Winter Sun Oil Painting

May 11, 2010August 21, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 18 Comments

There is something about the late dawn of winter sun, a bruised heaviness that seeps across the sky. I started this painting thinking it might be abstract and lighter, maybe even cheerful, but my subconscious seems to know where to take the brush. Though the quick marks of paint give impressions rather than detail… it is clearly not an abstract painting. And though colourful, I am not sure it is cheerful. In fact, I’m sure this painting is deeply melancholy with bittersweet recognition that the sun is rising… lifting, lifting, lifting us into another, and possibly, better day.

I started by brushing water (it would have been spirits but I’m using water miscible oils) and linseed oil onto the canvas. Then I began adding colour, an underpainting of sorts…

I never let it completely dry but kept working the paint into the canvas as I added more colour.

Using a good sized brush (10) I swished the sky and clouds on and softened them with a cloth and feathery brush. Then I flipped the rocks and sea loosely into place and left them like that.

I came back yesterday and tidied up a bit … as I listened to kd lang’s performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” at the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame induction of Leonard Cohen in 2006.

You might want to do that too as you take in “Winter Sun”

18X24″ by 1 3/4″ water miscible oil painting on 100% natural cotton canvas

There are a few more small edits which I will make and then replace this last image, but it is close enough to complete to share with you.

Sprout Question: What has been your latest personal discovery through your creativity?

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Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Whole Body Creativity

April 27, 2010April 27, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 11 Comments

“There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot in the sun.”

– Pablo Picasso

What does it mean to use your whole body in your creativity? The answer is likely related to your awareness and ability to converge all the information from your five senses. For example in the image above, I wanted you to hear the waves. I hope just for a moment you can smell the sea and feel the sand under your feet with a soft breeze on your cheek. I want you to experience a moment of play and confidence through the Canada goose strutting in the waves.

What you don’t know is that this goose just chased a sea otter back into the sea. I am not sure what the scrap was about but it was fascinating hear and to watch.

However my photos are poor. I was too far away and I couldn’t get close enough fast enough. Yet, I somehow wanted to catch that excitement and triumph with the goose, and the waves and the sunlight. The goose in the shallow waves is my attempt to turn a yellow spot into the sun.

Sprout Question: Tell me about a yellow spot you have turned into the sun?

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Summer is coming

April 23, 2010April 23, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 23 Comments

Creative Potager’s summer blog schedule begins the first week of May

budding possibilities - wild rose

The first post for Creative Potager was December 27, 2009. I have been posting a blog Monday to Friday, except for power outages caused by windstorms battering our little island in the Pacific Northwest. Including today, there are 83 posts each with their own sprout question. There are 1,165 comments documenting our creative conversations and 8, 596 times you have come to visit. Creative Potager has become an enjoyable habit to wake up to during the week where I say to myself “what shall I post today?” However summer is coming. I yearn to be outside in the garden, tramping the trails and painting on site rather than inside snuggled up to my laptop. Like the summer wild flowers in this post, I bloom best in untamed places.

each day is precious - wild tiger lily

So after giving it some serious thought, I am changing my posting schedule to twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from the beginning of May until the beginning of September. I may on occasion post an additional submission. But these will be bonus or value-added posts rather than an expectation.

petite lady slipper

I am hoping you can live with this change and that we both will benefit from my scrambling around in the valleys and on the hills and down the beaches of Mayne Island and afar. I am hoping that we can still have rich and engaging conversations between posts even during the long days of summer. I am hoping that the sprout questions will be juicy enough to keep us inspired for the in-between times. I am hoping that you will trust that winter will come with its short days and unpredictable weather and we shall again be glad for our Monday to Friday sprout conversations fueled by the fruits of summer experiences.

drops of rain on white fawn lilies

Please let me know what YOU are hoping and what you think of this change – because most of the fun of this blog is my conversations with you!

Sprout Question: Does your creativity have a summer schedule?

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Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

A Study

April 21, 2010April 23, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 13 Comments

After yesterdays eclectic group of photos, today is a sparse offering.

These lovely little canvas prints from my East Point Images I shared with you in February the “Simplicity” post. They arrived in yesterday’s mail. I am starting to gather together material for my September solo exhibit and these are going on a particular spot above the books in the library which is hard show.

Like many people I feel physically, emotionally and spiritually naked when I bring my work into the public. This is particularly so do a reading from my writing such as on this coming Saturday or when I have my canvases on the wall in such as the September show. Yet, I have learned that it is a part of “the business of creativity” which must be navigated. So vulnerable or not, the show will go on…

Sprout Question: How do you prepare for a public viewing or listening of your work?

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

rocks and mussels

April 12, 2010April 23, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 20 Comments

"rocks and mussels" oil painting by Terrill Welch

11X14 by 1.5 inches water miscible oil painting.

View full resolution image here.

“rocks and mussels” is inspired by a piece of remote the beach at Point No Point on south western Vancouver Island. It is a rugged area close to the end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and open sea. The rocks are of mixed texture and form. Some are large hard slate black stones rubbed smoothed from the surf and others are smaller, rounded and warm ochre and cream in colour. Seaweed seems to drape themselves over either. Though the when you look closely mussels appear to like the darker rocks. But since they are sometimes clustered together it is often hard to tell.

I have been coming to this area for over twenty years, sometimes for lunch and a stroll through the trails and other times to stay for a few days in one of the cabins. The last time I was there was in December 2009 for our honeymoon.

I had set a challenge when painting this piece to be able to paint the darker seaweed on top of the lighter rocks. However when I look closely, the light was the dark seaweed just at the crest of the rocks. Which made much more sense to me but the painting was still very challenging. I wanted us to feel like we were the sea about to wash over the mussels, the rocks and the seaweed. I also came to understand that the rocks are often washed away from the bottom quicker than the top as the sea pushes its way over the sand and withdraws back into itself. This leaves the stones with overhangs where there is no sand and the shadows seep in.

At some point this painting took on a life of its own and became separate from my reference images and slide down a path that was more about remembering how it felt, the smell of seaweed, the salt air, and the roar of the surf on distant rocks with the sun on my back lifting the mist off the trees on the bank above me.

Sprout Question: Have you ever discovered something different than what you thought you knew while creating?

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Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

San Francisco 1906

April 9, 2010April 9, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 19 Comments

Well it is Friday and I sometimes like to do something a little different – maybe a wee bit on the lighter side for the last day of the week. Today I have special surprise sent to me by a friend here on Mayne Island. I have a short film taken from a street car going down Market Street in 1906 just four days before an earth quake destroyed the area. There are cars, people, horse, teams of horses and this amazing interaction with the street car as it moves along.

The video is posted in a gazillion places on the web with this paragraph but I could not find a definitive source to credit.

This film, originally thought to be from 1905 until David Kiehn with the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum figured out exactly when it was shot. From New York trade papers announcing the film showing to the wet streets from recent heavy rainfall & shadows indicating time of year & actual weather and conditions on historical record, even when the cars were registered (he even knows who owned them and when the plates were issued!). It was filmed only four days before the quake and shipped by train to NY for processing.

If anyone has a good source link, let me know and I will add it in.

Sprout Question: If you could time travel where would you want to go and in what year?

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Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

More Painting

April 8, 2010April 23, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 23 Comments

Power outage lends itself to another day painting

We had another power outage (due to winds knocking over a huge arbutus tree on Village Bay road at 1:40 am). I awake at 7:00 am. The power is still out. I decide to see if I can find a coffee before doing anything else. Ah yes! The bakery is serving coffee using generator power. Armed with to-go thermos cups filled with black gold, I return home and prepare our usual fruit, yogurt and grain cereal for breakfast. With few alternatives, I settle on my favourite activity of the moment – painting.

The wild underpainting had dried on my 18X24 by 2 inch canvas.

I go to work. At one o’clock this afternoon the power comes on again and I am ready to take a break and share the progress with you.

There is more to do but it is a good start.

Sprout Question: What is your creative activity of choice when the power goes out?

Note: My apologies for being late with today’s post but you will have to take it up with the wind and the arbutus tree… they have let me know they are taking full responsibility for the delay.

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

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Evening Sea Oil Painting

April 7, 2010April 11, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 40 Comments

The sea hag swished her skirts then drapes them elegantly over dark rocks. Embracing the shore she pauses – then glides away, only to return again. Ah what a temptress. With the last light of a sunset sky caught in her folds, she lays the sea before us.

“Evening Sea” is painted on 100% natural cotton, 11X14 inches by one and a half inches.

View full resolution image here. (much more detail)

I do not have any process shots of “Evening Sea” beyond the initial underpainting that I shared earlier. It is one of those times that I settled in and painted until I was done and then fussed a bit around the edges the next day. This doesn’t happen often when painting but it did this time. I still look and see something that I might want to change but the roll of the sea is caught in the patterns of reflection and the movement is trapped in the paint showing through from underneath. So I don’t touch it. I leave it and watch the sea in its evening beauty.

Sprout Question: Can you tell us about a piece you created with ease?

Note: If anyone has any tips for photographing oil paintings, I am all ears (or eyes). They are much more difficult to get “true” then my watercolour paintings and I’m struggling a little with it – okay I’m struggling a lot (it took about 20 shots to get this the way I wanted it) but a person has to start someplace.

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Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Creative Community

March 31, 2010April 1, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 12 Comments

As I mentioned on Monday, I have been reading about Camille Pissarro and admiring his work and that of other impressionist painters that were part of his community. There was Monet, Manet, Renoir, and Cezanne to name a few. The influence of these fellow artists in Pissarro’s work is sometimes mentioned when author Linda Doeser discusses a particular painting.

Ah, to have been part of these passionate (and at the time unacceptable notions) about rendering the quality of light by exploring the spontaneity and immediacy of lively colour and rapid brush strokes with no hint of drama or sentimentality.

“spring salad” photograph rendered coarsely in oils – view full resolution and purchase here.

Then I thought about Creative Potager and those of you who regularly through your comments and my connections to your own sites are part of my creative community. To name just a few…

The use of line and creating greater connection between drawing and painting. Jerry Shawback http://www.thewhole9.com/jerryshawback

Always giving our best and writing from a place of showing rather than telling. Laurie Buchanan. http://holessence.wordpress.com

Bringing the flow of her everyday into focus for the rest of us. Kathy Drue http://upwoods.wordpress.com

Sharing the exquisite world of film as a creative medium of expression. Sam Juliano http://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com

Discusses the practicalities of promoting and selling art work. Itaya http://itaya.blogspot.com

Shares her studio process and her success while celebrating and acknowledging yours. Martha Marshall http://artistsjournal.wordpress.com

Sprout Question: With whom are you presently discussing your creative ideas?

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Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

When the universe says YES

March 30, 2010March 30, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 16 Comments

First, I say “good morning” to the painting I worked on yesterday.

11X14 inch water miscible oil painting in progress

Then taking my coffee, I slip on my garden clogs and meander towards the gate. Robins chatter and other morning birds sing in the new growth on the maple tree.

I closed my leadership coaching practice at the end of December in 2009. Or at least I thought I had. I made an announcement. I took the website down. It was after that I noticed something odd begin to happen.

Clients began calling and emailing asking “you will still see me, won’t you?” I said, “maybe in the future – can I give you a referral?” No they said. They will wait until I am available. I explained that I may not be available – at least not for a long time. But they were prepared to wait and see.

Then I was interviewed for a coaching article by Noomii.

People contacted me in a panic because my website was down and they were looking for my book, my by-donation approach to service design and so on. So I put Terrill Welch – A Woman behind Women back up.

Then there was the interview last week by Midwife for Your Life. Of course, there is also the book reading for Leading Raspberry Jam Visions: Women’s Way April 24^th. What is a woman to do?

So feeling a little like a carpet salesman who is always going out of business… I turn the handle to the studio.

I switch on the lamps and smile.

The universe is saying “yes” even though I was saying “no.” I hope we can agree on a both/and – doing both creative work and a little of my unique by-donation triple bottom-line coaching… say maybe just for a part of a day on Tuesdays. I do so much love the work – all of it.

Sprout Question: What do you do when the universe says yes?

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Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada