More Painting

April 8, 2010April 23, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 23 Comments

Power outage lends itself to another day painting

We had another power outage (due to winds knocking over a huge arbutus tree on Village Bay road at 1:40 am). I awake at 7:00 am. The power is still out. I decide to see if I can find a coffee before doing anything else. Ah yes! The bakery is serving coffee using generator power. Armed with to-go thermos cups filled with black gold, I return home and prepare our usual fruit, yogurt and grain cereal for breakfast. With few alternatives, I settle on my favourite activity of the moment – painting.

The wild underpainting had dried on my 18X24 by 2 inch canvas.

I go to work. At one o’clock this afternoon the power comes on again and I am ready to take a break and share the progress with you.

There is more to do but it is a good start.

Sprout Question: What is your creative activity of choice when the power goes out?

Note: My apologies for being late with today’s post but you will have to take it up with the wind and the arbutus tree… they have let me know they are taking full responsibility for the delay.

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Evening Sea Oil Painting

April 7, 2010April 11, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 40 Comments

The sea hag swished her skirts then drapes them elegantly over dark rocks. Embracing the shore she pauses – then glides away, only to return again. Ah what a temptress. With the last light of a sunset sky caught in her folds, she lays the sea before us.

“Evening Sea” is painted on 100% natural cotton, 11X14 inches by one and a half inches.

View full resolution image here. (much more detail)

I do not have any process shots of “Evening Sea” beyond the initial underpainting that I shared earlier. It is one of those times that I settled in and painted until I was done and then fussed a bit around the edges the next day. This doesn’t happen often when painting but it did this time. I still look and see something that I might want to change but the roll of the sea is caught in the patterns of reflection and the movement is trapped in the paint showing through from underneath. So I don’t touch it. I leave it and watch the sea in its evening beauty.

Sprout Question: Can you tell us about a piece you created with ease?

Note: If anyone has any tips for photographing oil paintings, I am all ears (or eyes). They are much more difficult to get “true” then my watercolour paintings and I’m struggling a little with it – okay I’m struggling a lot (it took about 20 shots to get this the way I wanted it) but a person has to start someplace.

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Sacred Rock

April 6, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 31 Comments

Did you have a nice holiday? Mine turned out very different from planned as a lengthy wind storm came up Thursday night and didn’t end until Friday evening. It took the power out for a day and a half which meant I didn’t go to Vancouver. Instead, I stayed on Mayne Island, cooked on the wood cook stove outside and kept a fire going in the outdoor fireplace for extra warmth.

Though I was terribly disappointed not to see my grandson other good things happened instead. My partner’s daughter came for overnight and we had an awesome visit and on Monday I worked on my paintings and went down to the beach to visit a sacred rock.

How do I know it is a sacred rock? Well I don’t really. It just captured my imagination and every so often I go and visit and see it if is still there. The rock is likely a little less than three feet wide and maybe two feet high. It doesn’t look like any other neighbouring rocks but is sandstone and possibly something else. So let’s have a closer look together shall we?

Isn’t it a beauty? So solid. So many interesting markings.

And the surface… what a design.

Close to the bottom the barnacles and little hats attach themselves.

Now I trust you can see why every so often I come down and have a visit sitting beside this sacred rock, admiring its beauty and looking out to sea. We have become good friends over the three years I have lived on Mayne Island.

I know that someday the sea will have battered drift wood against it long enough to wear it away. Or someone will have found an ingenious way of moving it to their country garden. But for now, it is a sacred rock on a beach in the southern gulf islands off the west coast of Canada.

Sprout Question: Has a place or thing ever inspired your imagination?

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Early Easter

April 1, 2010April 1, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 27 Comments

Looking at that big sky I am reminded that today is the last Creative Potager post until the morning of Tuesday April 6, 2010. Early Happy Easter to you as we take one last quiet stroll before departing to family and friends.

Bull kelp rests where it was thrown during a high tide, its long tail reaching back into the sea. Bull kelp has been the inspiration for many a child who spies it on the shore. It is an annual and can grow 80 feet long in one season with leaves up to 10 feet long. They grow together creating an underwater forest.

Spring has arrived to the shoreline…

View and purchase full resolution image here.

Here is my personal favourite view looking down on the grape hyacinths, iris stocks and snapdragons growing next to the shore.

But mostly I want to share with you one of my favourite arbutus tree….

View and purchase full resolution image here.

If you look way across the Straight of Georgia that is where Vancouver, B.C. is, just below the cloud covered mountains. On Saturday afternoon, I will be waving back to you from there.

Sprout Question: How do holidays fit with your creativity?

All the best of the Easter holiday weekend to you.

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

The Question of Who

March 26, 2010March 28, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 24 Comments

The sea snatches at sandstone mounds as gulls plead their case with the winds – which am I, sea, sandstone, gull or wind?

View and purchase full resolution image here.

Early morning – Flexible and Flowing… one of 64 cards drawn for today.

I can say more but this feels just right.

Sprout Question: Does the question of who come up in your creativity?

Have a wonderful weekend.

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Walk by the Sea

March 12, 2010March 12, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 18 Comments

I never tire of walking trail along the sea. I hope you are not yet tired of my images from these walks. The photos today are from a walk that you won’t find on any map. The walk is only known by locals. It is on private land and permission is granted at your own risk. It is a privilege and a honour that I do not take for granted. So I am not going to tell you exactly where this is on Mayne Island. If you know, smile wisely and enjoy the photo essay along with everyone else.

Come with me….

The trail is rugged in places. I often stop to be able to look up from placing my feet carefully between tree roots and sandstone sticking up on the rough trail. In the next few years, you won’t see many photos like this one where to show the trail in the deep shadows, the sea and sky over exposed. We will all know how to do HDR... but when we look in real time we must choose what we can see at one time… so I have also chosen in this photograhy.

As I walk, a sea lion surfaces off the shore. I know it is there because when it breathes I can feel it on the back of my neck. I look. There she is. I do not try to take photos as past experience tells me, my lens won’t reach. She rolls up to the surface. Breathes. Then rolls her long sleek body over and down she goes, surfacing again many yards ahead of me. I don’t see her the next time she surfaces.

About 45 minutes later I make my way to the point.

The sandstone is warm from the sun. I sit and wonder at the beauty of its shape.

Looking over on the other side I catch a wave coming in.

And then I think I know…

High tides and winter storms have carved out such a place where I now admire its beauty.

I don’t want to go. I want to stay and be part of the sandstone and then part of the sea, then part of the sandstone… until day becomes night and night day and time has no relevance.

I do go though. I am not sure what makes me leave, but I do.

Two hours later, I am putting the key back into the ignition. I go home. I make lunch. I leave these images in my mind until last night… or rather early this morning as I was still editing at 1:00 am. Now I have savoured them long enough… I can now share them with you.

Sprout Question: If you could do only one more creative of work in your life time – what would you do?

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

field of daffodils

March 11, 2010June 1, 2022 / Terrill Welch / 14 Comments

Field of daffodils on Mayne Island

During the past few days on Creative Potager we have been talking about shadows and the power of darkness in our creativity. When I saw this field of daffodils, its brilliance was only enhanced by the shadows. In fact, this naturalized field of bright yellow flowers comes from a dark shadow in Mayne Island’s past. I was told that the land was once owned and farmed by a Japanese family who grew the daffodils along with tomatoes that were shipped and sold in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Update Wednesday June 1, 2022: comment clarifies history for us “The picture in this story was not owned by the Japanese farmers. Richard Hall bought this piece of property in1922. He grew daffodils and tomatoes. When he retired he sold his greenhouses to the Japanese farmers who took them to a farm on Campbell Bay Rd, and then grew tomatoes for sale. This particular piece of property is still owned by Richard Halls relatives.” Thank you Linda!

During World War II the Japanese on Mayne Island were gathered up and taken from their land to war camps in the interior of British Columbia for fear of espionage. Their land was later given to soldiers returning from the war. The daffodils stayed and bloom every spring – reminding us.

Mr. Lenard Cohen’s “Anthem” comes to mind with the line “There is a crack in everything… that’s how the light gets in…”

Sprout Question: Do you have a piece of work exists because that is how the light comes in? (links to your work are welcome)

Note: This field of daffodils is private property. No trespassing allowed. These photos were taken from the public roadway. The community has built a Japanese Garden in commemoration of early Japanese settlers.

Addition: After fielding several questions, I am adding the following historical references….

“On Tuesday, April 21, 1942, the CPR steamship Princess Mary came for the fifty Japanese men, women and children who waited on the Miners Bay wharf. Most of the Mayne Island residents were in attendance to shake hands and wish them well. It was a sad time for all… A week after evacuation, the first tomatoes of the season, so optimistically planted by the Japanese, were picked by their Mayne Island friends and sent off to market…. [between 1942 and 1943 growing season] In all, between 150,000 and 200,000 pounds of tomatoes were harvested. The school lost seventeen Japanese school children. Classes limped along until June and then the school closed until September 1944 for lack of pupils.” p.69-70 in Mayne Island & The Outer Gulf Islands A History by Marie Elliott (1984)

A Japanese Canadian Timeline by John Endo Greenaway

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Turning Pages

March 1, 2010March 2, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 14 Comments

March is for Mona’s Work

Leah’s Creative Every Day theme for March is stories. If there is a fit for me, I like to participate in her themes because she has an outstanding blog to support creative efforts along with an outstanding readership who comment regularly on her posts. For creative people it is like having a coffee shop with a talented host and an open mike just for them.

I’m committed to working on my book Mona’s Work which has an introduction on my Gaia blog and an entry here on Creative Potager in “Potatoes to Potato Salad.”

My challenge: how much or how little do I share with you as I go? The writing will be “hot” and like most writing, it is better when it has cooled, been reviewed, and is then served to you after editing several times. I am leaning towards providing snippets of writing and mostly blogging about the writing process and my behind-the-scene challenges and decisions as I work through the source material, my memories and the developing of the structure of this book.

I’m sure this challenge will work itself as I set down to prepare the blog post each day. However, I would be delighted to hear what aspects of Mona’s Work YOU most want to find when you click to open your Creative Potager post, Monday through Friday for the month of March.

Sprout Question: How do YOU decide when it is right to share your creative efforts?

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Sandstone

February 24, 2010February 24, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 8 Comments

There is nothing more intriguing to my imagination than southern gulf island sandstone. The wearing and washing of the sea along island shorelines creates a beauty that is hard to replicate. With its abundance and ease to work with, sandstone is used for everything from walkways, front step, garden beds, to cob wall foundations. Our home, along with many others on the west coast, make practical use of this local natural material.

Yet, it is the sea that has the most talent in sculpturing this soft stone as shown in these photographs from East Point on Saturna Island.

View and purchase full resolution images here.

Sprout Question: What natural substance has draped you with creative possibilities?

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Heart

February 22, 2010February 23, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 8 Comments

Heart and home are frequently connected for me. Home is more than a place of dwelling, more than the place where I eat and where I sleep. Home is where I walk, talk, listen and breathe each day. Home is as much the earth’s surface, its beings, its presence as is any four walls I’ve called my own.

I often, without effort, find heart shapes in nature. This “found heart” image is from my latest photo shoot on Saturna Island, BC, Canada. “Cliff Echo Bay” is dedicated and gifted for use in her work to Laurie Buchanan who guides us to “listen with our heart.”

View and purchase full resolution image here.

On my cyber passage to writing this morning’s post, I went via a feature of Zennie in my on-line community of Gaia where I watched and listened to this Rumi poetry “The Way of the Heart.” I feel it is a perfect piece to include today.

And, as the sun touches down on the white frosted grass in the valley floor, another day begins here on Mayne Island in southwestern British Columbia, Canada.

Sprout Question: What is at the heart of your creativity?

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada