art gallery Mayne Island

Kitchen Table Studio Day

/ Terrill Welch / Leave a comment

Singular drifting snowflakes on this Monday afternoon hint at the forecast for the week ahead. I paid no notice as I prepared three new paintings for release.


The second leaf was still in the kitchen table from a family visit on Sunday. Great! This will work perfectly to prepare a show frame or two and get new work into the inventory while also preparing an online private viewing room by special request for consideration of a specific landscape in a particular size range. Done! Plus, the work is also now set up the gallery pod for physical viewing over the next couple of days.

Next, it is time to pack up another painting for shipping to art collectors for a trial hang before they make a final decision.


And Done! “China Beach in Late February” 20 x 30 inches is now ready for travel. I might make it to the post office later today but my guess is that it will be tomorrow morning. I am still waiting for gallery visitors to arrive yet this afternoon. Still, overall a fairly productive Monday for the last week of November. This is the final day of the “For Love of Trees” show. Starting tomorrow, the gallery pod will host a flow-show and be open only by arrangement until sometime in February. In the meantime, I will be focusing on creating new work in my home studio. Therefore, I am mostly close by and can go out and turn the lights on easily in the gallery pod upon your request. Please feel free to ask. It is no trouble at all. Honest.

Tomorrow will hopefully be the start of another painting day. The ground is dry and if I can just squeeze out a couple dedicated hours, I shall make it happen. With two of the latest three releases already on hold, I am feeling like it might be a good idea to spend some time with the paint brushes in front of a canvas.

This is all from your landscape painter in woods on a small island off the southwest coast of Canada. All the best to you as always!

Terrill 🙂 👩‍🎨🎨❤️

ONLINE GALLERIES include –

ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches currently available

Redbubble painting and photography prints and merchandise

Website: TerrillWelchArtist.com 

Le Petit Show of original Terrill Welch paintings

/ Terrill Welch / 2 Comments

Who loves the little paintings, the small works, the pieces that are always perfect to hang or rest or prop in your modest space? Maybe one like this small 8 x 10 inch acrylic sketch on gessobord? Yes?

Or maybe this wee work is more to your liking?

Or possibly this one?

The online Le Petit Show opens Thursday, October 25th for International Artist Day and will close Saturday, November 10th. The show will include the available work in the  Acrylic Painting Sketch collection and the Small Oil painting collection and the small works is easy to browse in the latest TerrillWelchArtist.com website post.

If you happen to be “on island” for the Remembrance Day weekend the Terrill Welch Gallery is open Friday evening November 9th from 4 – 5 and Saturday November 10th during the day from 11-4 at 478 Village Bay Rd in Miners Bay on Mayne Island in British Columbia, Canada. The gallery is also open by appointment during the winter months any day or time that is mutually agreeable.

Do enjoy this  small works, Le Petit Show, opportunity to add to your art collection with a Terrill Welch original painting and support an artist for International Artist Day.

Never Miss the Good bits! Sign Up Now for “A Brush with Life” the curated editorial Terrill Welch Gallery newsletter published every second Friday.

ONLINE GALLERIES include –

ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches currently available

Redbubble painting and photography prints and merchandise

Work in progress BLOG –

Creative Potager – first place new work is unveiled. Subscribe to stay current.

The Deeper Change Of Season

/ Terrill Welch / 13 Comments

Under the heavy warmth of blankets, I can hear my alarm twittering loudly from across the room. It is 5:30 am and dark. Sleep has a stranglehold on all of my sensory facilities. I really don’t want to wake up and I certainly am not going to leap cheerfully to the floor to greet the day! Stiffly, I sit up and reach for my glasses. Somehow during the night I misplaced the exact location of my nose and ears and must fumble to sort out lenses, arms and facial parts. I suppose, I should go turn that little pest of a clock off. My half-awake brain reminds me that this early start is my choice. I am choosing to get up before daylight, just like I chose to buy a new jar of honey even though there is still a third left in the old jar and just like I chose to put two extra leaves in the kitchen table for six even though only David and I shall be eating at it. The quick, almost nonsensical, answer for these seasonal choices is that the evenings are shorter and the days are cooler.

The longer deeper answer is that there is still some part of me that gathers the equivalent of a squirrel’s nuts for the winter months. It is irrational behavior really. I tell myself that the honey will keep for years… but so will the dark brown sugar I already have. I do not need to start cooking dinner earlier and go to bed earlier but I do. So much so, that when the track lighting in the kitchen quit working six years ago we have neglected to replace it. Oh, we think about fixing it alright. We have even pick out new lights and talked to the electrician.  But mostly we hardly notice. Dinner is made and cleaned up before dark year round or we move a lamp over to the kitchen counter if we have guests and are eating later. Then we notice. But this doesn’t happen very often. So we forget again.

The thing is, we tend to live naturally in harmony with the way of the seasons – most days without even conscious reasoning. Let’s put the extra leaves in the table this week we say. We do not have a specific reason. But within a few hours books we are reading creep onto the surface and there is a notebook for writing down fragments of ideas. A sketchbook is then added and then a few drawing pencils. I think about the candles up in the loft and how nice they would look with the large table-cloth. They are idle thoughts. Nothing is rushed, orderly or precise. One minute I am considering whether we need more flashlight batteries and the next about picking up a bag of local apples to make crisp. There is seemingly no connection between these two fragments of seasonal activities. Yet, they linger, waiting for to respond. Like the low golden light that lasts thorough the autumn afternoon, there is comfort in their presence.

Other parts of my life are more rushed, scheduled and structured. There are new fall oil painting classes to teach, someone wants private painting lessons and another person schedules a personal visit to the gallery midweek before the latest show changes. These things squeeze up against my precious painting time – time that has to puff out its chest just to be able to reach the brushes between all the other demands.

But the painting still holds, still reaches and most weeks still happens. Two new works are ready to have their edges painted later this afternoon. One of them is this one….

Just Before Sunset Mayne Island BC “resting” 30 x 24 inch oil on canvas

This is the reason I am writing a blog post, the 616th blog post since late December 2009, before daylight. It is because this afternoon is reserved for painting! Painting edges, painting grounds and just painting…. and then maybe a long walk.

What natural rhythms of autumn seasonal changes do you notice in your own life?

P.S. Remind me to write early next week about a new group art show coming up with The Beauty of Oils Painters.

© 2017 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

Coming Soon Terrill Welch Gallery

/ Terrill Welch / 14 Comments

Yes, you read correctly and I shall tell you more shortly. But first let’s catch up. I started writing this series of blog posts a little less than seven months ago following a conversation about how everything has been done before that we can no longer see the moon for all its representation in painting, sculpture, installation, film, writing and song. My purpose has been to bring you “the moon” in a way you will remember and notice for all time. In order to do this, I knew I must live my best life. I have been required to travel deeper and even more focused than ever before. My intention was clear. My inner compass set. But how are we faring so far? Is the actual and symbolic “moon” more noticeable in your daily adventures? Please tell me, I truly would like to know because I am about to approach this moon seeing challenge from a slightly different perspective.

These past couple of weeks have been invigorating, focused, exhilarating and short on sleep. You may have noticed from last week’s shared post from the website “West to East Coast Canadian Landscapes in Paint” solo exhibition is up at Shavasana Art Gallery & Café on Mayne Island. Two painting sketches have sold already and I am working on a request for a small arbutus tree painting sketch that may result in a new series of arbutus tree paintings before “their” work is rendered. Here is the first release as part of exploring where mine and the collector’s vision may meet.

Arbutus Ridge 10 x 8 inch acrylic plein air sketch on gessobord

Details and purchase information available HERE.

This past Sunday morning, following the opening, I worked on a plein air painting in oils standing looking out on the view at the gallery.

I went back for a second and final painting session the next morning and it is now released and will be on display at the gallery by this coming Friday.

Summer Seas, 14 x 18 inch oil on canvas

Details and purchase information available HERE.

“But what about this Terrill Welch Gallery business?” you ask.

Well, I have rented a modest commercial space in a 1928 house where there are other retailers and small businesses in the central area of Miners Bay on Mayne Island. I have a vision for this gallery space that will focus on current art and painting conversations – such as “the moon is no longer there.” I anticipate, because of my own placement in exploring these intriguing questions, this will take on a global or international flavour. Selling work to collectors will likely be more of an afterthought or value-added option for in-person and online gallery visitors. The intention and focus instead will be on meeting and getting to know specific pieces of art, including the work of a small number of other artists, through conversations with possibly art historians, art teachers, art students, art collectors, art fans and maybe even art critics. The art in the gallery will primarily represent painters because this is what I am interested in and know the most about. There will be an intimacy and simplicity by design. The Terrill Welch Gallery will focus on depth and meaning rather than breadth and wall coverings. There will always be an online component as well as the bricks and mortar gallery space. Less is more, will be uniquely configured in this fresh (or refreshing) gallery approach. The opening is anticipated for early August. Seasons, days and the hours of the gallery will reflect island life and the needs of a working artist. For now, with the help of friends, I must tackle a different kind of painting – walls! Do I need to say that I how I feel about painting walls is similar to how I feel about painting edges on paintings? No? I didn’t think so.

So there you have it – the adventures of one artist off the southwest coast of Canada. I am fired-up with ideas and blowing purposefully, softly, on the flames of possibilities. There are at least a thousands good and rational reasons to say – no. The calculated risks are that I can fail miserable in front of a very public audience. Still, my heart says – you must do this hard thing. You have no time to stand shy on the sidelines of your own life’s adventure. Get in there and give it your best! Who can argue common wisdom with one’s heart and hope to hold sway? Not I.

For now, the Terrill Welch Gallery will be presented within my usual online platforms. It will receive specific mention in the Creative Potager posts and in my current website at TerrillWelchArtist.com.

 

What about you? What is your heart’s advice to you today?

 

© 2017 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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