Self and Nature – my most enduring continuous relationship

October 28, 2026 / Terrill Welch / Leave a comment

Wednesday, 28 October 2026

This first journal entry is the first link to what eventually becomes the strongest position in my nature-centric, reparative painting practice. The second journal entry assists in unpacking the theoretical importance of paintings.

Excerpts from Terrill Welch MA Fine Art Journal

January 28, 2025

For two days I have sat with my large sketch book and mapped out my contextual study in a way that likely will only make sense to me. However, as I draft and redraft and write again about what theories, research apply most to my artwork and the contextual environments and artistic influences that underpin my painting practice in relation to the project I am committed to working on, this should be useful.

It is not a static map but one that can be added to and subtracted from as needed. Mostly, it is a transitory guide to my current living and breathing painting practice. It is not meant to be finite or definitive or fixed in any aspect. This map might include facts but I do not intend for it to be factual in nature. I am using it more as a sensation or a glimpse out of the corner of our eye where we might see something about me and my painting practice that we never noticed before. I will unpack some of my markers and findings into a 3,000 word contextual study essay and leave the rest as a bit of a personal mystery. I am not so much seeking a truth but rather living a life – the most meaningful life I can possibly learn to live. The most profound finding from doing this exercise is realizing how impactful and enduring my relationship with nature has been and how it remains the strongest and most consistent influence on both my work and life.

Anthony Rudd and Why Paintings Matter

29 January 2025

A few quick notes so I don’t lose them…

I can now admit that I was becoming terribly disappointed with attempting to place my painting practice into a theoretical context that made any definitive sense to me. Plato and his Forms and exemplification of reason and Dōgen and his oneness as a path to enlightenment were only taking me so far. I value the analysis by Carol S. Gould for her astute ability to summarize where these two thinkers intersected and diverged. Yet, it wasn’t yet enough. I still felt like my intellectual feet were floating on air with no perceptible firm ground linking to my painting practice. I read passages of translations of original text about the work of both Plato and Dōgen. That was useful for its own sake but did not move my theoretical framework any closer to my painting practice.

Then I settled down to read Painting and Presence: Why Paintings Matter by Anthony Rudd, 2022.

Besides Gould’s article “Dōgen and Plato on Literature and Enlightenment” published in 2009, it seems to be the most promising fit with my current painting practice and provides a promising path forward in my explorations of painting the sea floor as a subject that will instil inner peace, wellbeing and resilience; while using the theory and methods of whole body and mind through to ordinary life as presented by John Daido Loori in The Zen of Creativity published in 2007.

Rudd’s “claim is that painting matters because it is or can be truthful, that—apart from all the many particular reasons why we might value some particular paintings—good paintings in general are of value because they disclose essential aspects of reality.” (Rudd, 2022, p.9)

He goes on to say “Paintings make themselves present to us, but in so doing they also make something else—their subject matter—present to us in a way that discursive representations cannot. (I argue that this is true in a sense even of abstract or ‘non-representational’ paintings.)” (Rudd, 2022, p.9)

Rudd goes on “However, if it is to explain the value of painting, the theory needs to explain not only the connection of painting to the True, but also to the Good; it must explain, that is, why the particular kind of knowledge by acquaintance that painting provides is good to have. I argue that it can only do this if what painting discloses—the essences of things, the order of nature—is itself good. But this is, in fact, what we experience, not only indirectly through painting, but directly in the aesthetic appreciation of nature itself. To experience nature aesthetically is to experience it as being valuable, as having an ontological goodness—however problematic it may be to relate this to a notion of moral goodness. So—as seems right if we are to answer Plato’s critique—the Beautiful (i.e. positive aesthetic value), the True, and the Good must all come together. Painting cannot be of value unless it is a response to the real value of the broader order of things. So an adequate account of the value of painting—and of the aesthetic appreciation of nature—requires us to repudiate the modern picture of a ‘disenchanted’ value-free world. In the final chapters I consider whether or in what way this ‘re-enchantment of the world’ can be considered to be religious in character. In so far as it can, then the icon is exemplary for painting in general not only in a weak sense (there is a structural parallel between the way an icon makes a saint present and the way in which any painting makes its subject matter present) but also in a stronger sense—that what all painting discloses is, in a sense, something sacred and that painting itself, therefore, is a sacred, even a quasi-sacramental act.” (Rudd, 2022, p.11)

This is a powerful proposition to unpack and one that resonates not just in the specifics of my painting practice but also with my interest in Monet’s Grande Decoration in the Orangery and Rothko’s Chapel paintings and how they connect to my approach to the sea floor paintings.

I will stop here for the moment and go back to reading but this gets at the root or core of what I value about painting and why I find it important as a means of conversation or communication between nature, myself as painting and to the close disclosure of the painting to the viewer.

Reference list:

Gould, C. (2009) DŌGEN AND PLATO ON LITERATURE AND ENLIGHTENMENT 1, Florida International University, Asian Studies, Japan Studies Review, Volume XIII, pp. 169–185. Available at: https://asian.fiu.edu/jsr/gould-dogen-and-plato-p169.pdf (Accessed: 5 January 2025).

Loori, John Daido (2007) The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life. New York: Ballantine Books.

Rudd, A. (2022) Painting and Presence: Why Paintings Matter, Oxford University Press eBooks. Oxford University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192856289.001.0001.

Plato’s Forms and Dōgen’s Particular in my painting practice

October 20, 2026October 20, 2026 / Terrill Welch / Leave a comment

Tuesday, 20 October 2026

Excerpts from Terrill Welch MA Fine Art Journal

Much of this essay was later abandoned in relation to a research framework for my practice. Yet, some threads did get pulled through and it is worth it to me to have these rough ideas for further reflection going forward.

First written Sunday, 5 January 2025 and rewritten Wednesday, 12 February 2025

I begin with releasing my mind and body towards observing my subject and the things I have selected to observe, in this case the sea floor at the point where the land and sea meet. In doing this repetitively for months and years, I have noticed that I have a strong sense of inner peace as I get low to the ground and spend time with the shapes of seashells, bits of sticks, rocks and the water of the sea. This sensation is influenced not just by the shapes I see but equally by the smells, sounds, textures and rhythmic movement of the sea as I employ my whole full body and mind to these sensory experiences. Past experiences trickle into the present experience. I have layered ideas about what all the days of the sea floor where I am looking have in common. John Daido Loori (1931-2009) in The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artist Life suggests that I resist these generalizations and seek to observe with full attention what is specific in this moment. Loori uses the example of picking weeds in a garden by approaching “each weed as the first weed and the last weed of your life”. (Loori, 2005, p.75) To do this, I come back to my breath and I release all notions of what I think I know and I observe again as if it is my first experience. This is not a pure practice of perfection but rather a continuous repeating practice of observation. When I feel my thoughts drifting to what I think I know, I stop and start over observing again.

John Daido Loori was a Zen Buddhist rōshi (old teacher/master) and abbot (priest) who had the distinction of being one of three western dharma holders of both the Zen lineages of Eihei Dōgen’s Sōtō beginning in 1986 and Linji Yixuan’s Rinzai beginning in 1997. Loori was the founder of Zen Mountain Monastery and the Mountains and Rivers Order and served as their guiding teacher for almost 30 years. Loori’s nature photography was shown in the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, New York and his work has been published in Aperture and Time-Life. (Encyclopedia of Buddhism, 2023) Beginning in 1971, Loori also studied under photographer Minor White, who taught at the California School of Fine Arts beginning in 1946 at the invitation of Anzil Adams. (Loori, 2005, Wikipedia, 2020)

Since 2009, in my painting practice, I am clear about how I apply Loori’s Zen theory of seeing with the whole body and mind and moving through this awareness to be able to function in the ordinariness of our lives. (Loori, 2005, pp. 67-81) For me, this is about exploring the purpose of life through my painting practice. However, there is another whole school of western thought about the value of painting and art that begins with Plato and is frequently referenced when discussing art theory. (Cornelius, 2022, Gould, 2009, Rudd, 2022) In Plato’s theory, Forms are viewed as the ultimate reality compared to everything we experience through our senses which are a false copy of the ultimate reality of Forms. For Plato, paintings are further flawed as a copy or representation of a copy and therefore a poor imitation of reality and hence not particularly useful to furthering knowledge or understanding the truth. Using Plato’s theory of Forms, as it is discussed in Book 10 of the Republic, a painting doesn’t give us the thing itself but a poor copy from one perspective of a reflection or shadow of the thing itself. (Rudd, 2022, pp.18-19) Do these two theories have anything in common? Could one or both of these ways of thinking be useful in my painting practice where my intent is to paint the sea floor in such a manner as to translate my sense of inner peace, well-being and resilience in its presence? After all, these two philosophies come from different times and different cultural values and circumstances. However, both theories have long histories of influences on how humans engage in the act of living which includes the making of paintings. I am neither a master of Zen Buddhism nor a scholar of Plato. I am a humble painter of land and sea wishing to explore what is happening in my making practice. I seek to understand why I do what I do and determine if it is of value and important to pursue. To do this I must come back again to my painting practice.

As discussed, in order to identify the art theory that currently applies to my practice, I start with the Loori’s Zen theory of seeing with the whole body and mind and then moving through to ordinary life. After a time (usually 10 to 30 minutes), I include my camera and video recording practice into my observation practice. I then take my memory of these experiences and my reference information to my home studio. The exception to this is when I choose to stay and paint in the moment en plein air on location. In both situations the process of painting is similar, I consider my composition, the intention for my painting and then pull in my memory and reference be it photographic, video or still in front of me if I am painting on location. I set out my pigments in a muscle memory pattern in my palette. I take a long deep breath while standing at the easel and begin without thought or reason while holding the intention deep within the core of my being and releasing it to the universe in such a way that I paint with my whole body and mind through to my ordinary life. I have painted long enough that many of the critical decisions one must make do not require effort. It could possibly compare to how we drive as an experienced driver where we know our vehicle and can shift gears, stop and start and turn again and again until we get to our destination while placing our intention on inner peace, the beauty of the day and the traffic and what our friend is saying sitting in the passenger seat beside us. We can come back to our breath again and again, bringing our attention to the wholeness of all that is while moving through our awareness to the specific aspects of driving. This is what painting is like for me. The paintings are therefore significant and important as a practice for living a better life and sharing that better life with others through both their process of making and in the thing that is left behind. Painting is a painting that is the act of painting, breath by breath, brushstroke by brushstroke in an attempt to get to the essence of the subject and the essence of myself which are the same and part of the whole of oneness. A key aspect to my process is imperfection because if I were able to do this practice perfectly, I would reach enlightenment and no longer have need of a physical body to live my ordinary life. Therefore, the importance of practice is both the beginning and the end. Practice is the result that is repeated until one can no longer practice… until the breath only remains an exhale. At present, this is my painting practice.

What Plato offers in the theory of Forms in relation to painting comes from a different perspective and way of thinking than Zen theory of mind, body and seeking enlightenment. The challenge for Plato with painting from his perspective is that it encourages us to focus on the representation of the thing rather than the thing itself and further he believed that it encourages desires and passions that let these rule over intellect and logic, resulting in art being dangerous to the state of the Republic taking us away from the true ultimate nature of the thing. (Plato and Jowett, 1994) Plato is considering whether painting has value and serves an intellectual use or purpose.

In Plato’s theory, the physical realm is flawed and changing and so is that which we see and experience through our sensory systems. The spiritual realm is the constant and unchanging perfect Forms and ideas, and is that which we cannot see. (p.131-137 Cornelius, 2022) In considering Plato’s theory in relation to my painting practice of the sea floor, Plato would view it an inferior copy in my physical realm that I wish to make a representation of or a copy of a copy to explore or instil inner peace, well-being and resilience through the practice of painting and viewing the resulting paintings. Inner peace, well-being and resilience cannot be seen and are abstract ideas and might possibly be considered Forms in the theory of Plato’s spiritual realm. From this theoretical position, Plato might say to me – painter, don’t let your passion and desire for painting this physical land and sea distract you from your rational wisdom in seeking inner peace, wellbeing and resilience directly. My most immediate answer to Plato would be that my heart always wins… and there goes the good of the Republic with every brushstroke. So why do it? The answer seems to be in the human innate desire to share. Rational thoughts about ideal Forms are difficult for me to share without the language of paint. My best learning in this human body is accomplished by doing and experiencing my physical realm and sharing it with others through my conversations with land and sea in the expressive language of paint. This is then where Dōgen Zenji (1200 – 1253) and Zen Buddhism meet with Plato (424/423 – 348 BC) in my painting practice. Carol S. Gould explores the differences and similarities of these two philosophies in relation to literature. However, her research is useful to make similar connections between the two thinkers and my painting practice:

For Dōgen, enlightenment requires meditation and attentive sensitivity to the details of daily life, whereas for Plato, enlightenment requires intellectual dialogue, contemplation of abstract concepts, and ignoring quotidian tasks and details. Both thinkers begin from the same point, namely, skepticism about the phenomenal world and the precision of natural language. (Gould, 2009, p.170)

Both Dōgen and Plato caution against perceptual error or that things may not be as they appear to be. (Gould, 2009, p.175) However, in my painting practice, this doesn’t mean I shouldn’t study the phenomenal world. It only means we should do so knowing that we could be tricked or our observations can contain observed falsehoods that must be exposed and examined. In this way, both approaches to knowledge and practices for living a life may offer insight into how I approach my painting practice.

Both writers, however, use paradox in their work, and it is the confrontation with paradox that both poets find necessary for enlightenment. So, one must use poetry in order to abandon it. For both, then, the poet’s aesthetic ability is key to engaging the audience members and then to persuading them to reject the aesthetic in order to gain enlightenment. For Plato and Dōgen alike, the poet can guide the audience away from the aesthetic by using paradox. (p. 173 Gould, 2009)

Gould goes on to explain that:

Plato rhetorically leads us beyond the words and texts to increasingly abstract levels of understanding until we reach the limits of language, and, all being well, have a rationally intuitive grasp of the Forms. This is a theory of reality consisting of unchanging, eternal elements, each of which is self-sufficient. Plato takes it as axiomatic that the knowing self is distinct from what is known. Numerical plurality is therefore real for Plato. Dōgen rhetorically makes us look closely at the world of particularity so as to intuit the oneness and fluidity of reality and the illusion of the separateness of our egos. He therefore denies the duality between consciousness and the object. (p.174 Gould, 2009)

If I conclude that there is a usefulness, which I do, in continuing to explore these two theoretical approaches in relation to painting, what could this mean for my painting practice? To assist me in answering this question, I shall begin with Anthony Rudd and his book Painting and Presence: Why Paintings Matter (2022)

When I return to my reading, I am going to explore these text further:

Rudd, A. (2022) Painting and Presence: Why Paintings Matter, Oxford University Press eBooks. Oxford University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192856289.001.0001.

Turner, M. (2006) The Artful Mind: Cognitive Science and the Riddle of Human Creativity, academic.oup.com. Oxford University Press. Available at: https://academic.oup.com/book/5920 (Accessed: 5 January 2025).

In addition, I want to identify how our human perception and sensory thresholds are limited and flawed as identified in my rough notes and links below:

Art and brain: insights from neuropsychology, biology and evolution

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2815940

“In evolutionary terms, we can only speculate on the selective pressures that have shaped the human brain in a direction that forged the practice of art. Art and language share a reliance on symbolic cognition but they could have developed and been selected through staggered and separate evolutionary paths. With the available data, no single brain region, pathway or cerebral hemisphere can explain the brain/art relationship. By contrast, it has been possible to ascertain language localization in the left hemisphere. This is partly due to the fact that art is a complex system where single definable units are not amenable to formulation, unlike those of language. Nevertheless, review of the current evidence from artists with brain damage suggests that artistic talent, skill and creativity are supported by wide brain areas, and are greatly resistant to brain damage.”

Art and Perception: Using Empirical Aesthetics in Research on Consciousness

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9222703

Sensory Thresholds: What They Are And How They Define Our Perception

https://psychologyfor.com/sensory-thresholds-what-they-are-and-how-they-define-our-perception/

Humans cannot hear all sound

“…we have known for a long time that in terms of range of frequencies and sensitivity to quiet sounds, a human would not win the top prize in a “spot-the-sound” competition against other animals. There would likely be another animal that could spot a quiet sound more easily than us! However, we now know that human hearing is more frequency selective than other animals. So perhaps we could win the inter-species “spot-the-difference-between-sounds” competition!”

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10353771

Humans cannot see everything there is to see

https://www.physicsgurus.com/61703/is-there-anything-around-but-cant-see-them-through-human-eyes

“There are many things around us that we cannot see with the naked human eye. Our eyes are sensitive to a limited range of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, which we perceive as visible light. However, the electromagnetic spectrum extends far beyond the range of visible light, and there are various forms of radiation and particles that are invisible to us.

Here are a few examples:

Infrared and Ultraviolet Light: Infrared radiation has longer wavelengths than visible light, and ultraviolet radiation has shorter wavelengths. Both types of radiation are invisible to the human eye, but they can be detected using specialized instruments or cameras.
X-rays and Gamma Rays: X-rays and gamma rays are high-energy electromagnetic radiation that can pass through most objects, including our bodies. They are used in medical imaging and other applications, but they are invisible to our eyes.
Radio Waves: Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation with long wavelengths. They are used for communication, such as radio and television broadcasts, but they are not visible to us without the aid of technology.
Microorganisms: There are numerous microscopic organisms, such as bacteria and viruses, that are too small to be seen with the naked eye. We can only observe them through the use of microscopes.
Dark Matter: Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter that does not interact with light or other forms of electromagnetic radiation. It is believed to make up a significant portion of the universe’s mass, but it cannot be directly observed.

These examples illustrate that our perception of the world is limited by the capabilities of our senses and the instruments we use to extend our observations beyond what is visible to us.”

What are the limits of human vision? BBC 2015 https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150727-what-are-the-limits-of-human-vision

What percentage of all smells can humans smell?

Humans have greater capacities for smell than previously speculated https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/human-nose-can-distinguish-between-one-trillion-different-smells-180950175/

Reference List:

Cornelius, A. (2022) ART AS IMITATION IN PLATO’S PHILOSOPHY: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL, ResearchGate. unknown. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359258116_ART_AS_IMITATION_IN_PLATO (Accessed: 5 January 2025).

Eihei Dogen (2022) Dogen’s Shobogenzo Zuimonki. Simon and Schuster.

Loori, John Daido (2007) The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life. New York: Ballantine Books.

Plato and Jowett, B. (1994) The Republic, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/150/150.txt. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/150/pg150-images.html (Accessed: 5 January 2025).

Rudd, A. (2022) Painting and Presence: Why Paintings Matter, Oxford University Press eBooks. Oxford University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192856289.001.0001.

Answering the Painter’s Questions

July 20, 2026July 20, 2026 / Terrill Welch / 2 Comments

Monday, July 20 2026

Oftentimes, a painting doesn’t proceed in a straightforward momentum from start to finish. I need pauses to listen clearly to what the canvas is asking. Then the paint becomes tacking in the dry summer air and I must let it completely dry to the touch before continuing. Such was the case last Wednesday. I left it sitting in an awful awkwardness as if caught in an elaborate pose of painter’s frozen tag.

Work-in-progress of a new arbutus tree portrait on a 31.5 x 27.5 inch oil on canvas work by Terrill Welch shown on the easel in her studio. Wednesday, July 15, 2026.

I went to Reef Bay and couldn’t help myself but to gather a few random compositions of the seafloor. It is like picking berries. I don’t want to just let the ripe ones fall to the ground and forever lost. Instead, I collected them up in reference images and tucked them in the folder for “Close to Home”.

Nothing may come of them but they stilled something restless within me.

David had a birthday on Sunday and on Saturday family came to celebrate. That meant Friday was used for preparation and Thursday is still school for a few more weeks. So here we are with a dry to the touch painting late Monday morning.

The work-in-progress oil on canvas by Terrill Welch has now dried to the touch. She is ready to continue. Monday, July 20 2026.

I had about an hour available to me to paint. I took it! The linseed oil softened to the consistency of butter in the midday heat. I focused and then drifted on the gentle blue sea that has yet to come alive in the painting. I didn’t get far but still. It is something.

work-in-progress oil on canvas by Terrill Welch. Monday, July 20 2026.

We then went for a drive to get David a mocha and then stopped at a farm stand for the first of the blackberries and some sweet yellow plums. The deep warm of the sun kisses the air with their fragrance.

Local Mayne Island Blackberries and Yellow Plums. Photograph by Terrill Welch. Monday, July 20 2026.

As I drive, I am still thinking about the painting. It needs more paint I decide. And the arbutus tree really needs to pop as the star if it is going to be a portrait. Do I want to abstract the foliage both at the top of the tree and on the ground? Painting is a process of endless decisions and often there are no right answers but there might be better answers and one decision usually affects (undoes) several others that have already been made. But this is all the answering I am going to do for today.

Painting Melancholy Seas and other events

February 8, 2017February 8, 2017 / Terrill Welch / 9 Comments

The week has shifted from warm winter afternoon sun to stormy jade grey sea, to snow cover trees causing power outages and then back to sun with more snow on the way. What is a painter to do with such dramatic changes? Gather reference materials, write a haiku, make hedgehog biscuits and paint of course!

With the sun trapped behind a tree, I squint through the branches at the sea.

Wandering along the shore I consider the path down to the rocks and driftwood.

Afternoon low sun on the rocks, the sea and a pastel sky are my reward.

Then later on in the week the jade of high-tide seas remind me of some reference material from earlier in the year. I bring them along to the first Studio Intensive oil painting class that I am teaching for the next three months. I am enamoured by melancholy seas. I can’t seem to help myself. I am pull up to the shore with a belly full of compassion, ready to dry each of the wave’s cold tears on my damp sleeve.

I bring the painting to rest back in the studio with the week’s snow visible in the background outside the loft windows.

I have been working most of the day on the large canvas from the week before and the melancholy sea painting is my unwinding work after being corkscrewed up in the branches of that old arbutus tree.

But what about this unusual amount of snow that has lasted for days here on the southwest coast? It really isn’t much. Truly it isn’t, other than gorgeous to look at…

As night comes / the beauty of tall firs / outside my window.

Oh, the power went out a couple of times with the first heavy wet inches. But we are cozy and comfortable. In fact, we didn’t even go to get bread when we ran out. Instead, I made hedgehog biscuits.

However, I am familiar with snow, bad roads and power outages. These circumstances cause me neither concern nor stress. Yet, I am reminded that it is uncertainty and the unknown that tends to rankle most into jittery nerves. I am no exception. But snow and power outages don’t do it for me.

Yesterday, the sun came out and danced with the same big fir trees in the valley outside the window . Gorgeous!

I have, as you might expect, been reading about world events. Of most interest are a couple of articles with a broader, possibly dystopia, perspective. The first is “This is how we can fight Donald Trump’s attack on democracy” by Rob Wijnberg in The Correspondent. The second is an archeologist’s paper “History Tells Us What Will Happen Next With Brexit And Trump” by Tobias Stone in the Huffington Post. Both articles focus on current affairs from a place of context that comes when we step back from the immediacy of news feeds that surface on Facebook, Twitter or from other sources. I am reminded that though immediate situations may be of importance, they likely hold little sway within a longer measure of time. Possibly, I wonder, will we, 300 years from now, remember this era as the great democratic experiment?

This week I am also reading Behind The Beautiful Forevers: Life, death and hope in a Mumbia undercity by Katherine Boo. In addition, I watched a mini-series about Juana Ines de la Cruz , the life and work of a seventeen century nun in Mexico City who is considered one of the first great minds of the Americas.

In my collective ingestion of these articles, the book and the film, I am struck by how current stories and old stories are much the same. A few lines from the Netflix Juana Ines film series, set between 1669 and 1695 in New Spain, seem to summarize my week in totality.

“Silence is not having nothing to say. But being unable… to find words for all there is to say.”

and

“It is not the knowledge I don’t have. But that the desire to learn has cost me so much… This amorous torment inside my heart can be seen. I know that I feel the way I do, but I don’t know the reason why. I feel such a heavy anguish from such a successful dalliance that fills like desire and ends in melancholy.”

As always, I find that so much in this everyday life is left unanswerable or beyond my words. Thus we conclude with the “resting” painting.

Melancholy Seas on a 14 x 18 inch oil on canvas

How might melancholy and change come together in 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

Perspective Canada Day

July 1, 2010July 1, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 12 Comments

Happy, happy Canada Day Canada. YOU are the BEST… but I only tell you this one day a year as it might go to your head.

stillness

View and purchase full resolution image here.

To be perfectly clear, this blog is about construct of perspective and it just happens to be Canada Day.

Perspective is to painting as grammar is to writing. It is useful to have some idea about the rules before you start breaking them. Both methods of organizing information have been equally tedious for me to learn except in an abstract fleeting fashion. In each case I have a tendency “to work at what I am creating until it seems right.” I usually only refer to the math of perspective or the grammar of writing when I have got myself mired and I absolutely refuse to give up. I then begrudgingly concede that I best go find out what the rules are so I can solve my problem.

Driven by combination of frustration and curiosity, I will pull out the appropriate books from my bookshelf and read what I need to read. Usually this results in a satisfying personal discovery that is far more exhilarating than warranted.

But sometimes new learning slips into my life more easily. The other day Elisa posted an excellent video comment to “Seeing and Creating” about an artist, Esref Armagan, who has no eyes and who can paint perspective using his fingertips. Esref has never “seen” a horizon line. How does he do it? I was so impressed with the link that I decided to bring it forward for a post focusing on perspective. Thank you Elisa.

And if you want to learn more about the history, science and mathematics of perspective….

“It wasn’t until the early 15th Century that a Florentine architect and engineer named Filippo Brunelleschi developed a mathematical theory of perspective through a series of optical experiments.” http://www.msichicago.org/scrapbook/scrapbook_exhibits/reverspective/history.html

Mathematics and art – perspective

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Art.html

The history and theory of perspective http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/projects/perspective/theory.htm

Sprout Question: Are you remembered for your creativity in the way you want to be remembered?

Bonus: Around the middle of May this year Kathy Drue from Lake Superior Spirit blog decided to declare her dare on my blog post “Choose Your Dare” and started a visual arts project. This morning I found the following comment on that post…

Terrill, well yesterday I realized that I needed to have those seven pages done…but couldn’t really get inspired to make a journal that would just be seen by me. So instead I made some more cards. Twelve of them. Then decided to start a “revolution”: http://upwoods.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/taking-back-the-world-one-card-at-a-time/

Thanks again for the inspiration!

I invite you to go have a look at her beautiful cards with their shiny images beaming back at us from the picnic table. Thank you Kathy for celebrating your success with us.

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