Paint

Interview with Terrill Welch by Bill Maylone

/ Terrill Welch / 23 Comments

It is not the cover of the Rolling Stones but for Mayne Island it is the next best thing. It is the kind of coverage that a person casually hands a copy over to family with a smile and a shrug. I figure blog friends are a close second to family when it comes to being supportive. So with a quiet, lopsided grin… following is an interview by Bill Maylone for our local monthly magazine – the MayneLiner. Plus, my oil painting “Henderson Hill” made the cover.

Bill knows art and is an excellent writer so I was thrilled when he asked to come by and see the paintings for the STUDY of BLUE solo exhibition and to interview me for an article. Enjoy!

 

TCAC (Trincomali Community Arts Council)

Art On Mayne by Bill Maylone

Terrill Welch, who is active in the Trincomali Community Council and other Mayne Islandgroups, is an accomplished painter, photographer and writer. She has sold paintings to patrons as far away as New York and Switzerland. Her method of working and her finished work intimately reflects her relationship to her subjects. Terrill moved to Mayne Island with her partner, David Colussi, in May 2007. “I need to have access to a natural world and to have a relationship with the environment”. Looking down from her back deck, in a view framed by large Douglas fir trees, eagles fly in wide spirals above Meadowmist Farm. Its fields and meadows are dotted with sheep and deer, and beyond Heck Hill across the valley, a distant squall sweeps across Navy Channel. Here, and in her exploration of the Southern Gulf Islands, she finds the inspiration and the subject matter for her work as an artist.

She always carries a camera when she’s exploring the Islands. “Digital photography really changed the way I go about painting. It was never practical to take a lot of photos of a subject for reference because of the cost and time and inconvenience of chemical photography. So I’d draw a lot of sketches at a location to try to capture the essence of a place or a subject to help me remember what it was like and what I saw. Reference photos are useful, but you need to take a lot of them. I’ve taken up to 120 for one painting. Each one gives you a different angle on the subject, but no single one captures what I try to express through the painting that ultimately ends up on the canvas.”

She begins a painting by exuberantly spreading a thin layer of blue, cadmium yellow or orange paint across a canvas or hardboard surface. One advantage she finds in using oils is that they dry slowly, allowing her lots of time to play with the paint and gradually work recognizable shapes out of the suggestive abstract forms on the surface. The technique, known as underpainting, creates a foundation on which other layers of paint are built upon. It also sets up a basic emotional tone through the use of colour.

The painting process is an active and physical one for Terrill, and it relates to how she perceives her subjects. “I like to work standing up because it lets me dance around the painting and look at it from a variety of perspectives. When you visit a place, you don’t see it from just one angle; every time you take a step or move your head, new parts are revealed to you. The place itself is active, too: the waves and clouds are always changing. The wind moves the leaves. The light is different each moment.”

She works the whole canvas at once, which tends to give her pieces a strong sense of unity. She explains, “I don’t worry about trying to get some detail just right. It’s bringing along the entire painting as a whole that’s important.” What emerges is not intended to be a photorealistic image, but an impressionistic and emotional picture of not only what she sees, but of what she feels about the subject. “The painting I create reveals my relationship to a place.”

Her solo exhibition titled, “Study of Blue”, a collection of new and recent paintings, opens at the Oceanwood Resort at 7 p.m., Thursday, June 30th, and it runs until July 27th.
Why blue? “It’s a personal thing. There’s something deeply emotional to me about blue. It’s a visceral experience that I want to share with others.”….

 

Note: This article was published in the MayneLiner Magazine Volume 21 – Number 6, June 2011 on page 51. It has been posted here with permission.

 

Sprout question: If you could be interviewed by anyone, who would it be and why?

 

STUDY OF BLUE solo exhibition opens Thursday June 30, 2011.

 

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

FromMayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com

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An invitation to buy a painting

/ Terrill Welch / 14 Comments

I am as giddy as a bee nose-first in a newly opened rose. Only 18 more sleeps.

Yes, I am inviting you to my art opening on June 30th at 7:00 pm. Yes, I would love to see you. Yes, I will give you a glass of wine, slivers of local cheeses along with dozen other tasty nibbles and a personal tour of my work. Yes, I have made it possible for you to buy these paintings online without coming to my solo exhibition STUDY of BLUE. It is a big world. Not all of you can travel the distance to arrive here on Mayne Island. I do this because I am selling my paintings. This is my personal invitation to you. I am inviting you to buy one of my original oil paintings. There you have it – right smack dab between the eyes 🙂

No matter how carefully a gallery or artist dresses up an invitation to an art exhibition, the price tag always seems to be visible. Yet, we both know the paintings must be sold, if not today, then someday. This is the practical side of Art.

To be practical something must be straight forward and if possibly – easy. Therefore, I am going to make it as easy as possible for you to research and decide on a painting to buy. I have prepared a special post on my gallery site which includes an essential link to all of the painting images with a “buy button,” a link to the price list, a link to tips for buying original paintings and a link to directions. If you need anything else, let me know and I will be glad to assist.

Ah! There! It wasn’t so bad was it? At least I hope it wasn’t. It had better not have been. Maybe it was? Oh heck Terrill! Just click post.

Please feel free to share with others who love and collect art, in particular original oil paintings.

Sprout question: What creative reality is hitting you smack dab between the eyes?

STUDY OF BLUE solo exhibition opens Thursday June 30, 2011.

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

FromMayne Island,British Columbia,Canada

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com

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AUTUMN BOUNTY and COURTNEY IN THE MOONLIGHT by Sue Wiebe

/ Terrill Welch / 17 Comments

As promised here are two more original oil paintings on canvas by artist Sue Wiebe.

Learning and practicing how to create depth and shadow is an ongoing process for most of us that apply paint to canvas or paper. COURTNEY IN THE MOONLIGHT provides a direct work out for this artistic muscle.

COURTNEY IN THE MOONLIGHT, 12 X 16 inch original oil painting, by Sue Wiebe

Well done Sue! Exquisite!

Sue painted this next oil painting, AUTUMN BOUNTY, during the time that she was working on WATCHING, the painting of the cougar.  There are only so many hours an artist can paint fur before there is an unrelenting desire to break free. This painting certainly does this in spades.

AUTUMN BOUNTY, 11 by 14 inch original oil painting on canvas, by Sue Wiebe.

I have AUTUMN BOUNTY as my laptop background at the moment and smile every time I sit down to do some work.

Sue, thank you for being our feature artist this week. It is always a pleasure to have you here at Creative Potager. I look forward to seeing your work in person in a week from now. There is nothing like a studio walk and a face-to-face viewing.

Sprout question: What creative muscle are you exercising at the moment?

STUDY OF BLUE  solo exhibition opens Thursday June 30, 2011.

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

FromMayne Island,British Columbia,Canada

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com

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Story of the HENDERSON HILL Original Oil Painting

/ Terrill Welch / 37 Comments

Have you every had that feeling where you know you have made a mess of something and there is nothing you can do but start over again? My painting of HENDERSON HILL has come out of such an experience.

The beginning started reasonably well. I had decided to do my underpainting in blues so I could paint on it wet.

The elements of the composition settled into place without much trouble.

I continued to paint, working happily away until…

It was a mess. I poked and dabbed and added and moved the paint around on the board. It did no good. The painting appeared to be resisting my best efforts. There was nothing left to do. I scraped.

But the idea for this painting still intrigued me. I waited. This past Saturday, ten days after my first attempt, I try again. It needs some finishing touches but I believe it will make a painting.

Yesterday, I finished it.

(prints available of this image here)

HENDERSON HILL 20 X 16 inch original water miscible impressionist oil painting on gessobord with 2 inch birch cradle by Terrill Welch.

This painting will be part of my upcoming solo exhibition “STUDY OF BLUE” opening June 30, 2011 at the Oceanwood Resort onMayneIsland. The painting is currently priced at $900 Canadian. Please contact me directly at tawelch AT shaw DOT ca if you would like to hang this lovely on your wall.

Sprout question: When was the last time you walked away from a creative mess?

UPDATE May 15, 2011:

Every once in awhile a special connection is made between a painting and another creative being. In this case it is with poet and more, Bat-Ami Gordin

Henderson Hill

On Henderson Hill any time of the year
  the branches arabesque in the breeze.
Birds boldly appear, on the tips of twigs
  that smear into clouds from the trees.
As a doe grazes calmly with her twins,
  the heavens and sky, seem to  freeze.
Prepare your mind to paint serenity;
  equanimity pacifies enduring unease.

© 2011 Bat-Ami Gordin, All rights reserved.

Posted with permission. You may have notice her poem posted in the comments below but I decided it needed to also be places up here next to the painting. Thank you so much Bat-Ami Gordin! It is an honour to connect in such a collaborative way.

This week is jammed! There is voting on Monday and going to pick up the truck. Dentist appointments on Tuesday and a full day of meetings and commitments on Wednesday. I shall be able to get back into the studio on Thursday IF I am lucky. Who knows what I will have to share on Friday. We shall just have to wait and see. Have a wonderful week everyone.

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

FromMayne Island,British Columbia,Canada

Terrill Welch online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com

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SALISH SEA 4 original oil painting by Terrill Welch

/ Terrill Welch / 14 Comments

I am introducing the painting process of SALISH SEA 4 with a quote from Elizabeth Rosner’s book Blue Nude published in 2006:

It was what he admired about Bonnard, or at least what he loved about the famous stories in which Bonnard was applying paint to works already hanging in other people’s houses. Something about never letting go, always feeling there was one more stroke to be added, one more note of the Unfinished Symphony. As if even death wouldn’t be the ultimate form of completion but just another stop along the way.

(p. 58)

The underpainting that is the foundation of this 24 X 48 inch canvas was included in Monday’s post “The Breath of Stones.” There are 10 images in today’s post capturing the beginning to end… if there is one… of creating SALISH SEA 4. I will make an effort to be brief but there seems to be much to say.

They are a little hard to see but the top right paints are French Ultramarine blue and Viridian. These two colours will play prominently in the development of today’s painting. I sometimes use my own photographs for painting reference but I am not known to “paint” a photograph. I often take several reference images for paintings — similar to how artists used to sketch and then use these as reference for developing a painting when they got back to the studio. Though sometimes a painting may be close to the reference image, the photographs are meant to influence and guide but to not to be copied. Otherwise, I might as well keep the photograph and print it on canvas …. and sometimes I do just that!

Are you ready? She’s a bit bright but here we go …

A gray beginning and it doesn’t look like much yet.

I am using mostly a 2 inch brush here. My aim is to keep the painting loose and flowing. The small palette knife you see there is just being used for mixing. Now to add a little teal blue.

Working for a long while and equally using a #10 brush, along with my 2 inch brush,  I get basic elements of the painting in place.

A part of me wanted to pause right here and not go any further. But after a break I decided to keep working.

Picking up the large 2 inch brush again I whisk paint onto the canvas in big strokes. The sea is rolling in and I am riding each wave. If you remember my challenge was to bring the viewer into the painting from the top left and move their eye forward and down to the bottom right. See at the end if you think I have succeeded.

I have started working with three different large palette knives to build up selected texture. Then I add some highlights but the painting is saturated. There is a glare from bright sunlight and my body and being are tired.

It is time to stop – for now.

Over the next two days I spend a few hours adding a stroke here and there. I brighten up areas that have become muted from painting wet on wet. Mostly, I observe, feel, breathe and let it be.

Then on Thursday morning I started in early painting and had it finished in a couple of hours.

Well, almost… I think!

SALISH SEA 4, a 24 X 48 inch cotton canvas original oil painting by Terrill Welch. This painting will be shown as part of solo summer exhibition opening at the end of June. If you are interested in purchasing in advance of the show please contact me directly via email at tawelch AT shaw DOT ca .

This is one painting dear readers, that I suspect more than one of you will be completely enamored with an earlier version. But that is how it goes when you are privy to the creative process of a painter.

I dedicate this painting to French Impressionist painter Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) who also favoured using violet in some of his painting.

SALISH SEA 4 is definitely another stop along my way.

Sprout question: How is your creativity just another stop along the way?

Happy April fools day and best of the weekend to you!

News Flash: Introducing Terrill Welch’s Online Gallery at http://terrillwelchartist.com (okay it is a small flash… there is still a lot of inventory to enter but it would be great to hear what you think)

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

When the Sun Comes Out

/ Terrill Welch / 10 Comments

First, thank you everyone who zipped, shone light, sent energy and prayers to Josie this week. I believed she has turned the corner and is on the mend. Whaaaahoooo!

The week started out with much reorganizing to make room to paint my 24 X 48 inch cotton canvas.

The composition has been adjusted somewhat but the reference photograph you see of  “stones throw” with the canvas is the one I am using for this next painting. There will be much less sky for sure. It will be challenge because the movement is from the far outer top left moving forward across the canvas to the near bottom right – towards the viewer. I am excited to see if I can make it work.

Then something happened. There was this unusual yellow glow in the sky on Tuesday morning. I was pretty sure it was the sun but I couldn’t be positive because that brilliant addition overhead hadn’t been seen in these parts for quite some time. Well, nothing would do but we had to go down to the beach and check it out. On the way we stopped to check out the field of daffodils.

They were almost open but if we check back to last year on March 11th they were already in full flower long before this time last year. However, they are coming along just the same. This sun will certainly help.

Now let’s go to the beach. Wow! The tide is way out.

David went to stroll along the shore while I clambered over the sandstone reef. I found some beautiful barnacles, mussels and snails.

(the image “BARNACLES, MUSSELS AND SNAILS” may be purchased here.)

I liked this image so much it is my desktop background right now. There were lots of oysters too but I didn’t photograph them – muddy gray looking critters.

I can never get enough of the contrast of sandstone and blue sky. Sigh!

But this is show stopper for me. I was just sitting on the rocks relaxing before heading home when I turned my head back to the sea and this is what I saw…

(the image “VESSEL” may be purchased here.)

The natural abstract beauty had me exclaiming “Yes!” before I could even get my camera out of its case. Martha Marshall this one was captured because of you and your consistent influence on my understanding of abstract design. Thank you!

I did finally get back to my canvas and the underpainting is now ready for a good run of painting next week.

Have a great weekend and I hope you find some sun!

Sprout question: What is the most outrageous creative adventure you have ever blamed on the sun?

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

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HEAVY CLOUD original oil painting by Terrill Welch

/ Terrill Welch / 22 Comments

I remember being asked one time to paint a scary monster. It was a class exercise to get us out of the habit of creating beautiful paintings. I had a horrible time. I painted a dragon-type monster. The instructor laughed a deep belly laughed and told me it was a great monster but would not likely scare anyone. I think my painting “HEAVY CLOUD” has also suffered from my optimistic nature. It is obviously heavy cloud but not very dreary.

Let’s have a look…

Starting with the underpainting you saw on Monday I began building up the painting.

It isn’t really making a lot of sense yet but feels good so I keep going.

Then I painted for a long while. I left it to rest overnight and I did a few minor edits. I believe it is done. But I reserve the right to change my mind.

HEAVY CLOUD 10X12 by 1.5 inches, cotton canvas original oil painting by Terrill Welch

This painting will be shown as part of solo summer exhibition opening at the end of June. If you are interested in purchasing in advance of the show please contact me directly via email at tawelch AT shaw DOT ca . The price of this work is $420 Canadian unframed.

I most often see a little light coming in from somewhere no matter how gray it gets. There is just a touch of sun catching the sky above the mountains and it is coming to rest on the tips of just a few of the great coastal peaks so we are sure not to miss it. It seems to be saying – tomorrow is another day.

Have a great weekend!

Sprout question: What creatively allows you to express dreariness, gloominess or your darker side?

 

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

 

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Impression of an Artist

/ Terrill Welch / 24 Comments

Week after week I visit myself on the canvas of a painting, through the frame of an image or between the words of a paragraph. Do these impressions provide any further insight into my being and my interpretation of my world?

I like to think they do. I like to believe that these creative endeavors cast at least a shadow of truth on what I often think of as my core essence – that part of me that isn’t body or earth-bound in this life time. But is this really a possible truth?

As the paint is chosen, mixed and applied without thought, I like to believe there is a subconscious part of me that knows what it is doing. But maybe it is all accidental fragments of my conscious mind colliding with the paint, the canvas and the movement of my brush.

I am doing a study of blue – a series on the shades of blue. What I am discovering is that blue is more than a colour. Blue is a spiritual void for reflection… as I paint the sea… the shadows of the trees… or the sky. If I had known how wide this void would open up, would I have committed to the series?

Ah, no point in musing about what might have been.

This week I have one 10 X 12 inch cotton canvas underpainting ready for completion. In my imagination the heavy clouds press down with formidable force over the dark seas. May I be able to hold this moment long enough to reach in and pull out something that is the essence of me, of you and of the very world itself.

Sprout question: What impression best describes your creative self?

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Salish Sea 3 original oil painting by Terrill Welch

/ Terrill Welch / 14 Comments

From start to finish a painting often has many pauses. Salish Sea 3 is a prime example as this small 8 X 10 inch seascape oil painting took two weeks from start to finish – mostly “resting.”

I begin as usual by working the underpainting.

In this series of paintings I have been inspired to paint the sky first and work into the picture from this vantage point. This isn’t a usual approach from me but it is what has been happening for the past two paintings. So we will go with it.

Next I start building up the blues.

As I continue to work a context is created for the painting to begin to breathe on its own.

Sorry about the bad photograph. I was having trouble with some glare from the light coming through the window of  the studio. Note to self: holding a painting and photographing it is not a useful strategy to resolve glare.

I begin to find my way into the painting – it is like running your hands over your bedding in the half-light of early dawn. You know where you are but there isn’t enough light to see beyond a few vague familiar shadows.

This is most often the place I pause. There is an excitement that rises from my bones and spreads up to the hairs on top of my head. I watch and wait sometimes only for a moment, sometimes stopping for tea and sometimes stopping until the paint dries. Today it was only long enough for tea. I wanted to work in the waves wet on wet.

Now it is time for a rest. It is a rest that last for nine days. I puzzle and muse. I move the painting around to different locations. I sleep on it. I glower at it. The painting is “okay… I guess” but it doesn’t have the SNAP I would like it to have. Finally, I decide what it is and what I need to do. A couple of small changes really. I will leave you to discover them if you choose. Or you can simply enjoy the finished work.

Salish Sea 3,  8 X 10 inch cotton canvas  original oil painting by Terrill Welch.

This painting will be shown as part of solo summer exhibition opening at the end of June. If you are interested in purchasing in advance of the show please contact me directly via email at tawelch AT shaw DOT ca . The price of this work is $280 Canadian unframed.

As for my other intentions, I started another underpainting but the taxes and tune up for Miss Prissy had to be rescheduled for next week. As my father would say “it’s just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.”

But this is far too light-hearted as I pause for a moment send light to Japan and all areas experiencing the impact of the 8.9 quake and tsunami. This post was written before I heard the news last night on twitter about an hour after the earthquake off the northeast coast of Japan.

Sprout question: Where might your creativity need a pause?

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

ONE original oil painting by Terrill Welch

/ Terrill Welch / 18 Comments

In a studying the shades of blue this painting of ONE has been the most demanding so far. It required the ability to work with four different blues to create the rich depth and reflections. I have little to say other than I am pleased with the results.

Palette for ONE

Beginning to work the underpainting

Working it a bit more.

Starting to get a feel for it.

Many hours later.

Making some minor corrections and time for a rest.

I came back to the painting the first thing the next day and finished it…. ta da!

ONE 24 X 36 inch cotton canvas original oil painting by Terrill Welch

This painting will be shown as part of solo summer exhibition opening at the end of June. If you are interested in purchasing in advance of the show please contact me directly via email at tawelch AT shaw DOT ca . The price of this work is $2,400 unframed.

UPDATE: Painting is now available in the ART OF DAY online gallery HERE.

Sprout question: What creative work is currently pushing you to the edges of your abilities?

NOTE: Last evening my original oil painting WHISPER sold to a couple in celebration of their wedding anniversary. I’m happy see it going to a most loving home.

© 2011 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada