Winter Light is a Painter’s Light

November 17, 2022November 17, 2022 / Terrill Welch / Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Collecting, Gathering and Arranging

October 18, 2022October 18, 2022 / Terrill Welch / Leave a comment

The weather has stayed unusually dry and warm for this first part of October. It is suppose to change in the next few days. The trees and shrubs will be happy with a little rain and hopefully it will take some of the summer’s accumulated dust off of our car that we do not wash during the dry spells to conserve water. There has been a lot of wildfire smoke in the air recently leaving us with hoarse raspy voices to watch eery sunsets.

One of my favourite Arbutus trees is looking stressed but still holds up its corner along the shore at Georgina Point.

I put together two yellow cedar planters that I ordered from a Canadian company to go with the two of the the three ollas I purchased in the early summer from a local potter.

I had always thought that it was lack of sun that made things difficult to grow in my garden. Though this is definitely a contributing factor, I believe it is mostly that the big trees that take all of the nutrients and water from my garden beds which is the real issue. I discovered this by putting my first olla in one of my big clay pots. The mint and a few other things thrived even in the less than ideal amount of sunlight.

So we are going to try the cedar planters next year to add to my kitchen garden with a few salad greens and edible flowers. We shall see. The worst that will happen is that I will have to find new homes with more sunshine for the cedar planters. That I can do if necessary. This is not a cost effect plan really because it will take about five years of salads to pay for the supplies. But there will be much less waste and the salads will be fresh picked every day. I think it will be worth it.

On the painting side of things, I have been plein air painting…

It was a stunning afternoon and one that was way more delicious than the resulting painting on the canvas. Still, it might work.

I am also still doing the final review and corrections on the large “Arbutus Tree on Saint John Point” painting. It is close now. I only have one or two more brushstrokes to finally finish it.

“Arbutus on Saaint John Point” by Terrill Welch, 40 x 36 inch acrylic and oil painting. To be release soon.

Today, I will take down the rest of the still life show that I started to remove yesterday in ISLAND TIME ART. The gallery artists are dropping off new paintings and picking up the ones that came out of show later today. I will then get everything in the inventory and do the hanging before the end of the day tomorrow so it will all be ready for when the art room opens on Thursday. These change overs of shows are a bit of a push for me but I like curating and the end results always make me smile.

I also spent some time in the past few days pulling together and ordering a 2023 calendar for purchase. I think it will be the last year I do this, but who knows. Maybe I will grit my teeth and do it again. The product is expensive to purchase even wholesale and it has an expiration date which means hustling to get it out to customers before it loses its value. That said, I have dedicated fans who are terribly disappointed if I do not make this happen. So if you would like one, let me know and we shall figure it out get it to you. They are basically $42 CAD including tax and shipping within North America. If you pick them up from the ISLAND TIME ART room directly, you will save $2.00. I expect them to arrive early November if not before. Here is a bit of a sneak preview.

Well, this pretty much catches us up again for the moment. As you can see, I have been doing a lot of everything rather than settling in to just working in the studio or the art gallery spaces. It is sometimes just the way it goes. I admit to being a bit weary and wanting to conserve energy where I can but it is likely just the shorter days. I will simply be kind to myself and not push too hard until I can gather myself up again. It is a time that I consider to be “one foot in front of the other” until I arrive at some new place that is yet to be determined. Do you ever feel this way?

Hope you have a pleasant day and I shall check in again soon.

ONLINE GALLERIES include –

ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches currently available

Redbubble painting and photography prints and merchandise

Website: TerrillWelchArtist.com

Warm Sun with Cool Shadows

September 20, 2022September 20, 2022 / Terrill Welch / Leave a comment

I have my sweater tide around my waist and my cheeks are facing the later morning sun. But there is no mistaking that it is fall. A cool breeze drifts gently through the trees and tickles up the length of my spine.

*Please note: Reader warning about challenging material and painting reference sketch for possibly my next large painting are included near the end of this post.

I want to not much of anything on days like this. It is a good thing I got the edges on four large paintings done yesterday before heading down to sit beside the sea.

Autumn crocuses are in full bloom. I always feel like they are playing a great hoax on us, as if wanting us to believe it is spring.

But it was Saint John Point where I wandered yesterday. This place is intimately familiar. Yet, if I learn into that closeness and seek out something more, it always delivers.

Again…

And again…

The Arbutus woods, the sea and the sky are never the same twice. So I keep seeking with fresh eyes and a willing spirit.

Every twist is assessed and acknowledged, sometimes with sadness because the end of a life is so near. Maybe one more season. Hopefully.

However, even in death Arbutus Trees seem to still have so much to offer with their elegant curves.

I revel in the grand strength and endurance of the healthy giants. How do they do it when so many others are struggling?

At home the painting edges dry.

These three paintings have displaced us from our great room and dining table.

Not to worry, we have done this a few hundred times before. We have a temporary cozy and beautiful solution. The outside deck table is moved to the big windows in our bedroom. Now how fine is this!?

And in the evening if dinner is later, we slide everything over in front of the fireplace. One could hardly call this roughing it.

Today and tomorrow the Gallery Pod is closed. I have a friend and an art collector arriving for a day trip tomorrow though. I could start on a larger painting but I might wait. What I want to work on is dark and grim. I have a small study I did around five months ago about our tranquil place next to the Salish Sea with the devastation left behind by the Russians in the small village of Bucha village in Ukraine imposed in the foreground.

“One World, Two Places” by Terrill Welch is a small 8 x 10 inch acrylic sketch

Artist notes: During mid April 2022 war photographers began releasing images of Bucha Ukraine following Russian retreat. The inhumane atrocities where nightmarishly haunting. I was overwhelmed by the graphic possibilities for sickly human behaviour. I went from our calm, warm, cozy home to the shores of the Salish Sea on the southwest coast of Canada where Mount Baker loomed across the waters in the United States. What if our neighbouring unit were to attack us in this way? What would we do? These lands too have witnessed atrocities by European settlers towards Indigenous communities. There is no place of virtue for how despicable humans can be to one another. The miracle might be that we have even moments of peace, compassion and caring at all. Yet, the seascape of my island home is tranquil and takes the edge off of my inner turmoil. I return home and paint “One World, Two Places” using several reference but with a specific image quote to Den Kazansky who risks his physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being to document the crimes in Bucha and the war in Ukraine. Kazansky’s tag line on Twitter is “For only in the grip of darkness we will shine amidst the brightest stars” This too could be the title of this painting sketch.

The subject deserves a large canvas. I am just not sure I have the stomach and the courage to paint it. I have a biting, teeth grinding and nightmare kind of concern for those civilians who are on the front lines of the war in Ukraine. I can hike the trails to take the edge off but this doesn’t change the situation. Somehow painting these experiences offers a concrete place outside of my head to record these horrors that contrast so starkly with our daily island life here on the Southwest Coast of Canada.

For now, I am going to make my coffee and see what I decide after that.

ONLINE GALLERIES include –

ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches currently available

Redbubble painting and photography prints and merchandise

Website: TerrillWelchArtist.com

Reopening with a Study of Oyster Bay

August 24, 2022August 23, 2022 / Terrill Welch / 4 Comments

It has been almost three years since I have added a post to this Creative Potager Blog. There is not a reasonably way to cover such an expansive absence. So, I have decided to begin again as if it were just yesterday. If the in-between is important to you, there are many public posts to read on my personal Facebook profile and in issues of “A Brush with Life” newsletter for the gallery. Now, it is time to anchor a new beginning and a practice which includes a slight shift away from social media and back to this blog and my website. I am sure the reflective peacefulness of this specific online location will be welcomed by us both. Let’s start with a recent study of Oyster Bay, Mayne Island, on the southwest coast of British Columbia, Canada…

Today was a low tide when we quietly pulled the our Red Rosy Subaru Outback down to the shore for one of our regular picnic lunches. After a few bites, I was out and searching for possible angles to capture the sweet, warm, summer blues before us.

The Salish Sea stretches along the Straight of Georgia as we squint towards the coastal mountains and Vancouver on the far side. Do I want all of the view or just a piece of it?

Or maybe just the rippling water reflections? I can’t decide.

But whatever else, I had best step it along as the tide is definitely coming in.

Now this lengthy stretch seems to be just the right balance.

But what about possibly adding a touch of rock in the foreground from over here?

Oh! Very faintly we can see Mount Baker in the distance. I will stretch the capacity of my phone camera just a little to reach out… and there! Got it! At least I have it enough for my reference needs.

As a landscape painter exposing the mystery in an ordinary day, these are my regular photography sketches. I do not worry about getting that one perfect image but rather strive for a collection of references that I can use to enhance my memory and imagination back in the painting studio. On occasion, these studies, along with small plein air painting sketches of the same subjects, result in a painting but mostly they become foundational information that builds sometimes for years until an idea becomes compelling enough to paint.

So there you have it! Do you also have practices in your life that are as much for their own sake as anything else?

ONLINE GALLERIES include –

ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches currently available

Redbubble painting and photography prints and merchandise

Website: TerrillWelchArtist.com

Two Arbutus Trees Rendered One for New Gallery One Sold

August 2, 2017August 2, 2017 / Terrill Welch / 6 Comments

I am still paintings as we are rounding the last corner into the home stretch for the Terrill Welch Gallery to open Friday August 4^th. This is my new normal as I learn the rhythm of both/and between studio and gallery.

Yesterday, saw the eight painting sketches arrive at the gallery for the first show.

The lights are now up and I am thrilled with the quality of luminescence I will have to work with for photographs.

Last Thursday, Friday and Sunday were painting days. The first is a plein air over two mornings of an arbutus tree caught between the sea and the road.

Morning along the Island Road Mayne Island BC 20 x 16 inch oil on canvas plein air

Details and purchase information HERE.

The second is a small study of a favourite arbutus tree from reference images.

Arbutus Tree with a View 8 x 10 inch acrylic study on gessobord

This one is sold already. Other new works are released in the online gallery HERE.

On Friday morning with a bit of luck we will have a live video of the opening of the gallery on the Art of Terrill Welch Facebook Page. If you want to be there in our virtual world head drop by the page at 10:00 am Friday August 4th. A few people who helped with the raising of the gallery and collectors will be there and the gallery will open to the public at 11:00 am.

How do you stay in the flow when adding something big to your life?

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 Times When We Simply Proceed

April 5, 2017April 5, 2017 / Terrill Welch / 7 Comments

A spring cold gathered momentum on Thursday morning requiring medication to keep my fever in check. There were studio guests arriving on the island and a painting class to teach. Both pleasant activities though I was functioning far below optimum. However, I simply proceeded.

Only while doing a quick painting sketch at the edge of the pond in the Japanese Garden did I forget how miserable I was feeling.

This was likely because I did not need to talk and I was warm in the afternoon sun.

Last evening I was reminded of this moment while reading about the chemical attack in Syria. I asked myself, when do we break and crumble under the weight of adversity? When is it that we can no long simply proceed, as if it was only a common spring cold?

Earlier in the day I had read Dina Nayeri’s powerful article “The Ungrateful Refugee: ‘We have no dept to repay’” which was the long read in The Guardian on Tuesday April 4, 2016. I will share with you just her closing paragraph….

“Still, I want to show those kids whose very limbs apologise for the space they occupy, and my own daughter, who has yet to feel any shame or remorse, that a grateful face isn’t the one they should assume at times like these. Instead they should tune their voices and polish their stories, because the world is duller without them – even more so if they arrived as refugees. Because a person’s life is never a bad investment, and so there are no creditors at the door, no debt to repay. Now there’s just the rest of life, the stories left to create, all the messy, greedy, ordinary days that are theirs to squander.”

After dinner, I was reading an opinion piece in the New York Times by Ariel Dorfman bring “A Message From the end of the World” in Santiago Chile. In his climate change impact summary of events on the southern tip of the Americas, he tell us about the widening of the gap in the Antarctica ice shelf and how it will eventually crash into the sea causing a rise in seawater. Chile is the first place that will be impacted.

I leave the table with plans to come write today’s blog post. But I don’t. Instead I simple proceed to clean up the kitchen and stay with these feelings of overwhelming disgust, horror, helplessness and a kind of deep hopelessness. It is too late for a long walk which is my usual line of first defense when the world falls short of my expectations. Instead, I just sit with the feelings, unable to write until this morning.

I should be celebrating with you this week. Two paintings have left the studio for homes of their own and the small postcard size painting sketch that was sent to England for the TwitterArtExhibit sold on opening night. Over $10,000 in U.S. dollars were raised for a local charity, Molly Olly’s Wishes, in the first night. Instead, this morning these bright spots in an artist’s life seem garish, insensitive and above all, unimportant. What to do?

My answer comes easily. I shall post this note and go for a long walk and listen to the spring birds. I shall breathe in time with waves on the sea. I shall inhale the scent of the blossoms on the breeze. I shall run my hands along the length of the arbutus tree. Then I shall paint. This is what a landscape painter does. After this is done, then I shall see if there is anything else I can do. In times like these, first we must simply proceed until we decide what else can be done.

When was the last time you asked yourself to simply proceed?

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 Large Plump Peaches in the Studio Today

August 26, 2016August 26, 2016 / Terrill Welch / 6 Comments

There are just three large plump peaches, fresh from the fields, sitting in a bowl on the table.

I paint the still life sketch promptly because there is a great risk of there only being two.

The result is slightly larger than life contemporary impressionist style painting sketch.

Because this is all there will be, no larger painting anticipated, the 11 x 14 inch original acrylic still life painting sketch on gessobord has been released immediately HERE.

I have also released this work as a print and products in my Redbubble storefront HERE.

The studio study was completed simply for the pleasure of summer, peaches and paint.

What simple pleasures of summer are you enjoying?

Happy Friday 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

What a Difference a Day Makes arriving in Charlottetown Prince Edward Island

April 29, 2016April 30, 2016 / Terrill Welch / 8 Comments

It is 2:30 am when the taxi dropped us off into the quiet dark of Water Street. We have arrived in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island from Victoria, British Columbia after making two connections – one in Vancouver and one in Toronto. The key was right where it was suppose to be along with a note from our hosts. We slipped into our small well-appointed circa 1857 house apartment. I send a quick note to our emergency contact that we were safely at our destination and it is lights out. This lasted until 5:30 am when I awoke to the beginnings of an east coast day. I toss and turn for an hour and then give up. There is nothing to do but get out there and join the rising sun! I head around the corner and down a small hill and I am at Confederation Landing.

The upside down world of the harbour seems most fitting.

There is a stunning art installation that will keep me coming back many times.

There is frost on the boardwalk.

Pussy willows just budding out.

Crocuses coming up under the shrubs.

All these wonderful signs of early spring! Little did I take to heart just how early a sign of spring it really was.

After a solo breakfast at a place down the street recommended by the city worker near the landing, I make my way over to the long boardwalk of Victoria Park. David is much more sensible and is peacefully getting a goodnight or rather day’s sleep.

Around the corner an old farm sits disappearing even with its well-worked fields.

I see my first small lighthouse and smile. It has been a good morning.

I go back to the apartment, fall into bed and sleep for another couple of hours. Our host and his daughter knock to welcome us and we have a great visit about this and that and everything. My paint supplies hadn’t yet arrived at his office. Our luggage will be coming later today as it wasn’t able to keep up with us yesterday – just ordinary friendly chit-chat in that warm PEI kind of way.

Once they leave, I started poking at David to get up so we can more easily get into eastern time.

We go for lunch at Terre Rouge and I have the best seafood chowder -ever! David decides on baked mac and cheese. I eat his salad. We each have a glass of wine. Even though this is breakfast for David, it is three o’clock in the afternoon. Have I ever said that we travel well and even better together?

Note: If you are planning a summer visit and think you might like to try Terre Rouge, a reservation was made while we were there for July 19th for two. I asked the server if this was common and she said anyone who had been to Charlottetown during the high-tourist summer months knew to make reservations ahead of time. So there you go, decide where you would like to eat in July and make the booking for the occasion at the end of April. No problem.

After a wander around the old town area we decide to go back to the boardwalk in Victoria Park. The beautiful large old dames along the shore are in perfect afternoon light.

We decide to sit in the late day sun on a freshly varnished bench in this highly polished city. A woman walks by and says “Nice to not be sitting in snowbanks isn’t it?”

I agreed and let her know that we didn’t see snowbanks last winter as we were from the southwest coast of Canada. This lead to a lengthy exchange which let us know, among other things, that the first cruise-ship arrives on May 2nd. This explains why there was a whole hive of city workers scrubbing and cleaning away the leftover remnants of winter.

After the woman walked on, David turns to me and comments “you have 32 new friends and you haven’t even been in Charlottetown 24 hours!”

He may be over-estimating, slightly, the number of people we have spoken with since arriving but not by much. Everyone we meet seems to take their role as a city ambassador seriously. They are proud of their island and their city. When we ask, many people tell us they have lived here their whole lives.

As a way of explanation, people give a soft shrug and say something like “it is a good place with good people, no need to really go any place else.”

There is only one other place we have visited in recent years that can match PEI for warmth and friendliness. This a small community on the outskirts of Florence in Italy. This kind of generosity of spirit and kindness is not something one should ever take lightly. We crawl into bed that night already feeling settled and at home. Tomorrow will be another day and what a day it is….

The bright sun and light-sweater-wearing of the day before are lost behind drifting snowflakes and just below freezing temperatures.

There is a white blanket on the boardwalk and the harbour is slow to wake.

The air is crisp and refreshing and the crocuses look to me as crocuses should, their beauty always most accentuated when wrapped in snow.

I see a break in the cloud cover to the north.

I am thinking the snow flurries won’t last as I admire the conte-red of the sandstone lining the Charlottetown harbour.

But I am wrong. It is snowing again as I head back down our street and it continues off and on for the rest of the day.

Like any seasoned traveling artist, I know a window of opportunity when I see one. We gather ourselves up to go and get groceries for the next couple of days. I always love organizing a kitchen with the things we appreciate.

There are little black-cap birds using the bird house outside the window and neither they nor us really mind the snow at all. I make chicken stew with PEI potatoes for supper, along with a side of salad greens smothered in delicious olive oil and balsamic vinegar from “Liquid Gold – tasting bar and all things olive” and artisan buns from Breadworks, difficult to find but so worth it! I served a Prince Edward Island medium dry Gamay Noir from Matos Winery & Distillery for a perfect pairing – a beautifully light-bodied red that should satisfy right into warmer weather.

By just before sunset the skies clear and I meander off to Victoria Park for a stroll. The grand ladies along the shore are looking extra fine this evening.

Tomorrow will be Friday and I promise myself that I will sleep late and I do.

I rise at 8:45 am to make coffee, a cheese sandwich, apple slices and carrots. My paints arrived yesterday afternoon and it is going to be a painting day! I check the temperature and it is plus six with sunshine. I head back to the harbour close to home. Then I run back and get my heavy wool sweater. The wind is picking up to a brisk clip. I decide it is still doable but need to use my big camera as a weight hung from the bottom of the easel to keep it from blowing over. I persevere. There are only a few other people out this morning in a city that seems to walk almost as much as drive. It is cold. My hands become stiff. I must focus hard to work the brushes and keep my teeth from chattering. Then I drift into that space that painters do and the quick sketch seemed to complete itself.

I am happy with it. The light here has a sharp edge that bites with harsh contempt for the camera long before midday. This is only our third day in Charlottetown. There are new colour harmonies to rendered and I am pleased to be back at work after taking time out for the actual travel and to get orientated in our new surroundings. I am looking forward to the weeks ahead as our second spring of this year unfolds before us. Welcome to Prince Edward Island, Canada dear readers!

What are you looking forward to this spring?

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

Intention, Composition and Underpainting are Tools of the Trade used by the Artist

January 14, 2016March 8, 2017 / Terrill Welch / 10 Comments

Today’s work set aside to dry ….

Beginning with underpainting of Westerly Winds Victoria BC 30 x 40 inch oil on canvas

Sometimes I am asked why do I use this tool of a flowing, rather shapeless underpainting? Wouldn’t a ground colour do? Why not just begin the painting and start with a pencil or charcoal sketch to mark the forms?

The answers to these questions are interrelated and to some extent personal and subjective to my intent. So lets start with my intent with this painting – I want my viewer to be standing along this specific shore on this specific day and be able to feel their presence within the landscape. Admittedly not a small task considering that 80% of the North American population lives in urban centres and has limited ability and time to spend watching how a specific landscape looks at different times of day and at different times in the year. Still, I believe part of my job is to provide this experience which then becomes more familiar to the viewer in the face of the actual physical environment. I make no assumption at all that the viewer is familiar with what it is I am about to paint. If we keep this in mind, it helps to understand the task I must complete with a rather simplistic landscape in order to convey the power of the universe through the sun, sea, and land.

First, in this case I began with a quick 20 minute plein air sketch yesterday.

I wanted and needed that time on the shore to gather as many sensory notes as possible so that I can retrieve them for this work. So let’s unpack this underpainting process.

To proceed with a loose flowing “sketch” if you will for the underpainting is preferred in this case because the simplicity of the landscape makes it all the more difficult to render the movement and tension between the elements in the scene. This style of underpainting is preferred to a ground in this situation because the process provides a first check on the “rightness” of the composition for the intended purpose. The reds, yellows and oranges are simply a tool to bring the most movement and brilliance to the greys, blues, browns, yellows and whites of the finished landscape. Through trial and error I have found these pigments for underpaintings the most effective for capturing the significant range of lively blues in our west coast landscape. Therefore, the underpainting adds a strength to the end result that is near to impossible to replicate by beginning with the specific colours of the finished painting.

Do I always do an underpainting? No. Its use depends on my subject and my intention for the finished work. I sometimes do a quick painting sketch and work with the white canvas. I sometimes use a ground colour only. I sometimes work with wet grounds too. But this kind of underpainting, used for this work, is a favourite and there are reasons for this that go beyond any visual result and more to an intuitive remembering.

When I work a canvas up with this kind of underpainting, I begin to physically learn the window of space and the painting language that will be translated onto the canvas from my sensory information which I have gathered up to this point. My physical reference material will often include both photography and painting sketches.The sensory information is much more than what I see. It includes what I heard, smelled, tasted, and felt. There was the rolling of the stones on the shore beside me and the steps of people walking past. I could feel wind pushing cold air into my back and brushing my hair across my face. I could smell the cold dampness of snow, rain and salt. My eyelashes were cool. My hands were stiff with cold. But there was a warmth in the gray, the blue-green and the a brightness in the sky that was punctuated by the sturdy cliffs and the jut of land. It is all of this that I must translate into brushstrokes. The movement of the brushstrokes for the underpainting are like rough notes for the beginning of this painting conversation. I am intimately aware of the forcefulness between the elements of this seascape. I want this on the canvas from the very beginning.

I hope this helps to explain why I sometimes find this particular process of underpainting necessary to the rendering of my final work. Thanks for joining me and all the best of today.

Here is the finished painting:

Westerly Winter Winds Victoria BC – 30 x 40 inch oil on canvas

Details and purchase information are available HERE.

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

A Narrow Artistic Perspective on a Mayne Island Morning

August 25, 2015 / Terrill Welch / 8 Comments

Let’s count them. There are eighteen photography sketches taken within 45 minutes of each other and no further apart than fifty steps along a chunk of the Mayne Island shoreline. It is a painter’s morning for gathering reference material. Why bother you might ask? Well, it is about seeing and mostly about how we see and choose to construct our world using sensory information.

I woke just before daylight. After blinking several times and making coffee I decide to go and see how the sun is making out.

She is getting a little slower to rise on this late August morning but still beat to the shore.

It is a gentle rising with a soft elegance that never fails to release the last bit of tension between my shoulder blades.

I gather myself together and glance narrow and long… searching.

And searching again.

Low clouds play with the light as I look south.

Back around I turn and venture deeper into exploring just this one aspect of the shoreline.

Which composition is most satisfying?

Which elements do we see most clearly?

Is it the sea or the land we most sympathize with?

I want to reach into the camera and pluck out my own secrets!

But I cannot.

Like the blue heron I can only keep fishing using my past experience and best guesses. Maybe this one!?

No not that one replies the heron.

The sandstone chortles and then hefts a sigh, as if in commiseration, about this endless seeking.

Calm but slightly dejected I turn around yet again. I haven’t unraveled this dawn yet.

After a few steps, I turn slowly and then crouch low… there…

and then again here….

Morning has broken and the landscape is shattered by my viewer’s eye! I must leave now with my quick photography sketches. I must take these fragments and make something of them just as we do with every image we created in our mind’s eye. these are my few soft gestures of contemplation before picking up my brushes and rushing them over a canvas with heaps of expectation and too much substance to do any of it justice.

What has your morning brought 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