Mayne Island

Oyster Bay Late August Painting Data Collection

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Monday, 7 September 2026

Painting Data Collection 

Title: Oyster Bay Late AugustDate Completed: Friday, 28 August 2026
Materials: acrylic on linen board 
Size: 8 x 10 inches (20.32 x 25.4 x 0.51 cm)

Figurative/Abstract Self Assessment Band-Scale Rating between 1-10: 5

This is a plein air contemporary impressionist quick acrylic study to capture sensory information in the moment. 

Reference Gathering: 

The references for this work were observations in the moment as I stood on the top of an exposed piece of sandstone in front of my easel in Oyster Bay on (what is now called) Mayne Island in British Columbia, Canada. 

Setting up to plein air paint at Oyster Bay in late August. Photograph by Terrill Welch, Friday, 28 August 2026.

When I began there was a couple making their way along the shoreline and a couple of construction workers building a bench up above them. Other than this, I had the place to myself for the painting session. 

Making Process:

The painting process was direct and immediate as I captured the light first and then began to build up the forms of the sandstone.

Work-in-progress — Oyster Bay Late August by Terrill Welch, 8 x 10 inch acrylic on linen board. Photograph by Terrill Welch. Friday, 28 August 2026.

I was working with an older palette from a previous painting sketch that had ran a bit from being tilted in my plein air backpack. But it worked.

Work-in-progress 2 — Oyster Bay Late August by Terrill Welch, 8 x 10 inch acrylic on linen board. Photograph by Terrill Welch. Friday, 28 August 2026.

Eventually I managed to get everything blocked in and was able to slightly refine the piece before my available time came to an end.

Still on the easel — Oyster Bay Late August by Terrill Welch, 8 x 10 inch acrylic on linen board. Photograph by Terrill Welch. Friday, 28 August 2026.

Finished Painting:

Oyster Bay Late August by Terrill Welch, 8 x 10 inch acrylic on linen board. Completed August 28, 2026.

Making Notes:

I set the plein air easel on top of the sandstone and looked east over to the rocks exposed in a low tide. The day is pleasant with blue skies holding shapely clouds in the late August sun. I stay for a while with my brush in hand and drift through an hour of painting. It is my birthday and this is my gift to me.

Reflective Analysis:

I had been offered a chance to go out on my own while knowing someone was with my partner who has dementia but still is able to stay by himself for a few hours at a time, if set up with a note to remind him when I will be back and where I have gone. But it is always more freeing if someone is with him. It was a generous offer. She thought I could go for lunch with a friend or something for my birthday. I responded that what I would like to do is go plein air painting because I already had family coming over to visit on several different days for my birthday. She laughed and replied — of course you want to go paint for your birthday! 

Reflexive Analysis: 

One of the odd things to me about being a full time caregiver is that I do not crave time with friends or other people so much. We go out for breakfast or lunch a couple of times a week and then there are the times I see people when getting groceries or picking up produce at the Saturday market plus, I engage daily online while presenting my work. I was invited to join a philosophers café that meets once a month and I accepted as a way to have meaningful deep discussions in-person on topics of interest. This complete package of in-person engagement with others always seems like enough socializing for me. What I crave most is just a few hours at a time on my own. I can still get this but it can’t be for very long at a time. Two hours is ideal and three is stretching my partner’s ability to feel confident on his own. So when given a choice to go for lunch or go plein air painting, the painting wins. This is because I am certain that my time at the easel will offer regeneration and delight. It fills my personal bucket like nothing else has ever been able to do. Just me and nature working together for a focused 45-60 minutes. This is all it takes. Hiking the trails alone does a similar thing but painting is the very best! I always come home filled with satisfaction and refreshed. This is the reparative element to my painting practice in action. 

Key Findings: 

I thought I would do more with this small study back in the studio. But as I spent the next few days glancing at it on the window ledge amongst various other small works, I decided nothing more I did would improve my impressions of this time beside the sea. So I have left it just how it was when I packed up to come home. 

Anything else: 

I am still considering what or if I will do anything on larger surfaces with these recent small painting sketches. I am in no rush to make a decision. The weather to best enjoy painting outside with the golden fall light is brief and will soon come to an end. I can decide once the rains keep me inside more. 

Arbutus in August Painting Data Collection

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Painting Data Collection 

Title: Arbutus in August Date Completed: Wednesday, 19 August 2026
Materials: acrylic on linen board
Size: 10 x 8 inches (25.4 x 20.32 cm)

Figurative/Abstract Self Assessment Band-Scale Rating between 1-10: 5

This small plein air study is clearly responsive to the seasonal moment and light and has an impressionist immediacy. I can still feel the warmth of the sun on my back when I look at it. 

Reference Gathering: 

The reference was the view itself as I stood at the easel.

Still on the easel – “Arbutus mid August Study” by Terrill Welch, 10 x 8 inch acrylic on linen board. Quick plein air painting sketch at Georgina Point on Mayne Island in British Columbia, Canada.

Making Process:

My making process was familiar in the sense that I wanted to catch the light references first and then build up the painting from there. 

Sketched in — “Arbutus mid August Study” by Terrill Welch, 10 x 8 inch acrylic on linen board.
Work-in-progress — “Arbutus mid August Study” by Terrill Welch, 10 x 8 inch acrylic on linen board.
Work-in-progress — “Arbutus mid August Study” by Terrill Welch, 10 x 8 inch acrylic on linen board.

Finished Painting:

“Arbutus in August” by Terrill Welch, 10 x 8 inch acrylic on linen board. Completed Wednesday, 19 August 2026.

Making Notes:

I focus on catching the full range of my sensory experience in the small plein air painting from the light breeze to breaking waves, seagulls squawking and the feel of the sun on my shoulders and the dryness of the acrylic paint on my brush as it contacts the linen surface. There is a powdery dry feeling mingling with the coolness from the sea to the mid August air. I linger after packing up. The moment is pleasant and yet holds a warning, like splitting the winter’s wood on a warm summer’s day. That freshness foreshadows the coming of shorter days and brisk winds and heavy rains. This arbutus tree will be ready and so will I.

This is a quick plein air painting sketch at Georgina Point on Mayne Island in British Columbia, Canada and adds to my reference work for my current “Close to Home” series. The range of brushstrokes are impressionist in a painting language that I find best facilitates my sensory conversation with nature.

The painting is already listed so you are welcome to visit my online gallery if you wish at: https://www.artworkarchive.com/profile/terrill-welch/artwork/arbutus-in-august 

Reflective Analysis:

These long moments of observation while plein air painting anchor me within the seasons and the rhythm of my daily living. A walk or a photoshoot doesn’t have the same sustained intensity of experience that standing at the easel in front of my subject while the lights and shadows progress with an unstoppable certainty. It is that tension between a full stop and infinity which spirals endlessly as I squint and make yet another mark on the surface of the canvas. 

Reflexive Analysis: 

There are things I do where I feel the strength of every cell that is engaged in preserving my life force. The intensity of plein air painting is right near the top of this list of things. I seem to become permeable with my surroundings through my all encompassing sensory awareness that results from settling in with nature. This is the reparative or healing aspect of my work in its most tangible form. It is not a state that I maintain for more than about 45 or 60 minutes at a time but the effect of these painting sessions can last for hours and even days with the distinct possibility of tapping back into them every time I look at the sketch or use it as a reference for a larger work in the studio. It feels like muscle or cellular memory that is stored in various parts of my body and then used and replenished as I view the sketch or work on a new work that recalls that moment through the sketch. Most often these sketches are less about experimenting and much more about gathering information in substantial abundance that it can be used later on. 

Key Findings: 

I have a habit of either dismissing my quick painting sketches or else expecting too much from them. They are my first impressions of an idea or composition and complete in their own right. 

Anything else: 

Not at this time. 

Memories of Mornings by the Studio Window Painting Data Collection

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Painting Data Collection 

Title: Memories of Mornings by the Studio WindowDate Completed: Wednesday, 19 August 2026
Materials: Acrylic on linen board
Size: 8 x 10 inches (25.4 x 20.32 cm)


Figurative/Abstract Self Assessment Band-Scale Rating between 1-10: 5

This work is a quick impressionist study. Attention has been paid to light, relationships between elements and sensory records of the fragrance of dark coffee, fresh morning air through an open window and the softens of wool socks cozying around bare feet sticking out from under the edge of a blanket. 

Reference Gathering: 

References for this study are minimal with most mark making relying on repeated mornings of similar moments that created a bank of memories. 

But there are two images that provide a starting point. 

Sun catching the hill as seen from the chair beside the studio window. Photograph by Terrill Welch Sunday 28 June 2026.
Mornings in the chair of the studio window. Photograph by Terrill Welch Sunday 28 June 2026.

Making Process:

The making process is equally sparse because once I settled down to paint, I forgot to take many photographs as the work developed. But there are a few. 

Work-in-progress collage of images for Memories of Mornings by the Studio Window by Terrill Welch, 10 x 8 inch acrylic on linen board.

Finished Painting:

Memories of Mornings by the Studio Window by Terrill Welch, 10 x 8 inch acrylic on linen board. Completed Wednesday, 19 August 2026.

Making Notes:

So many mornings seated in the studio window with coffee and breakfast just like this morning. I worked from memory though there are references. My attention drifted from what I might be reading to the dark savoured bitterness of the coffee then over to where the rising sun is catching the far hill in the valley. The fields are cut and dry and a cool breeze is coming in the window next to the one I am sitting beside. There is a precious sense of optimism swinging on the branches of the fir trees. I sigh and blink my way into the day. This quick sketch is a brief reminder of something that as of yet has no words other than the importance of waking up.

Here is a digital room view for size context. 

Digital viewing room with Memories of Mornings by the Studio Window by Terrill Welch, 10 x 8 inch acrylic on linen board.

Reflective Analysis:

Mornings have always been an important part of my day and this appreciation has deepened over the years. Though I most often rise early it is not a busy time of day. I like to wake up before others can have any demands on my time or my thoughts. Sometimes, this is only a brief ten minutes. Other times I can be gifted a couple of hours. It all feels like the intervention of chance really. I used to swear that my young children heard my eyes flutter open and then they leaped out of bed so as not to miss out on anything. Now, my partner often does the same. But there is always a chance that everyone will sleep just a little longer and I can watch the day begin, wrapped up cozy, from one window or the other. 

Reflexive Analysis: 

Strong dark roast black coffee is my morning beverage of choice and comes with a whole ritual of hand grinding (by hand, no electric whirring noises for me) locally roasted coffee beans. The beans are coarsely ground for a 30 year old stainless steel insulated French press. Once brewed, a cup is poured into a favourite Italian mug and the rest is put into a heated stainless steel thermos that takes me most of the morning to drink. This ritual is a mix of childhood references of the practices of my parents and a west coast of Canada coffee culture that started developing around about the late 1980’s, early 1990’s, while I was going to the University of Victoria with two young children as a single parent, who also worked part time while going to school full time. Now, when I sit peacefully in the art studio chair by the window, still in my pajamas, drinking my whole first cup of coffee while it is hot, without having it answer questions, sign notes for school, add a child’s birthday party coming up on the weekend to my calendar, be reminded to pick someone up after school, I feel particularly blessed. I loved parenting and yet, I am still thrilled when my mornings begin by easing into the day instead of starting at full throttle. 

Key Findings: 

When I think back, I remember one of my high school principals who picked me up while hitchhiking in our small village to the place I was living a few miles away in the rural farmlands. He was very clear that, though I had graduated grade twelve, I was going to grow up to be poor white trash. I was unmarried, pregnant with my first child and not yet 19 years old. I mean — who says this to a young kid finding her way after having made some difficult choices!? I am ever-so-glad that I simply just didn’t believe him. I have always had a strong inner self-motivating pull to problem-solve around ways to achieve whatever is of most driving interest to me. These ritualized morning coffees are the foundation for my thinking and of my organizing structures. It is when I prioritize the items written into my calendar into the order that either must be done that day or that I have the most desire to complete. It is also where I look ahead over the coming weeks and months and see what needs to be refined and it is when I measure how well I am fulfilling any intentions I might have set. This small sketch holds all of this for me. 

Anything else: 

It is usually the case that we can accomplish far more than we and others think we can. There is a cost of course and this can’t be discounted. This isn’t usually what stops us from trying. More often than not it is a fear of failure or fear of something awful happening. I have learned to ask myself during my morning coffee — what is the worst that can happen and can I live with it? What is the worst that will happen if I do and what is the worst that will happen if I don’t? If I can live with the worst in relation to the decision I most want to make, that will generally be the route I will take. Who knew a small painting study of a person sitting in a window having a morning coffee could hold so much? 

Defining “Close to Home” as a focus within my nature-centric, reparative painting practice

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Monday, 17 August 2026

“Close to home” at first, brings up familiarity, safety and comfort. It is where I live my daily life most of the time. Geographically, these days “close to home” is usually limited to within a day’s drive in any direction which gives the concept physical parameters. There is an ordinariness that comes with these sustained intimately observed passages of time in one place doing “the usual” things such as getting groceries, hanging laundry on the line, grinding the morning coffee beans, paying bills online, going to the dentist, getting the car serviced, working in the yard, hugging my partner, children, grandchildren and friends between taking long hikes, painting in the studio and promoting the gallery and artworks. I ask myself, why is this focus on “Close to Home” in my painting practice important? 

Developing red collage paper by Terrill Welch. August 8, 2026.

To answer this question is to first observe aspects of my contextualized autoethnographic references. The first and most obvious factor is that I am a full-time, primary caregiver for a partner that can quite happily no longer go further than the geographical territory mentioned above. I remain close to home because, to provide the best care for someone else, I must. The alternatives are to place my special human in respite care or to have someone come to stay with them. Neither of these options are easily workable in practice. By the time I get someone or someplace up to speed on this special being’s needs and them familiar with something they don’t want to do, the brief break becomes more of a traumatic ordeal for both of us than an actual opportunity. At least, this has been our experience so far. Eventually when regular weekly respite breaks become necessary, we will then have someone familiar providing additional support on ongoing. This might then present some opportunities for longer breaks for me to be able to at least go see my elderly parents which is a 7-10 day round trip visit away. For now, primary caregiving responsibilities take a central role, as a wife and as the human that is closest to the person in need. There are children. But the personal care needs and ongoing vascular dementia monitoring and prompting have gone well beyond their comfort levels and therefore not an option except possibly during a short term emergency until other care could be put in place. Community health home support services have been limited and expensive for what is provided. This leaves just me for now. We muddle through as best we can together which for now is pretty well. As an almost 68 year old white woman of settler ancestry, living on a rural small island on the southwest coast of Canada, I am resourceful, resilient, organized and pragmatic with a strong work ethic. I will face poverty level cash flows if/when the time comes to manage only on my own pensions. For now, there is enough to comfortably support both of us. But this reality is partly why I spent the past two years completing my MA Fine Art degree. It is a way to recognize the seriousness with which I take my painting practice that then might possibly lead to my artwork offering a small financial buffer if it is needed in the future. Global instability may make this a difficult proposition to realize but it would be even less of a possibility as an older woman artist without doing this degree. 

Yellow gauche covered collage paper by Terrill Welch. August 8, 2026.

This brings up other aspects about being “Close to Home” including a sense of loss of freedom, of heavy sadness/grief about slowly losing someone to their disease, as well as facing my own limitations and mortality. How long can I reasonably keep up with these responsibilities? How long can I manage living on this rural island as the only person who is able to drive?

Three sheets of collage paper created by Terrill Welch. August 8, 2026.

Then I return again to my painting practice and its central role in making all challenging situations much more possible, pleasurable and endurable. This is especially true if I turn my painting practice directly towards what is challenging. In doing this, I seem to find my footing and my strength as well as my joy and pleasure with simply being alive.

These are the thoughts that came to mind as I created the collage paper, cut it up and then decided I wanted to paint instead. So, I packed up the paper cuttings and put them in a bag for another day.

Collage paper cuttings and a sketched ready to paint in Terrill Welch’s art studio.

I expect to have much more to discover about my focus on “Close to Home” as I proceed but for now, it is time to work on a small painting sketch featuring morning coffee in my studio chair.

Solace Between Sea and Sky Painting Data Collection

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Painting Data Collection 

Title: Solace Between Sea and SkyDate Completed: Saturday, July 25, 2026
Materials: oil on canvas
Size: 31.5 x 27.5 inches (80 x 70 cm)

Figurative/Abstract Self Assessment Band-Scale Rating between 1-10: 

This work sits primarily at “4” with Camille Corot and April Gornik (Impressionism is a five and in the middle between figurative at 1 and full abstraction at 10). Yet it is a closer more intimate view that has us crouched next to the arbutus tree for company. The foliage above and below is abstracted but not noticeably so. The rest is clearly a figurative tree, sandstone shore, sea, sky and distant shoreline.

Reference Gathering: 

My references are from an early morning walk that saw me at this location on Edith Point at just before 7:00 am on Monday, July 6 2026. The sun had risen a couple of hours earlier but there were still hints of warm morning light. There is the arbutus tree of course but it was the totality of the morning’s walk that will later resonate in a more complete memory onto the canvas. The sandstone shore wasn’t just viewed. It was walked on and sat on while I ran my fingers over its sandpaper-like surface. The sea sounds were as soft as warm morning air flickering across my cheeks. There were other trees close by but I chose the arbutus and in the end its company is outside of our view. 

Reference inspiration for Solace Between Sea and Sky by Terrill Welch.

Making Process:

My painting process begins with a few composition lines. I have the notion of painting the tree “From the Ground Up” so that I can feel the forest overhead as well as under my feet. Yet, how will I create such a feeling? I also wanted to be standing “with” the arbutus tree rather than looking “at” it. I am listening to the arbutus tree tell me its story of time in what is a long and meaningful conversation. The painting process takes place over 12 days with moments of pause so layers can dry. But also pauses for the painting to decide what it needed from me. The last image in the collage is not the final painting yet but all significant decisions had been made at this point. My simplifications and exaggerations are in full view. Memory is often like that. We leave things out and make up other things to capture the inner resonance of what we want to convey. 

Painting process for Solace Between Sea and Sky by Terrill Welch.

Finished Painting:

Solace Between Sea and Sky by Terrill Welch, 31.5 x 27.5 inch oil on canvas. Completed July 25, 2026.

Making Notes:

Early in the morning I hiked along the outside trail early of the Edith Point Conservation Lands next to Strait of Georgia. During the summer the sun rises far enough north to slam this shore in brilliant sunlight for the first view hours of a day. The receding tide leaves small pools of seawater along the lower parts of the sandstone shore. Low clouds on the horizon still have a bit of an orange popsicle hue. What might it be like to be this specific arbutus tree rooted deeply along the high part of the bank and stretching day after day for every casual ray of sunlight? It is a quiet determined striving that I can take solace in. I soak up the moment for as long as it can last. Seconds really. Or maybe an eternity. Each brushstroke contains purpose and random execution at once. It is not the mystery of discover so much as knowing where I am and wanting it stay. This painting opens up under my first viewer’s gaze. I can feel the grandness of expanse filled with early morning’s comfort and possibilities just as I remembered it during my hike. 

Digital Room View for size reference:

Digital room view using the Canvy app showing at scale “Solace Between Sea and Sky” by Terrill Welch.

Reflective Analysis:

At this specific time, I am beginning a new thematic body of work that I have yet to form into a rigorous research question. I just know, I want to be with the trees and look down onto the seafloor where I have spent the past two years at the tideline painting close up work that I composed primarily vertically into “landscapes of the small” or “child’s view” compositions. One must hold the expanse of the shoreline above one’s head doing this work. I want to hold a grand view perspective again, even if I still crouch close to the earth. 

Reflexive Analysis: 

The title has the “solace” as a primary reference. I find in a moment of solace, as here in the company of the arbutus tree and taking in the sea and sky, there is also acknowledgment of pain or grief. The desire or need for solace necessarily describes the other. From my first viewer’s gaze, maybe due to my own painter’s hand, I can fully sense both of these halves that make a whole. I was raw and tired as I pushed hard to get the last of my assignment materials ready for assessment. We had lost our home support services due to retirement so my partner and I were working out how we were going to best do his showers together, just the two of us. We found a way but new routines are harder, for both of us, when someone has dementia. But in the end we came up with an even better solution than how he was showering before and a method that allowed him more independents under my prompts and supervision. So this arbutus tree is not just comfort but also a symbol or inner strength, perseverance and resilience. Standing with this tree, I have company during my most challenging doubts and fears and exhaustion. I come away from the view and the easel ready to continue and step just a little lighter from the warmth of such an early morning expanse and the recognition that all things are interconnected and whole, for this brief moment. 

Key Findings: 

I had the desire to keep a wide range of brush marks between figurative and abstract but that isn’t what the painting asked for and I knew better than to question its lead. The process from inspiration to completion of the work took 19 days plus another two days to organize my thoughts and data collection to write about the process. So if anyone asks how long it took, the answer is 50 years of a nature-centric, reparative painting practice plus 21 days of focused attention. This work doesn’t come easy. The paintings are moulded out of the blood flow that makes up my full sensory life and contemplated experiences. 

Anything else: 

The solution to an attempt that falls short of my intention is to try again. Keep painting, I tell myself. Just keep painting. 

What might you do to continue with something that you haven’t quite yet succeeded in accomplishing?

Answering the Painter’s Questions

/ 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. 

The Spiritual Connection in Painting Arbutus Trees

/ Terrill Welch / 2 Comments

Monday, July 13 2026

I crest the low ridge just after seven in the morning as sunlight slams into the lower sandstone shoreline and dances across the sea to meet a soft mostly cobalt blue sky once it lifts over the fog resting on the water near the coast mountains. My eyes scan the elements and square up the view. It will work. I am sure it will work. I begin to gather references, shifting my feet and contorting my body to get the angles I desire. Nothing is perfect of course. I do not expect it to be. This is why it will need my imagination, a canvas and paint. References are a memory link and a starting point for later.

Now in the studio with the ground dry on a 31.5 x 27.5 inch canvas, I begin to block in various elements. A couple of hours pass. I take off my paint smeared red apron and document what I have so far.

The beginning of painting an arbutus tree along the shores of Edith Point by Terrill Welch.


It is almost noon. While boiling water for tea I begin to ponder. What does it mean to be this specific arbutus tree on this specific ridge overlooking the Salish Sea? If I was this tree, what would be the most dominant element? Would it be that soft peachy morning sky or would I give priority to the sea? Or maybe it would be the squishing of tiny roots spreading through the salal that I am standing in that is taking up the most attention. Perhaps it is the wind whistling through dried lower branches as it cools the first rays of sun? I am not sure I can guess. I sip my tea and look at the messy beginnings.

I have painted these arbutus trees many times but I am never done with them. There is a spiritual connection that seems to happen with arbutus trees. I imagine laying my hand on the large exposed root at the base of its trunk and let whatever is troubling me drain down into the earth on its long spidery tentacles. Losses and grief are good compost and best turned over and released into the soil rather than being compartmentalized and carried between my shoulder blades. 

I reach for a new book I am reading by Martin Gayford, How Painting Happens (and why it matters). Gayford begins where a painter knows he must – “Painting is difficult. Or rather, making a truly powerful and original painting is very hard (Gayford, 2024, p. 12). He goes on to explain that part of the problem is the long history of painting that has been practiced by brilliant artists ahead of me and that it is hard to find new areas to explore. This has never really stopped me from trying though. Not because I expect to paint anything particularly brilliant or ground breaking but because painting is a way of holding a conversation between nature and me and then later, with the viewer. What is the alternative? To remain silent? Better to paint something that is less than brilliant than to say nothing at all. 

Reference list: 

Gayford, M. (2024). How Painting Happens. Thames and Hudson Ltd.

The Reparative Turn in Painting: Embracing Grief and Creativity

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Wednesday, July 8 2026

Painting the Beauty and Sorrow of Loss – beginning the Close to Home Series

This series will require courage and bravery to honestly and frankly find my balance between beauty and sorrow within loss. I have other painters before me who have faced such challenges through their own brushes, such as “Camille on Her Deathbed” by Monet from 1879 where he stood painting beside his wife Camille, who was dying. 

Camille on Her Deathbed by Claude Monet, 1879.

Then there was time Monet was painting the lily pads following the death of his son while the echo from the guns of battle were audible in the distance. There is also Edvard Munch and “Death in the Sickroom” from 1893 when he recorded the death of his sister to tuberculosis.

Though these are more final moments rather than the proceeding journey of knowing and watching and bracing oneself that comes from caregiving someone in the later stages of dementia. 

What does the reparative turn (Forrester, 2020) in my painting practice mean under these circumstances? I am surmising it flexes on my desire, for now, to stay grounded and rooted on this earthly plain of existence. I will unpack this further as I continue to work over the months ahead. This is where my first painting in this series begins with painting the portrait of an arbutus tree along the shores of (what is now called) Mayne Island next to the Salish Sea – from the ground up. 

The morning began with painting acrylic lemon yellow grounds on a larger 31.5 x 27.5 canvas and three smaller 8 x 10 inch linen boards that will be used for studies and plein air painting. 

Terrill Welch laying down a lemon ground on a large cotton canvas in the overcast morning of the studio as her coffee grows cold. July 8, 2026.

There is something palatably thrilling in the tension that coils up inside the core of my being when I am about to launch into a new body of work. 

View down into the wood framed windows of art studio of Terrill Welch with small finished work lining the ledge on the left, new small linen boards with yellow grounds on an old washstand under the window. On the right a crumpled corner with throw and studio blue chair before the enamel topped table holding the artist’s apron resting on a covered palette beside the large wood easel with a substantial canvas with an equally bright yellow ground. A black anti-fatigue mat rests waiting in front of the easel on the grey stone finished ceramic tiles.

The only question remaining is – do I start the new work or paint the edges of recently finished pieces first? 

Reference List: 

Forrester, S. (2020). Painting from the Other Side: Tracing the Reparative Turn in Contemporary Practice. Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal, 5(1), pp.116–147. doi:https://doi.org/10.18432/ari29486 

REAWAKENING MY PUBLIC ART RESEARCH JOURNAL

/ Terrill Welch / 2 Comments

Monday, July 6 2026

For the past two years I have kept an art research journal as part of my MA Fine Art Studies. Many of these posts have been featured in my “Terrill Welch by herself” newsletter. However, my degree studies are coming to a close. I am beginning a new series of work. Since I have found the art research journal useful, I have decided to continue the practice here, even though this space has, for the most part, been dormant since 2022. What is four years in a lifetime of an art practice!? Let’s continue!

You can learn more about my recent art autoethnographic theory and nature-centric reparative painting research practice, as well as my intentions for disseminating my new Seafloor series, on my website at: https://terrillwelchartist.com/disseminating-a-nature-centric-reparative-painting-practice/

You can also visit my individual final degree show that will opening on August 20,2026. It has to be up and published now for assessment by the university so you are also welcome to have browse if you wish at: https://terrillwelchartist.com/terrill-welch-five-seasons-ma-fine-art-final-show/

I will continue to develop my theory and art research led painting practice as I begin a new series, tentatively called “Close to Home”, as I again spend time with trees as I meander (what is now called) Mayne Island and at times capture domestic moment that connect nature with our daily habits within the shelter of our strawbale timberframe home.

Early this morning at around 6:30 am, I was hiking Edith Point and think about how I might proceed. There is the most satisfying summer task of hanging laundry on the covered clothesline of the side porch.

Laundry drying on the line. Photograph by Terrill Welch. June 14, 2026.

Or, if my significant other is still sleeping, there is my morning coffee ritual in the blue chair down in the studio as I watch the sun come around to catch the trees on the far hill.

Morning coffee in the blue chair of the art studio. Photograph by Terrill Welch. June 28, 2026.

Then again, reading on the bench on the other side of the house is also a moment I treasure.

Outside on the bench with wind in the trees for company drinking garden mint tea and reading the second half of Book of Lives: a memoir of sorts that I put down at the beginning of my 3rd and final term in an MA Fine Art degree delivered completely online. Photograph by Terrill Welch. July 4, 2026.

However, there is also the calm of a blue-green sea that make me exhale fully.

A calm green Salish Sea strikes an elegant pose. Photograph by Terrill Welch. June 28, 2026.

Or it could be sighting the clouds that show up in a tidal pool that holds my attention.

Clouds in a Tidal Pool. Photograph by Terrill Welch. June 28, 2026.

Yet, as I was walking along with the scent of soil and sea enveloping the lemony hue of the morning air around me, I thought about the trees and how they continue to teach me how to thrive while being rooted in one place. Maybe this would be a good place to start?

Early morning sun greeting the crest of a knoll next to the sea. Photograph by Terrill Welch. July 6, 2026.

There is an arbutus tree that has yet to come under my brushes and I am itching to see what I can do for its portrait.

Arbutus tree catching the 7:00 am summer sun that is already warm and scenting the air with sea earth and a nearby pine tree. Photograph by Terrill Welch. July 6, 2026.

This tree might be the first of this new series to be tackled at the easel! We shall see. Right now, ideas are being filed into an album of references so that they are ready as soon as I get a chance to start.

Welcome to a new journey and adventure in my painting practice. I do not have a posting schedule but will likely add something new each week so I can keep track of what I am doing. Until next time! Feel free to comment if you wish.

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 🙂 👩‍🎨🎨❤️

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