Sunday morning. Then I set it aside.

You see, a request had come in from a fellow artist and friend for me to donate a postcard size work to Twitter Art Exhibit: Orlando. I usually do donate to this fundraiser and this was just the nudge I needed. The deadline is February 21, 2014 and I need 10 days travel time for the work to arrive in time. If I wanted to work in oil on canvas paper, the work needed to be completed now. Besides, the cause is compelling:

Twitter Art Exhibit: Orlando is an international exhibition of original postcard art benefiting The Center for Contemporary Dance, Special Needs Classes, a nonprofit (501)©3 organization dedicated to dance education and outreach. The Special Needs Classes include customized exercises that expand the student’s range of motion, creativity and social skills. Class work is further designed to enhance skills in memorization, problem solving and communication. Belinda Balleras, whose son takes classes every week, says: “He has a new sense of creative fulfillment and an additional pathway to productively express emotions.”

This is the fourth Twitter Art Exhibition, a concept founded by founder David Sandum, a Swedish-born artist living in Moss Norway, who conceived Twitter Art Exhibit as a vehicle for doing good through social media and online community-building. The idea is simple: artists around the globe receive a call through Twitter social media to create original postcard-sized art, which they mail to a local curator, who then exhibits and sells them to benefit a local charity.

Here is my 4 x 6 inch oil on canvas paper contribution set aside to rest and dry before submitting it to this event.

WALKING AN AUTUMN ROAD

The postcard size works will be sold for $35 a piece and ones that do not sell on the opening night of the event will become available for online purchase. If you want to know more or would like to participate follow the hyperlink above or go HERE.

After this, I picked up my list of urgent tasks…. well, not exactly. What can I say? There was paint on my palette? The sun hadn’t come out? I just couldn’t leave the easel?

Choosing a 12 x 16 inch canvas with a dark purple ground I began to contemplate quiet despair, broken promises and how some moments are too sad for tears. Why this aspect of our human experience had surfaced was a blog post by Deborah Brasket “Some Tragic Falling off” into Difference and Desire. This post and our west coast weather.

A January west coast afternoon.

We haven’t seen much of the sun during the past few weeks. In fact, the fog has been hesitant to raise her skirts much above her knees on the island ridges. We can’t really blame her. After all, we have been gawking without shame, seeking even the tiniest glimpse of blue sky and sunlight between her cottony ruffles. Today though, within the deep winter quiet, we are given brief moments of reprieve from her dowdy grey garments. It was not a dazzling display but enough to leave us momentarily content, hopeful even.

So I set to work. I like to think that I know my approach to a canvas and I am reasonably sure of the outcome. But I mostly just fool myself. My stubborn, overbearing intuition regularly slips the brush and palette knife from between my conscious breath and finds its own way across the canvas.

PROMISE – resting

The painting has a feeling all its own. My husband came in and said softly – oh, it is quiet. Then he smiled, satisfied, content even.

More about this painting and links to purchase information on my website Terrill Welch Artist HERE.

What might represent your idea of “some tragic falling off from a first world
of undivided light” as in Robert Robert Hass’s poem “Meditation at Lagunitas” posted by Deborah Brasket?

Now, before I dare pick up the brushes, that list. Where did I put that list?

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

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

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

Fourth Year Creative Potager Blog Anniversary

December 30, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 15 Comments

Just three days ago, on December 27th, it was the fourth anniversary of Creative Potager. During this four years, the space has shifted and changed with the patterns and needs of my life. We have shared much haven’t we? Blogging is sometimes a little like a public journal. It captures more than we intend because of the comfortable conversational exchanges. It doesn’t capture all of course. An artist has to have a few secrets. But it does string together my intentions, my focus, the main events and the rhythms of my work. Much has happened in four years and much has remained the same.

I still take you on long walks where the winter afternoon light is fine.

Quality photography prints available HERE.

Places where the Surfbirds entertain with flashes of white above the water.

Mallard ducks can surprise as I climb over large sandstone rocks along the shore.

Quality photography prints available HERE.

Places where trees embrace moments that we may not have noticed otherwise.

Places on a small island off the southwest coast of Canada where the sea is ever-present.

Thank you for walking with me this past four years.

Thank you for joining me in the studio to render these impressions from our walks.

Together, we have mixed paint.

We have brushed it onto canvases and gessobord.

We have pushed it around with a palette knife.

In a effort to render those walks and those moments, where the heart and soul is most alive, I have worked hard both en plein air and in the studio. And you have been the most gracious, supportive and encouraging of company.

Tomorrow, I shall post on the Terrill Welch Artist website my personal selection of the best thirteen of 2013 paintings. There were over fifty finished works to consider so it wasn’t an easy task to choose just thirteen. However, without hesitation I can say it was a good year and a year you were so much a part of making it so.

Thank you! You are one of the finest of Monday morning blessing.

This not the end of course, just a pause for acknowledgment before we proceed into 2014 which is shaping up to be a truly grand adventure. More about this next week.

I have no question today so I ask instead – What question do you most want to answer before the end of 2013?

Please note: The last four photographs were taken by photographer Allison Mullally at a recent studio photography shoot.

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

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

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

Storm Watching – large contemporary seascape (terrillwelchartist.com)
Arbutus by the Trail – small contemporary landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
West Coast Island Road in October – contemporary landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
New Release – August Morning Reef Bay landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)

Second to Last and other moments of an artist

December 23, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 17 Comments

Many months ago Kathy over at Lake Superior Spirit blog suggested the idea of a blessing post each week until the end of the year. I liked the idea. I accepted the challenge. This now is my second to last Monday morning blessing post for 2013. It has been a good practice as my blog writing had become very sporadic. The topic also offered a way to focus and organize my thoughts as an artist and as a sole-entrepreneur who regularly shares work-in-progress and other experiences that underpins my creative process. Thank you Kathy 🙂

That said, I have no idea what I should share or leave out this morning as a tree frog croaks in the woods outside the studio and the sun reaches over the hill in its winter golden light. I am reminded of a quick study that isn’t released yet from a few weeks ago from a similar morning.

MORNING GREETS FIR TREE 10 x 8 inch oil on canvas

The paint easily dances with the sunlight of the branches and I know the blessing of nature and my own breath intimately.

Then there is travel and a recent trip to Vancouver British Columbia and time with family. There is me standing on the back edge of an old bathtub and leaning far out the second story window to flip it wide enough to get a clear shot of the city.

VANCOUVER DECEMBER TWILIGHT

Is this nature too, I ask? I suppose, if an anthill or a beaver dam is nature then maybe this is as well. The evening light certainly doesn’t mind treating it as such.

On the way back home, I am drawn to the beach in the Saanich Peninsula on Vancouver Island. I had gone to Victoria to pick up more oil paints and to get a few Golden heavy acrylic paints to see if they would work for our trip to Europe in the spring. What do you think? Will the do?

DECEMBER SEA VANCOUVER ISLAND STUDY 8 x 10 acrylic on canvas board

The trick I believe with a medium is to go with its strength while knowing its limitation – much like anything else in life. These paints and I will be learning their strengths and limitations over the weeks ahead. Imagine the what a blessing early 1900 painters would have thought it was to have more than one kind of paints in tubes to squeeze out and set to work with no collecting of pigment and mixing of paints? We live in luxurious times here on the west coast of Canada, almost embarrassingly so. I resist the guilt of such a blessed and easy existence. I know that it can change, will likely change. My first job is to use my time purposefully and wisely, today.

THE BIG FIR TREE IN SNOW

Best Wishes, happy holidays and Merry Christmas!

What blessings do find the most difficult to recognize?

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

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

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

West Coast Island Road in October – contemporary landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Snow on the way for South Coast tomorrow (globalnews.ca)
Vancouver, BC in December (erinhudsonphoto.com)
Farm In Fog – pastoral landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)

A Good Night of Sleep and other Studio Blessings

November 25, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 6 Comments

Last evening I was wondering what I might possibly have to say this morning. But ten – yes ten full hours of sleep has created a bubbling pot of thoughts and ideas. So much for yesterday’s slug appearance

I did spend an hour on Facetime with the “O” boys which likely did some good as well. Yes, I spent part of that time making faces as well. When you are one and almost three years old, making faces is a lot of fun.

So what is it that I have cooking you might ask? Well, I have an idea for a solo exhibition in the spring for one. It is tentatively called “Mostly Off The Wall” and that is all I can share at the moment. I think it shall be a LOT of fun though – maybe even one you would like to travel all the way to Mayne Island to see. March or early April are the tentative dates. This will be just before our planned two to three-month trip to Europe where I shall paint my way in leisurely around a very few selected locations. These are the plans if all goes well that is. But a person has to put a mark in the sand if anything is ever going to move from a dream to reality. These are my marks on the horizon of 2014.

In the mean time, ARBUTUS BY THE TRAIL has been released over on my website at Terrill Welch Artist if you care to have a wee visit with this small impressionist style west coast landscape oil painting.

There are also two new photographs from our resent close-to-home vacation time in and near Victoria, British Columbia. These were taken in East Sooke Park and you may appreciate the difference of the stone compared to that which is mostly found on Mayne Island. Getting very close to facing the open seas on the southwest coast Vancouver Island this harder stone is much more prevalent.

CREYKE POINT: Braced against the Pacific’s unrelenting chastising, proud and strong they resist. The hard stones may have their misgivings but their closeness to the sea is not one of them.

Quality prints available HERE.

CASTLE ROCKS: The castle-top rocks with a window to the sea swell the imagination.

Quality prints available HERE.

What are YOUR marks on the horizon of 2014?

So there we have it! May your Monday be filled with attention to your blessings and good-will.

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

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

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

Arbutus on Mt. Park – landscape oil painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Seaside Mayne Island – Large Canadian Landscape Oil Painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Chasing October Sun by the Sea – an en plein air oil painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Canadian Contemporary Landscape Painting Rhythm of the Sea Edith Point Released (terrillwelchartist.com)
Arbutus by the Trail – small contemporary landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
New Release – August Morning Reef Bay landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
WELCOME To The British Columbia (morevisas.com)

Nuzzling into Seasonal Art Studio Quiet Time

November 18, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 18 Comments

November and December and even sometimes the first two weeks of January are my quiet time of year in my art studio. Part of this is that after the Open Studio event I kind of turn off my marketing and sales efforts. Yes there is still the new 2014 Calendar available (click on the image to check it out further)

and new photographs and paintings continue to be released. But it is more a time of enjoying friends and family. It is a time of gathering and having a good visit. I love this time of year. These are Monday morning blessing in the largest grandest sense.

It is also a time of year when I reflect on what has worked and not worked and plan for the year ahead. These include my donations of both work and money because this is how the energy of receiving and giving is revitalized – at least for me. This weekend I received two requests I am happy to consider. One is for a commissioned work for auction to a wood recycling association and the other is for a donation to a private school fundraising auction. These are the touch-stones of balance in a material world that has gone somewhat mad in its need for acquisition of property – original art included. As much as I live a life of simple abundance, just by the sheer reality of being a painter and photographer, I create stuff that is purchased and contributes to this global material addition plaguing the current human condition. My only defense seems to be to ensure that the work is expensive enough that it will be well-cared-for once purchased. Odd isn’t it? But it is the only a few strategies I have come up with so far. Another is to donate my time, work and sometimes cash to others that are seeking and need support. Sometimes, I find this tension between materialism and simple abundance excruciating, particularly if there is a run of sales on my paintings where they are selling as fast as I can paint them. I think – oh know! Now what!? So, these quieter times in November and December of sales and my ongoing practice of giving provide a balance and resilience to this inner panic. These are my acknowledgements when considering my blessings this Monday morning.

In other studio news, part 2 and the core of the interview that writer and author Charles van Heck did with me and is published today in Life as Human online magazine. The painting featured in the first part of the article is a newer painting:

ARBUTUS ON MT. PARK 12 x 16 inch oil on canvas

(click on the image for more information)

There is also a new smaller painting that I did last week while the studio assistant was painting edges and putting work into the inventory program. I am waiting for it to dry in order to get a proper photograph but here is a sneak-peek and I will let you know when it is released over at Terrill Welch Artist (where there is currently a new post about another painting I released last week).

ARBUTUS BY THE TRAIL 8 x 10 inch oil on canvas

The Art of Terrill Welch facebook Page continues to grow and is now has over 200 “likes” as you can see there on your right. The Art Review comments by writers that are posted every Wednesday seems to be going well. This week is a review of the painting EARLY NOVEMBER SEA by Sandi White. I know she would be most delighted if you had a moment to drop in and leave a few words.

As you can see, though the surface of my studio life seems quiet and it feels this way to me as well, there is an undercurrent of activity that somehow is happening with little energy or attention on my part. I am in a time of dormancy and rest but the roots of my work are still being well nourished. Thank you universe for these ongoing blessing during a time in the world that seems to be in warp-speed chaos.

What is nourishing your roots this time of year?

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

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

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