Canada

Early Autumn in the Japanese Garden

/ Terrill Welch / Leave a comment

Sunshine and cooler temperatures are the perfect time for drifting between productive activity and leisurely strolls. I have sorted, cleaned and reclaimed my office space in the loft. I find it so refreshing to have it “in hand” so to speak. Now it is time to go for that stroll. 


I go off into the gorgeous early autumn weather with its warm sun and blue skies. One of my stops is our Mayne Island Japanese Memorial Garden. 


The bridge is looking more elegant than usual with its orange red boards. I smile to myself remembering bringing students to plein air paint in the garden. This bridge lovingly was referred to as “the dreaded bridge”. 


The bridge can be seen from almost anywhere in the circular walk around the garden.


It is a popular prop for photographing family and friends. 


The Japanese maples are starting to turn red.


Samaras prepare to twirl off in a gust of wind. 


I find myself sitting in the ground beside the path even though there are many comfortable benches tucked into the garden. 


I am sitting next to the new bamboo shishi odoshi that translates as “deer frightening” in English. Thankful all the deer are fences out of this beautiful garden. 


I head home to prepare supper. Before I feel ready, the day is over. The sun is setting through the trees and creating magical light across the room. 


The time on my phone says that it is just seven in the evening. I am not ready yet for the fast shortening of the days in our northern hemisphere. I want to savour the last of our late summer’s warmth, even if it is shaking hands with early autumn before its annual departure. 

Meanwhile, Russia has announced a partial mobilization. First it was for 300 reservists. Now I hear possibly one million. Nuclear weapons are mentioned. Is it a bluff? Likely they say while failing to pause before insisting that we should take this threat seriously and prepare. How does one prepare for a Nuclear war? Is an animal really cornered if they very carefully constructed the corner themselves? The analogy doesn’t seem to work somehow. I listen to the UN security talks. I check with trusted YouTube analysts for updates about changes in the Ukrainian frontline. What shall I prepare in the face of possible war? A prayer for peace? A dedicated meditation on love? Possibly. I will go to garden for a powerful potion of fresh peppermint for my tea. I will watch the bright green leaves swirl in the hot water of my favourite mung and I shall breathe. I shall breathe slowly, purposefully and with an open heart, cradled in strength and a unrelenting force. 

Such are these days of this early autumn here on the southwest coast of Canada. 

What is it like this time of year in your  neighbourhood? 

ONLINE GALLERIES include –

ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches currently available

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Website: TerrillWelchArtist.com 

We Now Have A New Gallery

/ Terrill Welch / 2 Comments

The past few days have been a bit of a whirlwind. However, everything has come together and today, being as it is my birthday and it is Sunday, will be a quieter day so I thought I would catch us up….

First, I started working a new 20 x 36 inch oil on canvas of arbutus trees this week. The canvas is just blocked in but I think it is possible to see where it going. It will be another in my Red Line Series. I anticipate this series being the second show in the gallery pod but it might be the third. We shall see.

On that note, let’s go to the gallery pod. On Friday, my trusted builder, Jean-Daniel Cusin owner of Mayne Island Kitchen and Bath, dropped by to give me a hand getting the track lighting and the hanging system in. This is the third gallery space we have worked on together and I had tagged him way back in December for assistance.

You would think it would get easier since we have done this twice before but there is still a lot of fiddling finding studs, cutting things to length and running to the hardware store a couple of times to get things we needed. Still, we got it done in a few hours and the next morning I twisted in all the lights into place and put the hanging wires up to get ready for paintings.

The anchor painting for this show went up first.

Then the other two large paintings that will keep it company.

From there, the hanging went fairly quickly and now the paintings are all in place, including the guest painting by Jody Waldie. Every few weeks, there will be one larger guest painting by one of the local Mayne Island artists who show in the other Terrill Welch Gallery adventure – ISLAND TIME ART. This gallery space shows their smaller work in the blue building with Dragonfly at the ferry but it is just not quite large enough to put in many bigger work. The gallery pod can handle them though!

I will write an announcement for the website to publish later today or tomorrow that is specifically about what is in this first show and more about visiting. I still have a few wrinkles to work out. Like, do I want labels or just a list sheet of the paintings that people can take away with them? How much signage do I need if this is going to function as a self browsing location with assistance as desired or requested? How much landscaping should I try and get done right away around the gallery pod? Who needs a personal invite to feel like they have really been invited? Just a few things like this! I still have time. The official opening is 11-4 Thursday, September 1st through Tuesday September 6th, when we will have both the gallery pod and the home studio open for walk in visitors. After that time, it will be just the gallery pod that will be open during the fall shoulder season for walk-in 11-4 Thursday through Monday or by arrangement on other days. The home studio will remain open by advance arrangement or impromptu visits if it is possible. However, if you are in the neighbourhood between now and the official opening, it is possible to visit the gallery pod. I will turn the lights on and put the open sign out from 11-4 each day. The road signs will be put up as well. Almost! We are almost ready after nine months since I started planning. I am totally thrilled with the outcome so far but you will have to come see for yourself or get me to do a video or FaceTime visit for you.

So this is it for the moment. How is your day going?

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

/ 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 

Achival record or mindfulness practice: painting the southwest coast of Canada

/ Terrill Welch / 6 Comments

Am I archiving our southwest coast of Canada in my paintings?

The very idea has my hands go clammy and a coolness run from tailbone up to the very crown of my head. What a strange assumption I at first thought! But then it came up a couple of more times. But the concept is no longer presented as a question.

“You are creating archival records of these beautiful trees and seascapes!”

Northeasterly Morning Strait of Georgia Mayne Island BC 20 x 40 inch oil on canvas by Terrill Welch

It is a concerning accusation, at least by definition…

“In general, archives consist of records that have been selected for permanent or long-term preservation on grounds of their enduring cultural, historical, or evidentiary value.” (Wikipedia)

I am more than a bit squeamish about the idea that my paintings might be considered historical evidence collected to preserve something that no longer exists. I have held higher hopes than this for the influence of these works! I have had no intention of creating historical records with my brush. Instead, I have wanted to create a desire to preserve and protect the land, the sea and our humanity that knowingly or unknowingly rely on them. I want to strengthen our direct relationship and connection with our natural environment, pure and yet not so simple it seems.

Have I failed if the paintings, even before I am dead, even before this fragile environment is damaged beyond repair, are being considered as important historical archival documents?

As our Canadian federal government agrees to buy an obsolete, yet-to-be-built twinning pipeline from big oil stakeholders for a whopping 4.5 billion of taxpayer dollars while the Provinces and First Nations head for the courts, I am going to go paint!

I am going to drive to my location in my 2012 Subaru Outback with my water-mixable, vegetable oil, paints that use no solvents. Yes, as you can see, I find this sustainability and transition to clean energy complicated. Yet, I trust we will get there or parish trying. (These are the only two options really.)

I am going it go paint, not as an act of creating a historical record but as a meditation, an act of mindfulness in appreciation of what is.

Therefore, I beg of you – experience these paintings as reminders of what we need to protect rather than coveted records of something that will likely disappear, through oil spills, through climate change, through our collective lack of regard! A painting is nothing, absolutely nothing, in comparison to the real thing – in comparison to you experiencing the ordinary moments in an ordinary day somewhere on the southwest coast of Canada. This I am sure of!

Summer Lowtide Morning 16 x 20 inch oil on canvas plein air by Terrill Welch Aug 17 2017 IMG_0461

May the Salish sea breeze ruffle your hair as starfish wink in the low tide, speckled with seagulls, seals, leaping orcas and children playing in the pools of warm water while grandparents watch from under the shade of an old arbutus tree.

We can do this hard thing! In this I believe.

What about you? 🙂

© 2018 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

Sunshine and Rainbows in Pink Skies

/ Terrill Welch / 8 Comments

We could focus on the larger threats to our coastline such as the potential for earthquakes, rising sea levels from global warming or oil spills from large tankers or the imminent risks of a task of extraordinary delicacy and danger that is about to begin at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power station. These are all real threats and possibly inevitable outcomes – at some point. I don’t ignore them. We do keep in mind what we need for emergency preparedness in case of an earthquake. I do sign petition, share information and swear sometimes about oil and gas tanker traffic and global warming risks to our coastline, and I worry about the extraction of the fuel rods and contaminated water storage at Fukushima nuclear power station. But once I have done what I can do, then it is time to get on with my day because there are a whole host of other possibilities that could give rise to it being my last. We just never know do we? I am practicing the lesson from many elders of opening my eyes and giving thanks that I am alive and well. It is a good practice – one that serves us  in both easy and hard times.

This then, in a wee patch of west coast winter sunshine and in remembrance of yesterday’s rainbow , is my Monday morning blessing to you and to me.

Rainbow in Pink Sky by Terrill Welch 2013_12_01 362

I give praise for this life, thanks for this body world, and remember our great universe of love. With compassion, we start another day in our week, our month and our year.

Now I am off to see if I can make a painting out of this.

Late November Great Room Studio sepia by Terrill Welch 2013_11_30 033

(Quality prints available HERE.)

 

What Monday morning blessing might you give for today?

 

© 2013 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

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Sea Autumn and Studio – A Canadian Thanksgiving Monday on Mayne Island

/ Terrill Welch / 10 Comments

Whether it is the cool rhythm of the sea we crave

Passing Time by Terrill Welch 2013_10_12 658

and long to reach

finding an edge by Terrill Welch 2013_10_12 636

or the crunch of fallen leaves

Country Farm Lane on Mayne Island by Terrill Welch 2013_10_13 157

in the warm sun

Mayne Island Farm Thanksgiving weekend by Terrill Welch 2013_10_13 109

being in the studio, with its basket of paints,

Basket of Paints by Terrill Welch 2013_10_13 013

and waiting brushes,

Waiting on the Studio Window Ledge by Terrill Welch 2013_10_13 005

takes a backseat for most of a luscious Canadian Thanksgiving on Mayne Island.

Well. almost. Today is the day that my new studio assistant will come by for his orientation. We will wander through the work place that I have cleaned and organized in his honour.

Painting Edges by Terrill Welch 2013_10_13 038

Then we will go through a typical work order to do the final work on a piece of work so that it is ready for purchase. You know, all those tasks like getting it into the online inventory, putting on the hanging hardware and if needed, painting the edges. By now I am sure you know how much I really do not enjoy painting the edges of my paintings, yes? I am so excited about finally getting this help in place as I am a wee bit behind as I keep painting new work without doing this final bit of administrative work.

I am most thankful for the sun, the sea, the autumn leaves, a clean studio, a studio assistant and the health and well-being of my large family. I am truly blessed on this fine and great annual day of thankfulness.  All the best of a Canadian Thanksgiving and Monday blessings to you!

 

Can you tell us about a time when you stopped fighting yourself and hired work done that you could do but were not?

 

© 2013 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

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Tribute to Canadian Artist and Painter Joseph Plaskett

/ Terrill Welch / 4 Comments

Recently I had the good fortune to see an exhibition of Joseph Plaskett’s most recent paintings at the Winchester Gallery in Oak Bay, Victoria B.C. The date on many of the paintings is clearly marked as 2011, a practice we do not often see on the front of a painting anymore. The wisdom is that it may impact its saleability if the painting has not sold for a few years. But in this case, my mouth dropped when I realized that the exhibition was  celebrating Joseph Plaskett’s 95th birthday year. He was 93 years old when he painted many of the paintings in the exhibition and by my observation may be some of his best work in a long life of painting.

Here is a quote from the artist that is posted on the Winchester Gallery page:

“The work I have produced in a long life has always been in constant change.  What I show this year at Winchester Galleries is, I like to think, only the beginning of another change which now becomes more obvious with each canvas, but will not reach the public exposure for a few more years.  This present show was chosen months ago. The changes have become more drastic.  There is, I like to think, a complexity and a daring to experiment with both colour and composition.  Only one canvas goes back more than a few years.  It is a large still life which I have been refusing to put on the market, wanting to keep it in my possession as long as I survive.  It is a brilliant example of an earlier and safer act of creation.  But now I am producing work that is the beginning of something more complex and dangerous.  I am taking risks, letting myself go.

I like to think I am not repeating myself.  I am influenced by much of what I see in contemporary art.  I will give one example.  Two years ago I was excited by the huge exhibition of the work of Peter Doig which I saw in both the Tate in London and in Paris.  It made me proud to think of him as a “Canadian” painter, as, though born in Scotland, he spent much of his childhood and early youth in Canada.  I can only envy the originality of his work.  My work is changing, but it is still a way of painting that is my own.”

reference: http://www.winchestergalleriesltd.com/artists/plaskett/2012_1 (first painting shown on the Gallery’s page of the artist’s work is one of my favourites.

The photograph of the work I am sharing here is from the BAU XI Gallery in Toronto website. The title of the painting is “Still Life with Apples (2)” 38 x 45 inch oil on canvas listing at $21,800.

Joseph_Plaskett_Still_Life_with_Apples_2_17421_360

Joseph Plaskett is considered to be one of Canada’s most talented and established painters. In the spring of 2001, he was awarded The Order of Canada for excellence in the field of visual art. Since the 1940’s, he has had over 65 solo and group exhibitions, with work in major public, private and corporate collections, including the National Gallery of Canada. He has exhibited with the Bau-Xi Gallery, both in Vancouver and Toronto, since 1973.

Born in 1918 in New Westminster, B.C., Plaskett studied art in Banff, San Francisco, New York, London and Paris. He has lived in Paris since 1951, and more recently in England. His chosen subjects have always been intimate expressions of everyday life – interiors, still life, and portraits of friends and models. There is a warm humanity to his work, a love of light and form and colour that is evident in every painting he produces. The works are composed with such superb quality of painting that the ensuing results are masterworks of visual delight.
reference: http://www.bau-xi.com/dynamic/artist.asp?ArtistID=24
(the several web pages of Joseph Plaskett’s paintings on this Gallery site are actually very easy to view)

Joseph (Joe) Plaskett studied with many prominent Canadian painters like A.Y. Jackson, Jack Shadbolt, Lawren Harris and Jock Macdonald. Joe Plaskett was a pupil of Hans Hofmann in New York and Provincetown in 1947[1] and 1948.

In 1950, he arrived in Paris where he studied with Fernand Léger, and Jean Lombard, etching and engraving with Stanley William Hayter. He taught intermittently in Canada until 1957. After that date he settled definitely in Paris where his studio became an informal salon for Canadian painters, writers, poets and filmmakers, interfacing with artists from other countries.

Reference:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Plaskett
I hope you have as much fun poking around and exploring his work as I have done over the past couple of weeks.

May at least some of us still be painting some of our best work this late in a long life of painting. As an update, I did hear from the staff at the gallery that he is now no longer able to paint and is quite frail but still – what a painting adventure to still be painting quality work at 93 years old!

How might you want to be celebrating your 95th birthday year?

 

© 2013 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

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Capturing the Emotion of the Canadian Landscape is No Easy Task

/ Terrill Welch / 23 Comments

Share Your Love of Art! Share Your Love of Canada!

ARABELLA invites you to become a part of our Great Canadian Landscape Painting contest!  Register and cast your vote for your favourite artists and their works!

A while back, I was invited to consider competing in the Arabella Canadian Landscape Contest. The six year old Arabella magazine had made an audacious proposal to tell Canada’s story through contemporary art by creating an outstanding collection of current works that examine the emotional power of landscape art in shaping Canadian identity with a full sense of past, present and future. Though I do not usually bother with art competition, with a proposal like this how could I refuse?

The contest is now at a point where I need your help. The Exhibit of over 100 participating artists and 300 paintings is now open for voting and commenting in the People’s Choice Award. I would greatly appreciate it if you could take the time to register, vote and comment on my three paintings that are part of this Canadian landscape art competition. Also, if you could share this blog post in your networks I will be ever-so-grateful. The direct link to my three paintings in the competition is at http://aclcontest.arabelladesign.com/photos/index.php?/category/62

The paintings that I submitted will be familiar to most of you. They are:

SLICED WITH A TEAR – 36 X 60 inch oil on canvas

RHYTHM OF THE SEA EDITH POINT – 20 x 40 inch oil on canvas

And EVENING AND THE ARBUTUS TREE 36 x 60 inch oil on canvas

To register to vote and comment on these paintings in this Canadian landscape art competition, go to the Login details on the upper left on my competition page HERE. I know registering, voting and commenting in an art competition is a lot to ask. However, a comrade on Google Plus has helped me to reframe this request with his comment as follows:

It is hard to ask of others for some people – I’m one and you are as well. But you are really not asking for anything..You are giving it!  If you did not post this I would never have known or suspected that I could make a difference in your world other [than] by comments.  You are giving me a way to thank you that I never had.  Your paintings and musings make me feel good and take me away from concrete and glass.  For this I am grateful and am in your debt–not vice versa..   Someday I’m going to see you in the McMichael*….You deserve to be there!

By Dennis Rogers

* Renowned for collecting only Canadian art, the McMichael Gallery permanent collection consists of almost 6,000 artworks by Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, Emily Carr, their contemporaries, and First Nations, Métis, Inuit and other artists who have made a contribution to the development of Canadian art.

Isn’t this a nice way to look at my asking you to drop by register, vote and comment on my paintings that are in the competition? Since so many of you are regular readers and often comment here on the blog I decided to be brave and ask for your support. So thank you and special thanks to those of you who have already dropped in voted and commented. I deeply appreciate the effort.

Your votes will count in determining the winner of the People’s Choice Award, just one of the great prizes being offered in this contest.  All prizes will be awarded in August 2013 at the conclusion of the jurying process. Please note that in order to vote you must register an account. Email data requested is only used for the contest and will not be used for any other purpose.

Now I am going to do something that may seem odd for a participant in a nation-wide art competition. I am going to share with you a few favourite works by other artists. I feel that these works collectively do a brilliant job of fulfilling the task of expressing the emotional impact of the Canadian Landscape. I have hyperlinked each artist’s name so that you can go directly to their competition profile and see any additional work they may have contributed. Possibly you may even take the time to vote and comment too.

Holly Friesen – an artist I have introduced to you in the past.

Holly’s connection between our inner world and the landscape moves me deeply as the painting stretches, encircles and holds my emotions.

Maryanne Jespersen

Maryanne has a lovely colour harmony and loose expression in this painting leaving lots of room for the viewer’s imagination.

Michael O’Toole – with just this one painting in the contest Michael has captured so much about the west coast of Canada.

There are six artists whose first name is Peter in this competition. I am not sure if this says something about the popularity of the name Peter in Canada or not. But you are excused if you have a hard time keeping them straight and instead resort to just using their last names. I am going to share four of these six “Peter” artists next – with both their first and last names 🙂

Peter Adams

There is strength in less when we dare to be bold and vulnerable as is  so aptly demonstrated by Peter Adams here.

Peter McConville – again with only one work in contest it is worth going to his profile and following the link to see others of his pointillism style paintings.

Not often is so much movement captured in such detailed work as in Peter’s landscapes.

Peter Rotter

Slipping into to the woods is easy in Peter’s painting. Yes there is an opening beyond but my viewer’s eye is in no rush, allowing the trees to fold me into their peace, their stillness.

Peter Stuhlmann

The gorgeous use of design and colour by Peter allows me to pull away from the specifics of the scene and appreciate the whole and then be drawn back into the landscape – again and again.

Rich Bond  – a fellow British Columbia artist with six paintings in the contest making it hard to choose just one to share with you.

Patches of colour, harmonious and pleasant, seeking the trust of the viewer’s eye to find and accentuate the landscape elements independent of the painter. It is a rare gift to paint with such strength and conviction that any ego remnants of the painter are submissive to the landscape and its relationship to the viewer.

Well, this gives you a small taste of eleven of the over 300 paintings in the Arabella Canadian Landscape Contest. There are many more to browse and enjoy on the contest Exhibition website – which collectively really do capture the beauty and emotional spirit of Canada.

Yes, I am fully aware that this kind of sharing of the other participants art is not actually conducive to winning a People’s Choice Award for this competition. However, this is not my motivation for sharing the work of these fellow artists. Five years from now the People’s Choice award will likely be lost in the litter of our everyday lives. We will have moved on (artists and viewers alike) – we will have forgotten about the registering, voting and commenting. But just possibly the Canadian landscape itself will be strong and present to you through the work of these artists and through my own paintings. This chance to have a lasting impact on your experience of the land I love and the country I love is why I share these additional works by my fellow contemporary Canadian landscape artists. I hope you enjoyed the experience.

Now wish me luck and I look forward to reading your comments on my paintings in the Arabella Canadian Landscape Contest for the People’s Choice Award.

What emotions most aptly capture the Canadian Landscape for you?

© 2013 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

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/ Terrill Welch / 5 Comments

New west coast winter Canadian landscape painting FOG INSIDE PASSAGE released today…

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Canadian Contemporary Terrill Welch Gallery

Winter fog in the southern gulf islands is often dense and close to the sea. Islands appear and disappear as the ferries take passengers through the inside passage. The mysterious landscape has a beauty that is hard to know unless one lives with it for the long winter months of off-season quiet. This 12 x 24 inch oil on canvas is my rendering of this tactile west coast Canadian landscape experience.

FOG INSIDE PASSAGE

Fog inside passage 12 x 24 inch oil on canvas by Terrill Welch 2013_02_03 064

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© 2013 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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Overture in mist – the southern Gulf Islands in November

/ Terrill Welch / 21 Comments

Four o’clock in the afternoon the day before the time change in November 2012 the southern Gulf Islands rolled and heaved the light and mist across sea and land.The Mayne Queen has just left Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island.

When I shared a few of the photographs on Google Plus a fellow artist C.J. Shane asked what music I heard.  I replied – with my lungs filled with sea air and the mist leaving intimate jewels on my skin and hair, I heard the sound of the diesel engine of the small ferry and the rolling wake of the water along the occasional cry of the gulls.  But if I was to think of music, it would be a classical overture such as maybe the Italian romantic composer Giuseppe Verdi’s 1862 , The Force of Destiny-Overture

Verdi – The Force of Destiny – Overture

There are great spaces of quiet with the seascapes building and building into these surprising moments where even the deepest breath does not seem to provide enough. It is like – breathe in and in and then exhale into such a sense of inner peace a person wants to hold themselves in that place for as long as possible. Then the tension of the landscape will start to build all over again as the mist and fog moves in its mysterious ways across the sky.

Alone in the mist…

in early November.

The sky rolling and heaving as if it is breathing and extended breath of awareness, inviting, demanding that I do same.

The golds of autumn are only hinted at beneath the cloak of November mist.

Mist is threaded across the landscape with such speed we are witness to the seamstress.

Hiding and revealing with equal wonder…

the southern Gulf Islands in November.

A welcomed beacon blinks against the lowering light.

Then land seems to escape from sea and sky – protruding in its deep and dark glory.


We move on to the outer edge of the November mist.

The hour, the moment has passed. Not the memory though. The moment is captured here in this overture in mist so we can breathe it again and yet again.

SPROUT: What music do you imagine would accompany your creativity?
P.S. none of these mist images have been made available for purchase yet. I need to let them sit for awhile before deciding which ones will go.

ONLINE GALLERIES with Terrill Welch paintings and photography include –

Xanadu Studio Gallery for large original paintings

Artsy Home for most original oil paintings currently available

Redbubble for photography prints, greeting cards and posters

Current Local Mayne Island VENUES –

Green House Restaurant – small original oil paintings and photography prints

Farm Gate Store – one large painting

And by appointment at Terrill Welch’s home studio

© 2012 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

Terrill Welch Artist website at http://terrillwelchartist.com

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