“Arbutus and Salish Sea” is the latest painting completed in my Red Line Series. Since its beginnings during the last week of August, I knew this work was going it be part of this red line body of work. I started the painting in the usual manner with a yellow ground with a few pencil marks on the canvas to guide the composition and design.
From there, I started painting the background first because it was going to be the strongest visual balance to the rest of the composition.
Adjustments were made to simply the design of the painting even more as I completed the blocking in stage and moved on to building up the paint. Now let’s step down into the home studio and have a look at the resting painting…
This work has happened during the opening days of the new gallery pod while we have also had the home studio open to walk in visitors. It has been a bit tricky to work between guests but I managed. I was able to get it to this stage and added the red line yesterday.
Now it is resting and the painting still needs the edges painted and a final photograph. However, I have popped it into a digital room view to take away the busyness of the home studio and so I can better decide if it needs anything else. I thought you might like to see as well.
“resting” Arbutus and Salish Sea by Terrill Welch (not yet released though inquires are still welcome) 20 x 36 inch walnut oil on canvas
Artist notes: Recent years of drought and an over population of deer eating the seedlings has been challenging for Mayne Island Arbutus Trees. The red line in this painting is there to remind us of the impacts of climate change even as the natural beauty of these trees next to the sea persists.
The painting will be set aside as I believe it is complete and another canvas will be placed on the easel.
This is how it goes in the art studio and I am so looking forward to more painting time this fall.
May our Autumn be filled with quiet abundance!
ONLINE GALLERIES include –
ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches currently available
Redbubble painting and photography prints and merchandise
The first Sunday in September is often like my second New Year. There is this natural pause and reflection just before we seem to roll into the rest of the year in earnest. At first glance this year, my living and work world seems indecipherable like this photograph of the forest from our side deck.
However, with a bit of effort the layers can be lifted off and separated until they make some kind of visual and memory sense. This is what we like to do isn’t it? Make sense of things when they just happen to naturally co-exist in overlapping movements of light and energy. Let’s see what we can make of it all.
Since last September, our physical living and my working spaces have shifted in rather dramatic ways under my guidance and inspiration to solve immediate and difficult challenges. Only in hindsight do they seem daunting. When I was in the middle of these changes it was just a matter of getting things done that needed doing. Now I can appreciate the monumental shifts that have taken place.
The first major project last fall was the completion of our main floor bedroom and ensuite bathroom renovation that had started in the spring and been delayed waiting for windows to arrive. The building contractor did an outstanding job and we were able to move our bed from the great room beside the kitchen table and put an end to feeling like we were camping out in our own home.
This project was taken on to meet my husband’s reduced mobility needs in the middle of the night when he would get up a little too stiff and disoriented to manage the stairs from what was our sunroom sleeping quarters.
What we couldn’t have known ahead of time is what a sanctuary this space would become and how it would change the way we actually lived in our home. The ability to have a separate bedroom closed off in our open plan strawbale timberframe home that still remained visible from other parts of the house has meant easy movement, sleeping and working space without feeling isolated from one another. In meeting a very pragmatic mobility need we greatly increased our quality of daily living in our home.
My home studio moved permanently into the sunroom below the kitchen where our bed used to be for the past twelve years. Even with the unrelenting south exposure it works because of the tall trees and our many west coast soft grey days.
The whole house now works as if it was always meant to be this way.
The second major change came last October when my commercial venue for the gallery rooms provided all the tenants in the building a year’s notice because the owner was going to return the space to residential use. Our small rural island has extremely limited commercial space options and few of those are ideal for showing paintings. However, the first solution came easy with a small room sublet within another business that also was moving. It meant a change in what was regularly being offered as the small space was only suitable for smaller paintings and usable art products.
The huge benefit of this new art room venue is that I do not need to physically be there. Thanks to modern Square payment technology a separate terminal was added for use at the counter of the main business.
The unexpected gift of this unique ISLAND TIME ART room has been the joy designing and choosing smaller useable art products for this space and the ease of curating and hanging new shows with a selected group of gallery artists. The art room is eclectic, lively and delightful. But it is not a gallery space and has difficulty managing to successfully show larger paintings like my other gallery spaces had been able to do. Which brings us to my final major change during the past year. The Gallery Pod.
The Terrill Welch Gallery Pod, that is now snuggled in at our front gate and opened this weekend, took nine months from idea to opening and is the last piece in our live/work solution that my husband and I didn’t really accept that we needed until it was in place. You see, on top of being a full-time landscape painter and running a gallery and art business, I am also a caregiver for my husband who suffered a major bleeding stroke thirteen years ago. The first few years were spent in gaining back skills and abilities. Then there were many years of stability. Now he is experiencing a gradual decline in both physical and cognitive abilities that admittedly has been aggravated by limitation imposed during the pandemic. So being able to have the new gallery space at our front gate has become a huge future planning benefit that we didn’t realize until it was here would also have immediate benefits in the quality of both of our lives and my ability to continue working.
This brings me to a place of realizing this first Sunday in September that we can look to the present as a fresh start in our future direction that has been intentionally and thoughtfully implemented for both living and working on this small rural island on the southwest coast of Canada. Now it is time to set some short term priorities for the last quarter of 2022…. and go make some breakfast before opening the Gallery Pod and the home studio for visitors today from 11-4.
ONLINE GALLERIES include –
ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches currently available
Redbubble painting and photography prints and merchandise
As the second day of September rolls in after a cool morning, I go to the Gallery Pod to open up for visitors between 11-4 again today. There is an ease to early September where I have chatted with a handful of people in the line up for the bakery this morning who all offered congratulations on the new gallery space. I came home and trimmed up some branches so I can see the entrance to the Gallery Pod from inside the house. Yesterday, the extension cord was placed in a conduit pipe and buried in the trench that had been dug the day before. So everything is looking sparkling and organized. I then came in and ordered two raised cedar planters for the yard. Each will have a locally made olla watering pot that I have already purchased. I liked how the first one has worked in a big clay pot this summer so I decided to see if we can at least grow some salad greens this fall or next year. The big fir trees blocking out the sunshine are the main challenge but we shall see.
In the meantime, an art collector and gallery visitor yesterday brought the most lovely local arrangement of mostly sunflowers for the Gallery Pod. Are they not just the most lovely addition?
Then a little later, another art collector suggested that I come by and see their sunflowers for inspiration. They offered to pick some for me but I knew I wasn’t going get a chance to paint them right at the moment with the opening days for the Gallery Pod that also includes the home studio and our house. So I just went over and gathered a few images to enjoy in the evening light and left the flowers to create seeds for the birds. They certainly were lovely though. They feel as big, bright and cheerful as the sun itself!
I love how much variety there is in sunflowers.
They seems to have a magic all their own as they tower over my head in the early September sky.
Speaking of September, this painting of East Point was inspired from this time of year. It is now on hold as of yesterday and a final decision will be made early next week. In the meantime it is still on the Gallery Pod wall to enjoy.
Another art collector, who is also a friend, will arrive tomorrow night to stay in a local Airbnb for a few days for a much deserved vacation. We have plans to go out for dinner and listen to live music as part of a fundraising event. I expect we might also get a morning hike or two in as well. And maybe even dinner at our house.
Over time, I have noticed that there is a lovely fluidness between serious fans and those who collect my paintings and friendship. Sometimes the art viewing and collecting comes first and sometimes the friendship comes first. I suppose it makes sense that it would be so since the paintings are so deeply personal and a significant way that I express myself in the world. Still, it is something that I am incredibly grateful for and never take for granted.
It is a Friday of counting blessing and being grateful for the pure richness in our ordinary everyday.
What is filling you with gratitude at the moment?
ONLINE GALLERIES include –
ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches currently available
Redbubble painting and photography prints and merchandise
I can feel fall nipping at my heals even as the nights remain warm and the drought conditions continue likely for at least another two weeks. It is a rambling eclectic time of year with my birthday acknowledged while aggressive wasps crowd around the outside water tap for a drink. I have the road signs up for the official Gallery Pod opening 11-4 each day starting tomorrow through to Tuesday September 6th.
The show is hung and people have been slipping for an early viewing for the last few days.
There will need to be new flowers for the desk today I think but these ones have sure been lovely.
The newsletter is written and will come out as usual on Friday. Never Miss the Good bits! Sign Up Now for “A Brush with Life” the curated editorial Terrill Welch Gallery newsletter published every second Friday. (You will receive a confirmation email. Check your spam folder if you sign up and it isn’t in your inbox. If you do not reply to confirm you are not subscribed yet).
No painting is happening at the moment. A strong individual is coming to dig a trench for the extension cord to the gallery pod today so that it is not an eyesore. My most treasured team member is coming to clean and polish our home and the home studio. I have so much gratitude for those in my life who step up when needed!
End of summer meals are wholesome but simple. Breakfast of garden fresh local tomatoes on wood fired rye toast with mayo for breakfast.
Spanish omelettes with tomato sauce and cheese with local salad greens for supper thanks to Raven Vale Farm.
I managed a sunrise this week along with an impromptu visit with a friend who arrived for the same beach just a little earlier than me.
Life is good as I get up early and go to bed late while noticing the shorter days and that distinct scent of autumn just around the corner. I tell myself, just get through to the end of the Gallery Pod opening and it will easy up. But not likely all at once I am afraid. It is now time to get everything ready for the winter months. There are off island eye and dentist appointments to get out of the way for both of us and regular twice yearly blood work to do for my partner, along with his prescriptions that will need to be renewed. All the batteries for flashlights and emergency lamps will need to be checked. And the propane tank for the fireplace that provides emergency heat if we have a longer power outage. There! A list has been started.
How is your September shaping up?
ONLINE GALLERIES include –
ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches currently available
Redbubble painting and photography prints and merchandise
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
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
So close! Almost! Or maybe even done! Yes, you guessed right. The latest 30 x 40 inch canvas of Sailing Through The Trees is “resting”. But, before we go to the end, maybe you would like to see a short video of part of the process along the way? Yes? I thought so.
And so it went, for several days, until I came close to the finish line. Then, I swore! A couple of times! Which didn’t help at all, in case you are wondering. Back to the folder of video and photograph references for the umpteenth time. Then down to the actual location, looking, searching, feeling and taking more photographs. Back to the winter studio, pick up brush and apply paint. Three more trees are added. Other trees are moved around a bit forward or back. Specific branches are added and so on. Finally, the painting shifted and came together as a completed work with all the harmony and mystery that was intended…. well, except for “resting” but I doubt it will change much from here. Lets start with a few details and work our way up to the finished painting.
We have the all important house…
We have the equally important sea…
and the lofty trees crowning the complete vista….
Now for the grand entrance, switching to the big camera, here is Sailing Through The Trees “resting” 30 x 40 inch oil on canvas still shiny and wet…
The painting will be set aside to dry and I will look at it over my shoulder while I continue working on the next painting. If, as time passes, I notice something that I just can’t resist changing, then there will be a flick of a brush loaded with paint in the appropriate spot. Most likely though, it will dry to the touch and be laid on its back to have the edges painted.
So, no more swearing as I look upon this beautiful day beside the sea where it would be a dream to live!
What are you almost ready to call done!?
Never Miss the Good bits! Sign Up Now for “A Brush with Life” the curated editorial Terrill Welch Gallery newsletter published every second Friday.
ONLINE GALLERIES include –
ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches currently available
Redbubble painting and photography prints and merchandise
The soft grey of morning is still settling out of my physical being as I lift the large 36 X 48 inch canvas onto the easel. Cascading light and colour roll with the waves over the shapes gathering across my inner landscape. The endless beating of sea and shore vibrates through the heartwood of an old hanging arbutus swinging above the sculptured shore. But alas, there is only whiteness reflection back at me…
I only have an hour before I must be down in the village. Can I do something with this?
“Only if you promise to remember to go open the gallery on time!” I mutter, as I squeeze the cadmium yellow and red oil paint onto a clean palette.
Those lines! This light!
I remember my smallness…
as I looked up into the tangle of trunks.
The quick painterly notes start to multiply on the canvas…
Sweeping curves round above seal-shaped forms below.
Light and shadow intertwine in a symphonic melody.
Waves and ferry wake are fierce dance partners, bending the spine of the sandstone in its embrace.
I am standing.
I have stood painting this small 11 x 14 inch study below…
And now, on the big canvas, I am 25 steps further to the right, closer to sea. I must start again. I must hunch down and grasp all-that-was and all-that-will-be, swing it high over my head then spiral it down, until it is rooted deep into the earth, with confidence, in each brushstroke.
But this is yet to come. For now, I must wash the one-inch flat hog hair brush, take off my weathered carmine paint-splattered apron, remove any wild run-away cadmium red or yellow streaks on my face and head to the gallery.
Oh but there is more! So much more!
I must wait. We must wait. And remember, it is only paint and a canvas. 😉
What, may I ask, are YOU waiting for?
PART 2 “Sea and Shore – Building Up Paint” is now posted HERE.
Part 3 “Sea and Shore – Strong Finish” can be viewed HERE.
Autumn flashes her best colours across our small island during these last few weeks. Now that it is the first of November, I feel I must gather this late season gold together for safe keeping during the winter rains which will surely come soon.
There has been a plein air painting day in the Japanese Gardens.
There has been a morning walk by sea before an anticipated storm.
Best of all though, there has been time to just be and watch the leaves drift down from my favourite maple tree….
Ah yes! October, so many pleasant gifts you have given!
After a summer of chasing the morning light painting en plein air, three students from the Beauty of Oils Painting class and myself are ready for a fall group show in our local Mayne Island Library. Details are in the poster below. The featured painting in the poster is by Jody Waldie.
These fellow painters carved out time on most Thursday mornings from May to September to brush in patches of colour on canvas from various vantage points around Mayne Island in British Columbia, Canada. Here are just a few of the paintings that will grace the freshly renovated walls the library for local or visiting viewer’s pleasure.
House on Stilts – Active Pass, 11 x 14 inch oil on canvas by Katherine Cox Stevenson
Spring at the Lighthouse, 11 x 14 inch oil on canvas by Glenda King
Summer Tide, 10 x 8 inch oil on canvas by Jody Waldie
Morning Along the Island Road Mayne Island BC, 20 x 16 inch oil on the canvas by Terrill Welch
For anyone who has ever attempted painting with oils out in the open air, it goes without saying that we know it takes years of practice and skill-building to render a proficient canvas. Still, from the very beginning, using some basic methods and processes, there is an aliveness, a deep pleasure of the moment, a delight in colour and movement captured on the canvases that is worthy of sharing. I am honoured to have had the opportunity to have provided some of these basics in oil painting lessons and to have been invited to paint side-by-side with these fellow painters as our brushes flew across the canvases capturing our glorious island summer landscapes. There comes a point when nothing can replace regular practice, and more practice. At this juncture a painter has only one reasonable choice – get out there and do it! And we did. I am thrilled to not only having been invited to paint but also to be asked to include a couple of paintings with this group for the fall show. Seeing a selection of our summer’s paintings hung together will warm the chill off the months ahead like winter preserves.
How do you like to render your summer joy for winter preserves?
P.S. With a bit of luck, we shall have another spring show from the Beauty of Oils Painters at the Mayne Island Community Centre following our winter/spring Studio Intensive oil painting class. The fall class is full with 10 in-person students for the skill building Beauty of Oils painting class and the online sister class is also at its maximum for the pilot class. I do not do much marketing of these classes and it is mostly by word of mouth or if a person happens to catch a Facebook post where I mention the offering. If this is something you think you would like to do either in-person or online you are welcome to let me know via email or messenger on Facebook and I will add your name to the list to be notified of future classes.
Creative Potager 