Painting and then Selling Paintings are Done on a Different Breath

October 6, 2015November 23, 2015 / Terrill Welch / 5 Comments

Working as an independent artist responsible for not only creating the work but also for getting it out there is the world is best understood using the analogy of breathing. The process of gathering information and executing a painting on a canvas is done on the in breath. The process of marketing and selling the painting is done on the out breath. As long as the painter remembers that it is not possible to breathe in and out at exactly the same time then the combine processes work rather well and the artist has a healthy sustainable life as a full-time artist. This is my theory anyway. So far so good.

And though I have completed a couple of plein air sketches

“As Sea to Shore” 11 x 14 inch plein air acrylic sketch on gessobord

“Salish Sea late August morning” 11 x 14 inch acrylic plein air sketch on gessobord

and one painting,

Salish Sea No Separation 18 x 24 inch walnut oil on canvas (will be released soon) Update: This painting sold to a private collector in Michigan on October 19, 2015 before it could be formally released.

the majority of my effort has been on the “out breath” of selling paintings.

This wasn’t such a purposeful act of short breaths in and long breathes out but it is what has happened. So much so that seven paintings have been sold in seven short weeks. Here is one of these paintings Trail Along the Ridge a 30 x 40 inch oil on canvas, in its new home.

All seven paintings that have left the studio recently can be viewed HERE on the Terrill Welch Artist website.

Now, I expect to get back to some more moderate breath patterns with a rather relaxed even-pace between the in breath and the out breath of breathing, painting and selling as an independent artist. Life is good and the cupboards are full for the winter ahead!

What is the current breathing pattern of your creative breath?

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

For the Record I am Still Very Much a Living Artist

August 4, 2015February 8, 2016 / Terrill Welch / 7 Comments

The other day I had a long-time friend ask if I had any health problems. I was a bit puzzled about what prompted this inquiry but answered that I was fine other than being slightly rounder than I would like.

He continues “Oh, I was just wondering if I could cash in on those paintings of yours anytime soon. But I think you have to be dead first.”

He was teasing but it is not such an odd question to ask about an artist as I first thought. At a recent international art fair this was a common curiosity for art buyers – was the artist still alive and are they in the mature or later stages of their career? This is all a polite way of asking if the artist is dead yet or how much longer until we can expect them to be dead. Of course, then the collector or potential purchaser has to decide if they have a chance of outliving that artist in order to cash in on their holdings. This is the rather lifeless, dark side of the whole art business which I am not so fond of thinking about.

I admit to being a little weirded out by this whole line of decision-making or checking up on your art investment. So I just want to say, for the record, I am in good health, eat well, exercise regularly, do not smoke, spend ample time in nature breathing clean air and sometimes have a glass of red wine with my dinner. Chances are fairly good that I have several years of painting left in me yet and I shall be around for a long, long time. No quick return on your investment is reasonably expected here. Then again we never really know do we? After all, I am closer to 60 than 50 years old now. But I provide you with summary this information and leave it with you to calculated your odds.

Now that we have that out-of-the-way, there is another kind of being dead as an artist that is far more dangerous than a last breath. This is the death of risk taking. Playing it safe, in whatever creative medium an artist uses, is not recommended. Sometimes the worst thing for an artist is to figure out something that works and is appreciated by viewers and collectors. Under these circumstances, we can lose focus, desire, drive and passion quicker than the heart can skip a beat. We must keep ask – I wonder? and – what if? and then go for it! The life in our work depends on this risk taking as much as our body relies on fresh organic fruit and vegetables. Yes, we can stop asking the questions for a short-while. But we will develop artistic scurvy if it goes on for too long. Let me show you an example of the kind of risk taking I am talking about….

My paintings don’t just appear on the canvas with each bit perfectly formed. They are coerced, poked and enticed into existence. I start with an idea about how I want to handle a particular subject and gradually it starts to take shape as the layers of paint and brushstrokes are moved onto the canvas. Bell Towers of Florence Countryside – 16 x 20 inch walnut oil on canvas has been more than a year in the musing and thinking process.

I start the landscape with my usual warm underpainting …

I began working right on top of the wet underpainting. I wanted this warmth to be come integral to the later stages of the painting.

The main themes and compositional elements of the painting are still fluid and transitory. It is coming along nicely.

Slowly my ideas start to solidify – just a bit…

I begin building up what seems to be working…

I keep going…

There is some variation in colour between stages because of the lighting condition at different times of day. But you get the idea. Finally the painting is getting close.

If you are walking from Florence south via del Podesta which is part of the old road to Rome take via del Portico to the right that is above Galluzzo. It is the medieval Chiesa di Santa Lucia in the foreground. The church has two bells from the 14th century. The Monastero della Certosa del Galluzzio founded by Niccolò Acciaiuoli in 1342 is on the hillside in the background. Today there are cars and freeways running lengthwise between these two places but from this view one can imagine there being only foot traffic moving along the narrow roads between stone walls from one place to the other. Thinking about what it was like standing in this spot, I make a few more changes and then I am ready to leave the painting to “rest” and decide if it needs anything else.

Well, I slept on it and I thought about this place some more. I then thought about the state of the world and so on. I could have left this most pleasant, idealized scene just as it is. The painting is fine. No risk taking is necessary really. But what would be the use of that? Do we really just need one more perfect picture of a grand view? No we don’t. I know we don’t. I have more to say than that and I had best figure out how to say it. We are often dazzled by dramatic light and memories that deny an imperfect past. This is even more pronounced to me when looking at these old churches, monasteries and bell towers in the Florence countryside. The whining hornet-sounds of motorcycles on the narrow road are an invisible reminder of our fossil-fuel reliant present. The young olive trees on the hill are young because of a hard frost a number of years ago that was attributed to changes in weather patterns. We seem to be wiping out our past and our present even as we observe this magnificent view. Like cataract suffers, we keep focusing on the bright spots and missing the rest. We are slowly going blind and this beautiful view will soon be lost to us. How can I possibly show this with paint and my brush?

Risk taken. I believe we now have more than simply a beautiful landscape and one that is very much alive, just like the artist who painted it.

What risk are you currently taking in order to be very much alive?

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

Profit and Losses of Peonies and Poppies Still Life in the Art Studio

June 11, 2015June 11, 2015 / Terrill Welch / 9 Comments

Notes from my artist’s journal:

Saturday’s flowers for $12.00 from the Hardscrabble Farm stall at the Farmers Market resulted in “Peonies and Poppies Still Life” 12 x 16 inch acrylic painting sketch shown here just as itwas completed in the studio. Thegessobord was $5.20 and the paints used maybe $2.80 bringing the total investment for materials to around $20.00 dollars. Then there is my hard-earned skills, creative genius and of course my time.

I took it off easel and set it next to the flowers for a moment.

This was my June Sunday morning in the studio and a good morning it was!

I usually do not sell these sketches as they remain in my private collection for reference. But I felt for now I had done all that I wanted to do with this subject. I was quite pleased with the sketch and decided it could stand on its own as a finished work.

On Monday morning I posted the quick acrylic sketch on social media for the purchase price of $400 including shipping.

Late Monday evening the painting sketch SOLD!

Prints of this work are still available and can be purchased by clicking the image or HERE.

On Wednesday morning the e-transfer of funds was deposited and I had finished packaging and shipping the painting sketch to the new collector. I went to the small town of Sidney B.C. and purchased ink for my big printer, canvases and paints. The total was $368 dollars. I heaved a bit of a frustrated sigh as all of my profits from the sale, after supplies, taxes and shipping, were immediately reinvested back into the studio. Then I chided myself with the reminder that at least I had profits to reinvest.

Now it is Thursday morning. The flowers have faded. The peonies remind me of soiled pink toilet paper and poppy petals lay scattered onto the table.

Maybe, I will feel inspired to paint peonies and poppies again next year.

Don’t get me wrong I am THRILLED to have this work with a collector who I KNOW will treasure this painting sketch! I am always thankful and humbly grateful to ALL the art collectors who purchase my work. It is just that, well…. It’s all good right?

So goes the profits and losses of painting a peonies and poppies still life sketch in my art studio.

What are you adding up today?

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

Ten Days Over and Under with Nature is Calling

May 12, 2015 / Terrill Welch / 14 Comments

A deer browses outside the studio window as I ponder how much easier it is to be in nature than it is to record being in nature. Since my last post many days have past. I am reminded of weaving and the over and under of life, living and my complex relationship to nature. Let see if we can pick up the pattern and weave it together.

The rooster crows over top of the small forest birds as I try to decide whether to paint the third of three California surf paintings or write this blog post.

The other two are complete and under review with other new work in the main part of the house.

While I should be musing over this body of work in the early morning light as I gather my apple and toasted whole-wheat raisin bread, instead I think “darn those windows need washing!”

Canadian geese announce their departure as I climb back up stairs to the studio. I am fixated on a painting problem and it goes like this – how does one paint the sound of the surf?

This problem about painting the surf took over following an Oregon and California road trip this spring. It has rooted itself into my consciousness like invasive Scotch Broom on Mayne Island – a beautiful problem but still one that there is a community desire to resolve. But Scotch Broom is an issue that is complex and not easily addressed. Practically speaking, both my painting problem and the broom take hard work as much as anything else to resolve. This is where #NatureIsCalling and the David Suzuki Foundation 30 minutes x 30 days in May Nature Challenge gives me a boost and possibly even a reason to sidestep the second issue – getting rid of Scotch Broom.

If we propose that over and under is a repetitive motion that in weaving and nature never allows a person to return to exactly the same place twice, what have I discovered?

The Georgina Lighthouse park on Mayne Island is beautiful in the direct midday sun.

or plein air painting in the early morning grey of heavy haze and cloud.

“Scotch Broom and Arbutus Tree set in grey quick study” – 8 x 10 inch acrylic plein air sketch on gessobord

We have come back again and again these past few days for picnics and reading.

Sometimes I am distracted by the sounds of ferries entering or leaving Active Pass. But mostly, the seals and sea lions surface on the water and the seagulls and eagles call from the sky while I feel free to sprawl on the grass with nothing more to do than take it all into the core of my being – even the Scotch Broom.

Scotch Broom you see is not really suppose to be here. The invasive shrub got away from gardens and has a habit of taking up any vacant space available regardless of who usually would be seeking residence – kind of like humans. It has definitely made itself permanent on Mayne Island as it has elsewhere. The best way to keep shrub out is not to disturb the ground. This patch has developed due to shore erosion. It is a tough beast with deep roots. Possibly it is a natural solution to the erosion in this case. I am willing to entertain this idea for the moment anyway. By the way, if you look long enough and carefully enough there are two humans in this photograph sitting quietly looking out to sea.

The lighthouse park is sometimes included in our longer walk each the day which are usually five to six km long and the same equivalent as climbing eight flights of stairs. These walks frequently include trails leading to and from the sea.

Maybe it is a low tide…

or the beauty of an old fir tree curved from winter storms…

or the strength of light, wind in the trees and patterns of roads sometimes are best understood in a painterly paintography fashion that catches my attention.

These last four images were taken with my iPhone as it was all I had with me. My iPhone is sometimes a secondary part about being in nature. I leave my good camera at home in order to limit the distraction of framing images. It helps a small amount but not a lot. This habit of seeing light patterns and recording compositions is like a musician playing their daily scales on the piano – it is necessary practice. I would argue it is as important to my well-being as being in nature for its own-sake. I mean, how does one even come up with a crazy question about how to paint the sound of the surf if not from years of observation?

During the past ten days storms pass through…

first visit with five day old grandson take place…

A Cinnabar moth is spotted (found in Europe and western and central Asia. It has been introduced into New Zealand, Australia and North America to control poisonous ragwort, on which its larvae feed.)

and a first Iris that hold my attention. It too is not native to this area. Like me, it is a transplant from someplace else.

This close up is what I want to remember but it is not what I first saw in its raw awkwardness against the foundation of the lighthouse.

What I have noticed during the past ten days of #NatureIsCalling is how good I am at sorting, sanitizing and sensationalizing what are ordinary, messy and complex experiences in our natural environment. While I think that what I am deeply aware of is that the sun on my shoulder, the rumble of the jet overhead, the rain in the garden, the rise and fall of my breath I also become aware of a world where humans want to be right and to be good. It is a world where human sharing uses the shortest route to what is considered best and worst, good and evil or right and wrong. Time in nature reminds me of the complexity of our daily lives by its examples. Maybe the time and energy to eradicate Scotch Broom is ill placed? My wrenched shoulder from doing this task a few years ago agrees – today anyway.

Now, I am off to paint the sound of the surf in my third of three paintings on the subject. With a bit of luck, my next post will introduce all three completed California surf paintings.

What complexities are you musing about?

Note: #NatureIsCalling is the hashtag for the David Suzuki Foundation 30 minutes x 30 days in May Nature Challenge. I am outside more than 30 minutes in nature each day as a matter of work and life style but I committed to being particularly observant for the Month of May. As time allows, I will share these experiences with you here on Creative Potager.

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

Three Painting Secrets Shared Over Tea

February 3, 2015February 6, 2015 / Terrill Welch / 10 Comments

Let’s light the wood cook stove in the outdoor courtyard while a gentle rain wakes nearby tree frogs.

While you are listening, I shall split some wood and set out the makings for tea.

There are a couple of cushions on the cob bench that are just right for us. Now, I mentioned a few painting secrets didn’t I? To refine this just a little – these are this particular artist’s painting secrets that I am referencing, not the generic painter from all genres and all times. Lastly, they are painting secrets only in if we haven’t yet taken the time to consider their relevance in relation to our painting language.

The first painting secret is to hold a tension between knowing and the unexpected. To clarify, I don’t really believe in divine intervention or creativity passing through me from some higher power. Admittedly, my conscious mind is seldom in control of my brush except as I begin and at the completion of a work – so possibly “belief” is irrelevant in this situation. However, I start with an intention. I choose a subject, a medium, a surface and an approach or painting problem. I decide which pigments to set out. This is the “knowing” part of the equation which is heavily influenced by frequent practice such as with this first of two acrylic painting sketches from yesterday.

“Arbutus tree in ray of sun” 8 x 10 inch acrylic painting sketch on gessoboard (update February 6, 2015: this sketch is now sold)

This painting sketch didn’t come out of nowhere. Even though it was painted in the middle of an indoor market day with not a glimpse of the foggy sea visible, the sketch is inspired by an experience from the day before.

While walking, a friend asks if I had done a painting of this particular arbutus tree. I reply – not yet – as I frame my composition – maybe tomorrow though – and the shutter releases. It is these slivers of moments overlapping one-over-another that find their way onto my canvases. How do I capture our relaxed ease which followed from lunch together and now an afternoon January stroll around a small piece of our island? What colours and brushstrokes will translate these feelings, this remembering? It is so much more than this arbutus tree hunch over the sandstone shore, where the sun catches and the fog shifts upon the sea.

This painting sketch is a first attempt to answer these questions. I really haven’t a clue what the answer is but I find I must set myself to the problem just the same. This is the “unexpected” half of the equation. I must move forward without knowing. I believe this is where some painters and creative beings feel they are merely a vessel for the work to come through. I am not convinced. The focus and full-body experience as the brushes move paint onto canvas is undeniable and yes possibly spiritual in approach. But I still claim awareness of my physical presence and leaning heavily on a large basket of experience both from painting and from life. The unpredictable combination of these elements is what is leads us to the unexpected. It is the tension between this knowing and embracing unknown possibilities that is important. To achieve results I must show up and practice my craft frequently. Relying on divine intervention will only get us so far. Then there is work to be done.

The second painting secret is finding precisely the intimate details that are essential. Then I paint these aspect with all of my senses and layers of brushstrokes to expose this specific intimacy. For a landscape or still life painter there is always movement even when it is not at first noticeable. This is because the earth is moving. This grants us a readily identifiable intimacy in our relationship to a precise aspect of that time of day, a specific season combined with our years of experience with this spiraling cycle. These years of experience I reference are is “noticing years” rather than “birth years” which is significant. Currently, with the amount of time humans spend in artificial environments, a person can go their whole life with little conscious awareness and possibly no interest in our earthly relationship in the universe. We must notice in a conscious way in order to deepen and strengthen our painting vocabulary of movement and the interrelationship of light and our subjects. I sense this to be true even in abstract work. The paintings of Richard Diebenkorn whose work will be shown at the Royal Academy in London England March 14 to June 7 2015.

Yet, though our urban surroundings mask our awareness to nature, it takes very little to awaken these sensory experience. Repeated deliberate observation is all that is really necessary. Take this second painting sketch “Steveston morning fog” an 8 x 10 acrylic painting sketch on gessoboard.

The fishing boats are important but they do not float on their own in the morning fog. They are imbedded in their surroundings and are experienced as small against a grand sky that touches right down to the sea. I made them even smaller in relationship to the sky for this reason than my photography reference information.

Maybe even too small perhaps. However, in this translation of my experience it is our human smallness in relationship to the sky and the morning light coming through the fog that was the intimate detail of significance.

The third painting secret I have to share is to release any notion of importance. We must take our work seriously of course but release any investment in a particular outcome of success, recognition or fortune. This doesn’t mean we relinquish these things completely but rather that they remain outside of the painting process and, as much as possible, outside of our lives in general. Yes, well-being is important. Yes, we desire and do much better with safe secure housing and nutritious foods. Yes, we need social appreciation and connection to varying degrees depending on our own temperament. But we need much less of what is defined as success, recognition and fortune than we are led through advertizing and media to believe that we do – particularly in North America. For example, my large old tea kettle has out lasted five electric kettles which I somehow thought were necessary. I gave up on the latter about three years ago. They were costly, environmentally unsustainable due to their continued need for replacement. But I had decided for some reason that the electric kettle was faster and easier to use. In reality not so. Water boils in about the same amount of time whether in the kettle on the stove or with the plug-in variety. There is nothing helpful about having this extra contraption on the counter. I had unwittingly replaced experience for efficiency which if I unravel brings us back to the notion of my importance. I had important things to do so the most efficient path was the one that was most desirable. Hence, I purchased a series of ill considered electric kettles.

Let’s explore what we notice if we value experience over efficiency as we prepare and drink this cup of tea because this old wood cook stove still makes a fine cup of tea though it will take us about three times as long by the time we get the fire going and the water boiling. When I am sitting here in the outdoor courtyard I have no trouble at all remembering that the earth is on its winter turn and half way to spring. I can almost feel the trees releasing the oxygen I pull deep into the bottom of my lungs. This awareness is far more valuable to my painting than the importance of a huge following on social media, a cover feature in a national paper or financial wealth. The turning of the earth, the trees, the following, the national article and financial wealth are all temporary – just as we are. Therefore, I suggest that our attention is best spent on insuring our minimal needs while affording us as much freedom to be aware of our relationship to our environment as possible. And here is the rub – insuring minimal needs may requiring marketing and selling the paintings that are rendered in these passages of freedom awareness we have created by attending to only our minimal needs. Still I will argue that success, recognition and fortune are not an adequate definition of a painter and are useless and possibly harmful aspect to attend to as an artist. They are distractions that defuse our attention from our own temporariness. Resisting mortality is futile. Success, recognition and fortune are temporary observations that spiral around through time, for only a short while. Then these observations, along with the physical paintings will disappear just a we did maybe a few hundred years before. We can’t cheat mortality and the effort to stall the inevitable interferes with what must be painted today.

With these three secrets, the waves can then roll as if moved by our breath.

(detail Sea and Stones French Beach 12 x 16 inch walnut oil on wood with 1.5 inch cradle)

The sky can open up as never before remembered.

(detail Sea and Sky French Beach 12 x 16 inch walnut oil on wood with 1.5 inch cradle)

Well, the last of my tea is cold and it getting dark. Time to call it a day. Before I go, I want to introduce a new blog by a fellow artist and colleague Lena Levin. Some of the ideas I have shared here Lena explores from a historical, academic as well as personal perspective at “Sonnet in Colour.” She recently introduced this new blog in her newsletter as follows:

There is this almost inevitable flavour of self-display in writing (and showing paintings) publicly, and I am extremely introverted — I really don’t want any self-display. Even now, a huge part of me would prefer to just shut up and go paint in solitude and silence. Or read something, or listen, or see. But there is also this feeling that Shakespeare, and sonnets, and paintings, and art in general — all these things often thought of as high-brow, inessential luxuries — are in fact urgently relevant to our day-to-day lives, even desperately needed. And maybe — just maybe — I might be able to share something which someone else needs; open some doors, show some pathways to what fills my own life with so much joy and happiness.

This is why I’ve decided to structure the site not just around the sonnets, or paintings, but around three themes, which — in one or another way — play a crucial role in everyone’s life: “Self and Consciousness”, “Love”, and “Time and Mortality” (with sub-headings to be added as the site grows).

I hope you enjoy reading her writing and viewing her paintings as much as I do.

Now, while I gather the tea items and carry them back to the inside kitchen…

What is one of your creative secrets?

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

Canadian Contemporary Artist Terrill Welch solo exhibit and auction

January 17, 2015January 17, 2015 / Terrill Welch / 4 Comments

Just so you know…

Terrill Welch

Twenty-two of Terrill Welch’s paintings open in a solo exhibit today in the International Fine Arts Collaborative (IFAC) ZEN Gallery Facebook Page curated by Sukhee Kwon.

S O L O . E X H I B I T I O N : 1 2
Collection: T E N D I N G . T O . T H E . O R D I N A R Y
Artist: Terrill Welch

IFAC Zen Gallery Solo Exhibition 12 Terrill Welch

To view the exhibit click on the image or HERE.

Intro: Terrill Welch is internationally recognized. Her paintings are sold to art collectors throughout Canada and the United States as well as in Australia, England, Norway and Switzerland. Since 2010, more than 50 of her paintings have found their way into private collections.

TENDING TO THE ORDINARY is a selection of paintings chosen for their moments of engagement with our everyday world. The brushstrokes render the light, shadow…

View original post 163 more words

Art and Landscape connecting one brushstroke at a time

January 11, 2015January 11, 2015 / Terrill Welch / 7 Comments

Some days simply overflowing with humble gratitude. An unexpected belly laugh from your partner, child or a friend. The dampness of morning air on your cheek. Maybe it is the sounds of the tree frogs nearby that does it for you? Or an eagle hanging on a branch with a robust sea coming to shore?

What are those everyday experiences that remind you of your humanness and connection to nature?

Today my Art of Terrill Welch Facebook Page has 837 followers or “Likes.” Just so you know, when it reaches 1,000 I am going to auction off an 8 x 10 inch landscape painting sketch. It will be a new adventure for me though I have seen it done many times before. The bidding is done in the comments on the post and there is a small reserved bid to start. In order to comment one must have “Liked” the page. Do be careful though as it is easy to “unlike” a page you have already liked by accident

P.s. This is a snippet from WEST COAST EARLY EVENING WINTER SEA 16 x 20 inch which will be unveiled at my solo exhibition “West Coast Landscape as Home” April 3, 2015 at Camassia Café on Mayne Island, British Columbia Canada. If you are considering traveling to come to this opening, now is the time to make plans as it is the Saturday of Easter Weekend.

All the best of a fine Sunday 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 Fifth Birthday Creative Potager Blog

January 8, 2015 / Terrill Welch / 20 Comments

It has now been five years since the beginning of Creative Potager. Happy WordPress blog birthday to us!

What a journey we have had together!

(Open Studio is 24 x 30 inch oil on canvas and is a new work in the artist’s private collection)

This is the home of sharing this artist’s creative process inspired from her everyday life.

The underbelly of paintings are displayed in all their naked glory.

The design ideas for the fabric that covers these bare-bone canvases is the substance that has graced many of the 538 posts.

Photographs have captured long walks at home,

the rise of a super-moon

and meandering international travel.

And you dear readers have been so much a unique contributor through your comments and shared links. In this way, I feel Creative Potager is a community as much as it is blog. Thank you for being you. Thank you for your support, sharing and collecting of my paintings and photographs. More than 50 paintings and many more photography prints are now in private collections around the world. So, as much as Creative Potager captures a process, it also delivers results. You are so very much a part of making this happen.

But how can we celebrate today? Five years are a survival milestone for a blog and for a small business as an independent artist. How might we honour and recognize this moment?

Well, just as this blog is about the everyday life and work of an artist who frequently invites you simply to sit with her – maybe to celebrate we should do just that?

Feel free to pour a cup of tea and dig into the cookie jar while we reflect. Thank you for pausing with me. Thank you for celebrating this milestone.

Do you have a special Creative Potager moment or memory you would like to share?

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

Painting the Canadian landscape as home

November 27, 2014September 25, 2016 / Terrill Welch / 11 Comments

I have been asking myself about what home means. The answer may or may not be surprising to you. When does a landscape become more like home than nearby dwellings and their inhabitants? My conclusion is that the landscape, along with the seasons that influence it, help us organize our daily rural life. This is when “home” is expressed most clearly by the land, water and sky. The landscape is my first home. Dwellings and their inhabitants must fit within the expanse. Let’s unpack what I mean by this through the painting process of two recent landscapes.

The first is a Mayne Island landscape and starts with this “Mount Parke Trail study” 10 x 8 inch oil on canvas

I was looking for the tension in the landscape and wondering if it would be enough to hold it together on a larger canvas. The conclusion was that it would so a 30 x 24 inch canvas was set up and the work began.

With the study for reference, it was during the beginnings of this painting process that I began to dwell on the fact that I was more at home within our natural landscape than anywhere else.

I didn’t have a satisfactory answer at the time but it was the puzzle I was working through as I continued to shape the scene.

The finished painting TRAIL ALONG THE RIDGE 30 x 24 inch oil on canvas has been released today on my website Canadian Contemporary Artist Terrill Welch and can be viewed HERE.

The second painting is from my childhood home and where my parents are still living on the Stuart River.

I pulled a face even in the very beginning as you can see in this photograph taken by photographer Josette DeBattista in my home studio.

It is not the landscape itself I find challenging. The work started out in the familiar process of a light yellow ground to keep the later greens lively and a few quick lines for reference.

Yet, I was overwhelmed with memories that crowded the physical elements I was meaning to render. I went outside and looked in to see if that would help to sort things out.

But it didn’t really as photographer Josette DeBattista aptly captures through my concentration…

But the photographer leaves and I move the painting back up into the loft studio to keep working.

The painting is starting to shape.

But I stop with nothing more than the rough shapes on the canvas.

My notes for the day are as follows:

The difficulty is with the overlapping shifting of time through memories and my latest experience of this place along the river. Nothing seems to want to stay fixed long enough in my mind to complete a singular reference point. I stopped work on it at this early stage today and went for a long walk. Tomorrow I will begin again. I have decided to allow, partially because I seem to be unable to do otherwise, the layering of experience to this one specific landscape. The time frame spans about 44 years – not everyday after the first five years but at least a few times a year. This is part of the issue I believe. I have made up this scene in my mind during my absences so that it competes successfully with my physical visits. I seem not to want to paint either but some blend of the two. So, if in the end I can get something to work we may have a painting. We will just have to wait and see.

The next day it is so dark because of heavy rain I had to quit painting because I didn’t even have enough light with the daylight lamp. But shiny, wet and still incomplete and much farther along it seems…

The following day is equally as dreary and I give painting a miss while fussing over the fact that I will likely have to do some dry brush work as it is taking so long to complete.

On day four of doing not much else except either painting or thinking about painting this landscape it is Done!

STUART RIVER KICKING LEAVES 24 x 36 inch oil on canvas

Information about detailed viewing and purchase information is available on my website by clicking the image or HERE.

And so is the story that goes with it which will not be released fully with the painting but seems appropriate to share with you here.

This is another of my mystery paintings in that its realism is mostly a deception. I have included two detail images so you can get a better idea about what is going on.

The first of the poplar trees…

and this second one of the water…

Truthfully though, it is the layering all the way back to the yellow ground that gives this painting its vitality.

I suppose it may appear to be a pretty picture but it isn’t to me. Winters are historically harsh in this area. Snow is not far off and a day of kicking leaves means there is a good stockpile of winter wood. The larder is full and the winter vegetables put down. If this was when I was young, it would soon be time to dress in layers knowing I would still be cold and take my 22 rife into my grandfather’s boat along with our little dog Charlie Brown. You see, my grandfather was a trapper. I was his sharpshooter for muskrats. If they were plentiful, we would take a few this way rather than trapping them. I had to line up a bead on the head of the small animal right at the waterline in the moving riverboat. As soon as I shot and gave the nod, the small dog would jump overboard and bring the dead muskrat back to us before it sank. My aim had to be good because if it wasn’t the little dog could get pulled under by the diving animal and drown. This risk was partly due to the fact that Charlie wouldn’t let go and give up easily. This was his favourite job and he was a determined to do it well.

I don’t remember what the muskrat hides were worth a piece once they were skinned, the hides stretched and then shipped to the fur buyers. I do know that my grandfather never really had a regular job for wages very often and trapping and guiding were the family livelihood. This cash bought necessities like flour, sugar, salt, boat motors, pickup trucks, snowmobiles, canned peaches, raisins, honey, nuts, rice, lamp gas and mantels, ammunition, maybe a new axe if it was needed or a skinning knife. Oh the shopping list could also include material to make work shirts, or brassieres or maybe even a blouse or new sheets. But you get the idea.

So kicking leaves was and is a luxury between the tasks necessary to survive another winter. Yes it is beautiful with the last heat of the sun on your back and cool northern breeze on your face. But I can hear my father say – the leaves are not real pretty yet. Next week they will be better. Mom will leave a hint of a smile between her shoulder shrug, squint slightly as if seeing a moose or bear across the water. I will look just in case she has. Then we will all turn and continue back towards the house appearing to be in no hurry but already mentally deciding what needs to be done next.

So there you have it – my understanding of how landscapes are home for me.

What are landscape to you?

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends and readers! May your day be filled with appreciation.

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

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When the Creative Mind Creates a New Opportunity

November 12, 2014November 12, 2014 / Terrill Welch / 1 Comment

Sometimes Terrill Welch’s enthusiastic creativity is so incomprehensible that it creates a new opportunity. This is one of those times.

Terrill Welch

20% savings on all original Terrill Welch paintings until Friday, November 14th midnight Pacific Time of 2014.

Go to Terrill’s online Artsy Home Gallery HERE

Click on the “Make an Offer” button located on the top right under the price for the painting you want.

Put in the code 20%savings

This will send an email to Terrill and she will adjust the price and assist you with delivery and purchase arrangements.

Sometimes Terrill Welch’s enthusiastic creativity is so incomprehensible that it creates a new opportunity. This is one of those times. During the Nov 8th & 9th online and in-person Open Studio event Terrill learned that her numbers game was so creative and unclear that no one understood what she was talking about. Since this was not her intention. This time she is keeping it straightforward.

There is a new opportunity of 20% savings on original paintings in her Artsy…

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