Storm Watching and its progress on a large canvas

December 9, 2013March 21, 2015 / Terrill Welch / 13 Comments

At 10:00 am today the morning light was not strong enough to work without the studio lamp. It is heavily overcast and last I checked there is a wee bit of snow expected. However, I was able to put the finishing brushstrokes on this large 30 x 40 inch oil on canvas painting this morning. It may be weeks before I can get a decent photograph of it so we will take a look now at the shiny-wet resting point of STORM WATCHING.

We may think that this painting began with this quick painting sketch on the canvas.

But we would be wrong. It all started on Friday December 6, 2013 at about this same time of day when the power went out. I was surprised as there was little wind at la casa de inspiracion. But then the email notifications started coming in with Ferry boat cancellation and they were for the Inside Passage which is not common at all. So I knew then that there had to be wind somewhere and took a guess that it was on the east side of the island.

Sure enough it was blowing a bit out there. But this isn’t the spot we need to be. We have to walk out to Campbell Point in the Gulf Island Park Reserve because the waves are break on the rocks in a big way. Let’s go and have a look. Dress warm and still expect to the wind to go right into a person’s bones and starts sawing away with an ice-cube.

Scrambling out onto a rock ledge the wind whips my big lens and me around with the same ferociousness as the sea. But I am determined. I hunker down low and steady myself against the roar. WILD SEAS WITH MOUNT BAKER IN THE DISTANCE

(Detailed view and quality prints available HERE.) There was no chance of using a tripod in these conditions. It was all up to my stabilizers and years of practice of framing and shooting waves. There wasn’t much time because I would get to cold to be able to work the camera and it was no place to be getting stiff and wobbly when I stood back up from where I was crouching. So steady does it. FULL STOP

(Detailed view and quality prints available HERE.) BREAKING OVER TWICE

(Detailed view and quality prints available HERE.) Sunday as in yesterday I pulled out the large canvas and placed it on the easel. I wanted the immediacy of this moment while it was still fresh to me on a cellular level.

The continuous motion of the winds and the sea stir sea-spray high up onto the cliffs above. I want that. I want that feeling of stirring and motion. I decided no underpainting so that spray would have the advantage of the white underneath. I had noticed the spray shadow in one of my reference images and took advantage of this to create additional depth. I worked on getting the painting down with as few brushstrokes as possible.

I want us to be slightly queasy from it as we are swayed in the waters and crash against the rocks within our viewing of this painting.

At the core there is a knowing and a thimble-size of silence which makes it bearable. This too shall pass. This is the stage that the painting rested overnight. This is where I started earlier this morning and finished at the first photograph which will not be its final of course. For this we must wait for better light.

UPDATE OCTOBER 13, 2014: Link to detailed viewing of the completed painting with purchase information and a link a short (less than six minutes) video where I talk about this painting can be found on the Terrill Welch Artist website HERE.

In conclusion, my Monday morning blessing is patience, admiration and determination. If we are willing to try we can most often do more than we believe we can. A large wave from a large canvas as you forge through the week ahead.

What are you determined to accomplish this week even if the winds of doubt are fierce?

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

Farm In Fog – pastoral landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Seaside Mayne Island – Large Canadian Landscape Oil Painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Chasing October Sun by the Sea – an en plein air oil painting (terrillwelchartist.com)

Large autumn seascape oil painting released Today – Sliced with a Tear

October 4, 2013October 4, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 4 Comments

Released today – Sliced with a Tear…

Terrill Welch

There is something about autumn by the sea with the gray melancholy wrapped in fall colours. This particular day is one of those slow-baked, melancholy west coast Sundays, so moist and tender you can slice it with a tear.

This is the first of four huge canvases I have completed over the past several months. I started this painting last year about this time but it was not completed until February. However, I was not ready yet to let it go out into the world. I coveted closely, showing it here, on my blog and to close friends, family and art collectors but it was not for sale. Today though, I am ready and I am releasing this painting to a good independently wealthy or willing-to-take-out-a-mortgage home. This is one large painting! 🙂

SLICED WITH A TEAR 36 x 60 inch oil on canvas

Updated February 25, 2014: This painting…

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Off to kick leaves and have a good visit

September 19, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 9 Comments

It is leaf kicking time! I am heading north for better than week to visit with family. With a bit of luck, I will come back with at least few photographs of brilliant autumn colours. I can’t make a promise but I can assure you that there is a good possibility.

In the meantime, I have been busy with a large stack of administrative work with little time to paint. But I do have a new large 60 x 36 inch oil on canvas resting called SEASIDE MAYNE ISLAND

It is not released yet and still needs a final photo shoot. I will also do a full work-in-progress post for us sometime in early October. Regardless of its newness and still “resting” status, I placed the painting in a prominent location last evening for a dinner we hosted with good friends and collectors of my paintings and photography.

The hit of the evening, after SEASIDE MAYNE ISLAND of course, was a new still life painting…

AUGUST STILL LIFE WITH CEZANNE AND MATISSE
36 x 24 inch oil on canvas

There are distinctive elements of Paul Cezanne‘s work that go far beyond his use of colour to represent form. He had a way of presenting different viewpoints in his compositions that was and is exciting. This is something that Henri Matisse continued to explore while allowing the paint to become colour fields of flat surfaces. At one point in the of the development of this work I had a choice. I could continue to build up the colour fields or I could continue to follow the light and movement within the landscape. Matisse of course was arguing for letting paint be paint in its colour and simplicity. Cezanne was slowly working his way into the tension of form and structure of the still life using colour as his guide. I observed. I thanked the masters. Then I picked up my brush and continued to paint the light and movement between the forms until the painting came to rest. Edges are currently unfinished and can be completed to meet your needs.

Detailed view and purchase information at:
http://www.artsyhome.com/product/August-Still-life-with-Cezanne-and-Matisse

Where might be your favourite Leaf-kicking stroll when the golden light is shining low through the trees?

Psst! I have also started working on my second art book. The working title is ANYTHING BUT NEUTRAL: Mayne Island in paintings and photographs, Volume Two. I have about 57 of the estimated 80 pages completed in draft form. Tentative release will be early November. I shall keep you posted as it progresses 🙂

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

August Still life with Cezanne and Matisse (terrillwelchartist.com)
Golden Plums An Apple And A Green Vase Still Life Painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Blackberries Golden Plums Transparent Apple Still Life Painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Seaside Mayne Island oil painting study by Terrill Welch (terrillwelchartist.com)
Recent sales of Terrill Welch oil paintings and pending price increase (terrillwelchartist.com)
Golden Plums Summer Flowers with Rilke Cezanne and Matisse (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
Morning In The Kitchen – Small Abstract Painting by Terrill Welch (terrillwelchartist.com)

Deep into the painting process of West Coast Blues rolling waves Oyster Bay

August 3, 2013March 10, 2018 / Terrill Welch / 9 Comments

Dear readers, I know you are used to regular posts about my work-in-progress and I admittedly have been more than a little tardy in supplying them.

However, I am hoping that this rather vulnerable, revealing exposure of the painting process for my latest large 36 x 72 inch oil on canvas WEST COAST BLUES ROLLING WAVES OYSTER BAY will make up for this.

I find it hard to define where a painting really begins as each work is usually in the middle of a longer artistic exploration and painterly discussion. But for the sake of starting somewhere let us start with March 3, 2013.

The waves are rolling midnight blue on one of those rare days when the winter sky is just right and the west coast mountains remain visible across the Strait of Georgia.

(Quality prints of this photograph in various formats are available HERE.)

Not long after this day a small 12 x 16 inch painting WEST COAST BLUES STUDY is completed.

(Quality unlimited prints of this painting study are available in various formats HERE.)

The painting SOLD still wet and “resting’ in less than 24 hours after it is completed. Fortunately, I am able to make arrangements to keep the painting in the studio as I prepare to work on the larger canvas. Sadly though, my external hard drive fails at this point and all but one other reference image of this scene are lost. I usually work with about 20 – 150 captures of a scene I want to paint but must now settle for two which includes this one…

Driven by the movement of the sea which is far greater than the camera can capture, I choose a primary composition to guide the large painting…

Several months after painting the small study, I begin to work up the underpainting and with modern technology I am going to take you with me.

Oh to get that energy on the canvas from the very beginning! We now must leave the underpainting to dry for a few days before, with bare feet and all, I am ready to start building the whole canvas up at once – mostly working wet-on-wet or alla prima.

I paint for several hours at a time as the canvas is mammoth to cover, even with using large brushes.

I am always happiest at this stage of any painting because the possibilities feel limitless and exhilarating. There are often smiling moments of gems like this detail that will eventually disappear as the painting progresses.

As always I am conscious of the light direction, the season and also the movement and energy resistances within a landscape. My desire is to have the viewer inside the painting rather than sitting comfortably as an observer of the scene. This next video clip hints at how I go about accomplishing this.

At this point I want to caution that what I am sharing here is how I paint and my painting process. It is not “the right way” or “the only way” but rather it is my way. Other artists have their own well-developed approaches and techniques that works for them just fine. So this sharing of my process is NOT a “how to” sharing but rather an intimate personal sharing of my own painting process. I am allowing you into my artist’s head and heart as I work.

I am now to the point where the painting is at risk of the painting tightening up more than I want…

I keep working adding some studio lighting to try to even out the light hitting the canvas.

I continue and time passes until my physical ability becomes fatigued and yet I am reluctant to quit.

I must eventually leave it and walk away until the next day when, with some help, I get the painting down the stairs of the loft studio and outside for a good look.

Now is as good a time as any to tell you that between the first painting study that I did as part of the reference work for this large painting I also painted fifteen other smaller works and of these seven or almost half are already in private collections.

In a moment, I will share two of these smaller paintings that I feel are most relevant to this specific work and that are still available for purchase. But first let’s set up the iPad again for one last video clip…

A nifty new use for my French Box easel 😉

My disappointment is almost overwhelming. The painting is not measuring up and I am unsure as to what to do about it. This is the hardest part of the process for me both in experience and to share. All the hours, days, weeks and months have left me with what I feel at this stage is an unsatisfactory result. This moment is not new to me as I mention in the video. It is a common experience I have at or near the end of a painting. What to do? I wait it out by placing the painting where I look at it while working on other paintings.

This leaves me with one of the two other significant small studies that I mentioned early.

END OF STORM GEORGINA POINT MAYNE ISLAND 8 x 10 inch oil on canvas was painted midway through.

Update July 16, 2017: This painting is now SOLD and is in a private collection in Norway.

THE MT. BAKER REACH 8 x 10 inch oil on canvas was painted during that difficult resting period of uncertainty.

Update October 8, 2013: This painting is now SOLD to a private art collector in California U.S. A.

Somehow, unknown to even me I was able to determine what I needed to do on the larger canvas because of the work on particularly the second of these two small landscapes of the sea. After several days of letting the painting “rest” I went back in and did another day’s work and came away much more satisfied with the final results. The relationship between these smaller works and the large painting is best observed in these details from the larger work.

Detail one and each of the following details are about 15 X 20 inch portions of the overall 36 x 72 inch canvas.

Detail 2 with a good slice of the land, sea, sky relationship.

Detail 3 with an up close view of the water movement.

Detail 4 showing the largest rolling wave.

Recently a studio visitor asked how had I learned to paint water. I gave my best effort to explain that in order to paint something with its energy and with conviction I become that element and I feel the tension that surrounds it in relation to other aspects of its environment. This is a process of painting the light and space between the forms evident in a painting rather than painting the forms themselves.

Detail 5 showing a small piece of the sky.

Now I must leave for 10 days. I will not look at the painting and with a wee bit of luck I won’t even think about it.

Okay, here we are. It is August 3, 2013, five months after I began formulating the reference material for this painting and a total of sixteen smaller paintings and two larger paintings have been completed besides this largest of the large work. I have walked around the painting and allowed it to surprise me. I have had more than a handful of individuals through my home studio and I have seen the impact the work has as its presence reaches them.

Finally, though I may privately wish the painting was more, I am ready to say it is complete. Done. Ready to stand on its own.

Please allow me to introduce you to WEST COAST BLUES ROLLING WAVES OYSTER BAY 36 x 72 inch oil on canvas

Update January 16, 2014: This painting has now been release on my website Terrill Welch Artist post “Sea Tree and Fruit – new paintings by Terrill Welch”

What creative process has held your attention over the past five months?

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

Seaside Mayne Island oil painting study by Terrill Welch (terrillwelchartist.com)
Underpainting With Love and Kindess (intothebardo.wordpress.com)
Sold – BLUE LAST small Canadian Landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Alla Prima – The Perfect “In The Moment” Technique (longdensarronart.wordpress.com)

Sunday roses in June at la casa de inspiracion

June 9, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 13 Comments

I woke this morning with a full day to fill as I choose. No commitments that can’t wait until tomorrow. No restlessness I feel driven to address. Today is for June roses, quiet cups of tea, twittering birds, long strolls and simple meals. Today is for being charmed by the delicate strengths of a moment. At the gate is a pavement rose puffed with blossoms with petals on her toes.

I linger over a fine red bud.

Then swoon down to a singular red beauty.

Dipping even closer, her fragrance tingles my sense of mystery and wonder.

This pink pavement rose is not the only hearty soul in the garden though. There is of course “The Grandma Rose,” a most resilient Scottish Brier rose. Her small white buds are determined to drag our focus from the neighbouring greenery.

She is resourceful in her attention-getting ways. The fragrance from these two-inch white balls comes no finer. Let’s see… oh, here is one. Now smell.

Perfect! Right?

The roses this morning remind me of the delicate balance of my week – a painting passing its final test of suitability for a new home. A new small painting resting on the easel.

End of Storm Georgina Point Mayne Island resting 8 x 10 oil on canvas

Two paintings released for sale over at Terrill Welch Artist…

New Growth West Coast in late May 8 x 8 inch oil on gessobord

From Felix Jack Road Mayne Island 14 x 11 oil on canvas

(For the curious and serious fans and collectors alike, links to detailed views and purchase information for these two paintings are posted over at Terrill Welch Artist. )

Equally important to this delicately balanced week, my husband is happily spade-deep in a project and my Saturday was spent with a good friend.

This pretty much wraps up what is blooming in my corner of the world. I am contemplating taking a wee bit of time off but this will not be until July. In the meantime, for my everyday, I wish it to be much like this week.

What is blooming in your creative corner of the world?

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

Remember Untold Mystery – Canadian Landscape Painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Sister oil paintings of Tulips on the Springwater Deck Mayne Island (terrillwelchartist.com)
New Growth West Coast in late May – Canadian landscape oil painting (terrillwelchartist.com)
Winter Sun II west coast Canada Landscape Painting (terrillwelchartist.com)

Working on THE EDGE can offer some interesting possibilities

May 14, 2013September 25, 2016 / Terrill Welch / 10 Comments

There is a sandstone bluff, battered by the wind and sea but also hosts a familiar arbutus tree on its top most tip. THE EDGE, a rare large, long-lean 48 X 24 inch oil on canvas painting to out of my studio. In fact, I almost couldn’t reach the top when it was on the easel and had to squat yoga style to paint the bottom quarter of the canvas. Further more, it was not possible to paint it upstairs on my French Box easel. This canvas called for taking over the great room with my large portable easel which I have had since graduating from high school. Shall we have look at how it all came about?

As usual I am not all that keen on sketching in my compositions and prefer either a loose underpainting or just a few paint lines to guide me. In this case, I chose a few paint lines to get started before starting to added in some blues for the sky and other patches on the canvas.

It most certainly doesn’t look like much yet. But I am hopeful and the day is young.

The deliberate addition of red in these specific areas of the canvas will serve two purposes. The first is to pull out the red pigment that is already part of the stones and the bottom of the trunk of the arbutus tree. The second is to gradual in a very subtle way bring in the warmth of the evening light over the whole of the scene. It is now time to start building up some colour blocks and just get that paint on the canvas!

This particular stage in any painting is the most demanding. The paint catches on the dry canvas and seems to drag the paint off the brush. On a canvas this size it seems to take forever to build up the bulk of the painting so it can be completed alla prima or wet-in-wet.

My body starts to physically tire from the long stretches of painting and reaching to move across the whole canvas as I work. The day moves on hour after hour. I break for lunch. I move the canvas around a bit to keep it out of the direct sun coming through the skylight. I then keep going until finally – it comes alive. Shiny and wet I can now leave it to rest.

In the morning I make a few more adjustments and remove it from the great room downstairs and place it on a chair to lean against the wall in the loft studio.

I look at it for a few more days and decide it is done!

One of the hard things about a painting this size is to give it enough context that a viewer can imagine what kind of space it will take up once it is hung. So I took one last photograph before calling the work-in-progess on THE EDGE painting complete.

(Updated December 13, 2015 following a reworking of this painting)

After my confidence that this work was completed, done, finished, I came back to it for another painting session. Here it is in the great room following its most recent transformation.

The Edge still on the easel in the studio of Canadian Artist Terrill Welch

The final image along with links to a detailed view and purchase information are available at Terrill Welch Artist in the post “The Edge and At The Beach Another Time – Canadian landscape paintings”

The post includes the release of a second painting and a quick nod to two more that are now safely in their new homes.

What Edges have you contemplated recently?

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

The Edge and At The Beach Another Time – Canadian landscape paintings (terrillwelchartist.com)
Oil landscape paintings – three new releases and three to ship (terrillwelchartist.com)
More Canadian Landscape paintings by Terrill Welch SOLD! (terrillwelchartist.com)

February 21, 2013February 21, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 5 Comments

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

Related articles

At Dusk a small Canadian landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)

Evening and the Arbutus Tree – a large west coast oil painting (terrillwelchartist.com)

Sliced with a Tear – a large autumn Canadian landscape painting (terrillwelchartist.com)

Unraveling the artistic influences and intentions behind the painting EVENING AND THE ARBUTUS TREE (creativepotager.wordpress.com)

Terrill Welch

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

FOG INSIDE PASSAGE

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ArtWork Archive original paintings and acrylic sketches

Redbubble photography and painting prints and merchandise

Work in progress BLOG –

Creative Potager – first place new work is unveiled. Subscribe to stay current.

CONTACT THE ARTIST DIRECTLY

If desired, original work can often be purchased directly from Terrill Welch. Please contact Terrill for personalized service.

Winter Afternoon West Coast Ferry Home oil painting

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Doing a Henri Matisse in three new paintings

January 2, 2013January 2, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 23 Comments

There is some much pressure on artists to be consistent in their body of work. Galleries like it as it is easy to show. Patrons like it because it is familiar with other work by the artist that they love. But artists, at least this artist, do not necessarily like it. There is something awkward and unfamiliar with limiting palette and stylistic expression to such a narrow range that the work is immediately recognized as coming from the same creative process. Somehow the painting process often unfolds in quite a different manner.

Today, I did what I refer to as “doing a Henri Matisse” which is the process of digging as deeply as possible in a variety of directions to find what best way to interpret my subject, my desire and my intention.

It started with a reworking of “At The Beach” a plein air painting that had fallen out of my favour.

There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with this painting but again, there wasn’t anything particularly right either. So I used it a foundation for today’s warm up which was no small task since I had taken a lengthy painting break during the seasonal holidays. Here is the resting results of my efforts.

“At the Beach another Time” 12 x 12 inch oil on canvas resting.

I now am much happier with how the light bounces across the canvas. I like the deep contrasts and the mystery the painting evokes as the sun rests off to my right shoulder on this August day.

Next, I took on a late December sunrise. I wanted to use bold decisive strokes that would give the sense of a colours woven together by sea, sky and the morning sun.

“Late December West Coast Sunrise” resting 6 x 6 inch oil on gessobord resting.

The change in palette and foundation from canvas to gessobord gives me the freedom to devour the winter sky with my brush. It is not about getting it right but rather about getting it live.

Then the final painting of the day came with yet another change in how I use my tools. The palette knife edged and sculptured my subject while the brush smoothed it back into its environment.

“Pear Trees in Winter First Light” 8 x 10 inch oil on canvas resting.

So there you have it. Today’s work in all its alla prima glory. Are they finished paintings? Maybe or maybe not. It matters not. This artist’s curiosity has been has been satisfied, at least for today.

Henri Matisse would be pleased I think. Matisse’s vast oeuvre encompassed painting, drawing, sculpture, graphic arts (as diverse as etchings, linocuts, lithographs, and aquatints), paper cutouts, and book illustration. His varied subjects comprised landscape, still life, portraiture, domestic and studio interiors, and particularly focused on the female figure. In fact, it might be easier to show the range and diversity of his work than to lump it together into a gallery and patron series. This is not to say he did not do several paintings of the same subject. Indeed he did paint the same subject sometimes several times. But each time he handled it with sometimes significant differences in his search of “true painting.”

Matisse’s career can be divided into several periods that changed stylistically, but his underlying aim always remained the same: to discover “the essential character of things” and to produce an art “of balance, purity, and serenity,” as he himself put it in his “Notes of a Painter” in 1908.

Reverence: The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954).

I can resonate with this underlying aim and if a painter is to discover “the essential character of things” it stands to reason that the approach, the palette of pigments and the tools will vary. It would also make sense I would think that the subject of inquiry would not be rendered at the same time of day or year and that a viewer might possibly be able to intuit the specifics of light and season if they were familiar with such subtleties. Therefore, at no time in the near future are you likely to see 20 or 30 of my paintings that look like they were spawn by the same in-bred tribe of pigments, canvases and brushstrokes.

Henri Matisse’s paintings are now showing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This exhibition, which curator Rebecca Rabinow has 49 paintings that Matisse made in pairs or trios between 1899-1948. As mentioned, he often painted and repainted the same theme in multiple styles, sometimes halting work on one painting only to continue on another, and preserving much of his own process along the way.

When was the last time that you did a Henri Matisse?

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

‘Matisse: In Search of True Painting’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (galleristny.com)
Did Matisse Ever Reach “True Painting”? (bigthink.com)
NY Matisse Exhibition Examines The French Artist’s Creative Process (on.aol.com)

Reef Bay Mayne Island observation to painted experience

December 9, 2012March 26, 2013 / Terrill Welch / 8 Comments

When do observations transform into renderings of full experiences? This is the question I ask myself while I am gathering references for my next painting. I observe. I take a total of 57 photographs. Though all are important, one later becomes my primary painting reference.

What pixels actually hold the smell of the sea and cry of the gulls?

I capture a video just over a minute in length. Later I choose a piece of music to go with it.

At what point in this process of creating a video reference did I move from observing to experiencing?

I return to the studio and rummage through my blank canvases. Eventually, I choose an 11 x 14 inch and set it upon the easel. I squeeze out the oil paint onto the palette. I listen to the video. I glance at the photograph. I pick up my brush.

Quickly and without hesitation the landscape is blocked in. Swiftly my body engages in the visceral process of painting wet-on-wet. Swish, swish and swish. I move back and forth across the studio to peer at the forms sliding off my brush onto the canvas. I remember the gray dawn with its slimness of colour. I remember the sea, and the soft rush of water as it comes ashore. I remember the heaviness of the rocks and the salty dampness of winter seaweed. I feel the coolness of the air and the cry of the gulls. Which strokes will hold the promise of a this day? Which strokes carry the sounds and the material weight of substance? Which strokes follow the soft light across the seascape. Oh, how I wonder!

Then it is done.

Too soon my logic bullies. There must be more!

But, two days have passed. I have not touched the canvas, not because technical correction would not lead to a more accurate rendering of the physical setting. Rather I do not alter the painting because nothing more is needed to render the fulness of my experience. It is done.

REEF BAY MORNING EXPERIENCED December 7, 2012 – 14 x 18 inch oil on canvas

Oh, I will photograph it again once it is completely dry and on a brighter day. But the painting of the painting is done. If I want to do more it shall be on another canvas.

What observations are you currently rendering into the fulness of your experience?

It is December 9th today and the great room is in disarray with packages to be wrapped and shipped. It is the time for this artist to begin her holiday break. I shall be back in the New Year to share more painting and photography adventured.

For now, the best of the holiday season to you and yours – one and all!

ONLINE GALLERIES with Terrill Welch paintings and photography include-

Xanadu Studio Gallery for large original paintings

Artsy Home for most original oil paintings currently available

Redbubble for photography prints, greeting cards and posters

Current Local Mayne Island VENUES –

Green House Restaurant – small original oil paintings and photography prints

Farm Gate Store – one large painting

And by appointment at Terrill Welch’s home studio

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.

Purchase photography at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Creative Potager – Visit with painter and photographer Terrill Welch

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

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

SLICED WITH A TEAR autumn oil painting and process by Terrill Welch (creativepotager.wordpress.com)
What do original paintings of Emily Carr, A.Y. Jackson, Lawren Harris and Terrill Welch have in common? (creativepotager.wordpress.com)

Storm Clouds over Strait of Georgia – postcard oil painting by Terrill Welch

November 30, 2012November 30, 2012 / Terrill Welch / 6 Comments

The oil on paper painting “Storm Clouds over Strait of Georgia” is such a small surface at 12 x 16 cm it ends up feeling abstract when viewed this close. I have smoothed down some of the meringue type edges since taking this photograph but this is basically it and it is now drying in preparation to be be shipped to the #twitterartexhibit in L.A.

To learn more about this event that was started a few years by David Sandum go to the Twitter Art Exhibit website: http://twitterartexhibit.org

Also…. PRECIOUS SECONDS – Mayne Island in Paintings and Photographs

To help make your holiday season merrier – here is a code that gives you $10 off my book: GIVE10 at:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2457715

Note: Offer valid through December 12, 2012 (11:59 p.m. local time). Valid for printed books only. A $10 discount is applied to your product total with a minimum purchase of $50. This offer is good for one-time use, and cannot be combined with volume discounts, other promotional codes, gift cards, or used for adjustments on previous orders.

Or you can just drop by and enjoy a browse through the full book for free… however, the browse won’t spark conversation like the hard copy given as a gift or resting on your coffee table. Do enjoy either way! 🙂

Plus… this weekend and every weekend until Christmas I am participating in Weekend Art Market Place on G+. What this means is I will be highlighting a painting on each day in the Artsy Home online Gallery with such incentives as free shipping over the weekend. You can check out the posts by circling me on G+ or having a browse through the comment section here each day.

Not sure how to begin purchasing original painting? Here is my personal collection of seven tips to making collection original art an easy and fun decision that you execute with confidence.

If you could wave a magic wand, what particular Terrill Welch painting or photograph would you like to add to your collection this season?

Have a most wonderful weekend!

ONLINE GALLERIES with Terrill Welch paintings and photography include-

Xanadu Studio Gallery for large original paintings

Artsy Home for most original oil paintings currently available

Redbubble for photography prints, greeting cards and posters

Current Local Mayne Island VENUES –

Green House Restaurant – small original oil paintings and photography prints

Farm Gate Store – one large painting

And by appointment at Terrill Welch’s home studio

Liberal usage granted with written permission. See “About” for details.