Terrill Welch

New Small Painting Study of Mussels and Waves

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Monday, 12 October 2026

It is Canadian Thanksgiving today and I have begun a new painting about something that I do not already know how to do. It is an experiment, not unlike this early painting in my nature-centric, reparative Seafloor series.

Excerpt from Terrill Welch MA Fine Art Journal

Saturday, January 25, 2025

This week on Tuesday, January 21, 2025, I followed through in my commitment to go closer in my sea floor landscape series. I had several reference options and decided on mussels as my subject. I gathered together a few images from my observations, some from as recent as this week. There are hours and hours of pleasurable meanderings and sitting and observing behind this selection that spans a period over the last ten months.

In the end, I decided to pull from this image from the beginning of June as a primary source of inspiration. It is the outside reef along the Strait of Georgia in the Salish Sea at Reef Bay.

I can still feel the sun on my back and the sound of the rhythmic wash of the sea over the mussels that brushes the salty air towards me as I crouch low to the barnacle-covered sandstone.

I decide on a close intimate view and begin to shape it onto a 12 x 10 inch acrylic red ground. 

The darks must go in first on this one. Even then, it will be a challenge to hold them to the end and round the forms while still keeping the life of the work.

The painting is blocked in swiftly on the small canvas.

I settle in painting while moving the easel around the studio, up onto the kitchen area and then around that room several times to stay out of the direct bright low midday winter sunlight. It didn’t seem to matter much. I used the adjustments as visual breaks and kept painting. The whole process from beginning to end took only a couple of hours.

I separate out and frame just the still shiny and wet painting to share to my social media followers along with my artist notes, as is my usual practice.

“Mussels and Waves” by Terrill Welch, 12 x 10 inch walnut oil on canvas.

Artist notes: Soft waves wash over the mussels and recede and then wash forward again to the tune of the Salish Sea. Sun sparkles like tiny bells of joy off the wet mussels. I am building inner peace, wellbeing and above all resilience. This unassuming painting is my protest against our collective darkness.

A significant U.S. art collector of my small paintings inquires and then purchases the painting the next morning. This is her comment that I share with her permission:

I really fell in love with this one.  Even without reading your description, I understood the painting immediately.  Somehow I connect into your spirit so easily and I am thankful for such a gift.

There is no greater honour than having the stewardship of one of my paintings be taken up by an art collector. However, the best and most significant piece of this feedback is knowing that my intention for the work reached through to the viewer.  

I now have the edges painted (and those of five other recent works) while I hustling to get this one ready to ship before February 1st and the risk of a 25% tariff being proposed by the new U.S. administration. 

If this happens, it may possibly be the last painting of mine that is imported for a while. We shall see. Yes, sales are not everything as an artist. That said, I am a full-time independent artist with an art business that brings in revenue for living expenses and my continued education. This does not drive or even particularly influence my creative output… but it does fund it. Thankfully, the last few years have been reasonably good. There are no immediate concerns for now. 

Let’s take one last look at this small study in a digital room view provided by Canvy before it is sent off on an adventure of its own!

Now, I am off to work on my contextual study for the week while painted edges dry.

Yes, this is still one of my least favourite painting task but it does get easier as the years go by.

Reference Gathering and Reflection

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Sunday, 11 October 2026 

Excerpt from Terrill Welch MA Fine Art Journal

Friday, November 15 to Saturday, November 16, 2024

Following yesterday’s weekly four o’clock in the morning Pacific Standard Time class, I went to see what messages our latest two days of high winds and rain storms had left along the shore at Saint John Point Park. It is a slow fifteen minute drive from my home. The Mayne Island speed limit is 50 km per hour maximum. In fact, we can get most places in fifteen minutes or less on our 21 square km island at this speed. Situated halfway between the two large metropolitan areas of Greater Vancouver and Greater Victoria, our Mayne Island rural life is enjoyed by around 1,200 permanent full-time residents. The need for ferry travel on and off the island and only having one resort and motel creates an infrastructure barrier against overcrowding and caps our tourist capacity to about 3,000 – 4,000 during the spring, summer and fall. Therefore, on what we call cozy season, instead of more accurately described rainy season or storm season, I was not surprised to see the park parking lot empty when I arrive. The rugged and tree-lined trail I take is about 4 km long and winds across the point to a beach and then along the seaside of Navy Channel with low cliffs back to the parking lot.

The clouds were just beginning to break apart and let in a little light as I reached the beach.


Bits of shell and small peddles were beautifully placed by the waves on the driftwood.


Sometimes these storm wave conversations are full and richly shared.


Other times, the vocabulary is brief and firm.


Then there are the perfectly formed found compositions just waiting for me to notice.


I marvel at the intricate random placement of each discovery.


I think about how humans have walked these island shores for thousands of years and I wonder how many pairs of eyes have paused knelt to admire something similar. This brings me to this morning’s shared making time and working on the 40 x 30 inch “Bennett Bay Midden” painting in the dark with my one studio lamp.


I will have to settle in with it again and sort out a few things in the daylight but no permanent damage was done. After all, my references for these midden shells are likely about 4,000 years old. Surely, my time with them during less than ideal condition on the wood painting surface is made of equally tough substance. It is the continuation of time that interests me the most with the idea for this painting. In my brush marks, I want to hear the laughter, tears and worries of those that gathered to eat these clams and then toss the shells in a heap to be exposed again such a long time later. I want those brush marks to be like the waves that carry a connection between then and now and this next discovery I find as I study the shore.


Bull kelp is knotted as if having carefully tied up a package below the surface of the sea.

If only I could bring you the scent of cool, damp, salty waters that is laced with fresh broken fir branches that had been snapped off during the recent high winds.

I continue on along the trail to where ferns are hanging transparent and dripping after our heavy rains.

I walk onward through the arbutus tree grove and along the cliffs back towards the parking lot. This is where the tension tightens slightly between my subjects of the recent past and where I want to go with this new project. I have studied some of these arbutus trees for many years. They often feel like my closest friends.

This one is reaching the end of its life that has been shortened by several long summer droughts.


I have never painted it from this angle but my favourite is a larger work I did looking the other way.

“Arbutus on Saint John Point” by Terrill Welch, oil on canvas, 40 x 36 x 1.5 in (101.6 x 91.44 x 3.81 cm)

Artist notes: The portrait painting of this Arbutus tree seems to be saying “See, here we are. Just follow the trail and enjoy.” And I shall after a long pause visiting with this favourite elderly Arbutus tree because it won’t be with us for many more years. Painting these special trees is partly reverence and partly record keeping.

Farther along the trail, there is a magnificently curved arbutus tree that I I have become deeply attached to over the years.


I am not sure how many times I have painted its portrait from different angles in various weather. Here is one example.

“Arbutus Entertaining A Grey Day” by Terrill Welch, walnut oil on canvas, 30 x 24 x 1.5 in (76.2 x 60.96 x 3.81 cm)

Artist notes: As the elegant Arbutus tree curved around, framing Navy Channel, I thought it wanted to show me something. And I suppose it did. Who wouldn’t want to be admired with a trunk like this!

I won’t share anymore in detail but instead I will leave myself the link to the whole of my arbutus tree collection for easy reference later on as needed.

https://www.artworkarchive.com/profile/terrill-welch/collection/arbutus-tree-paintings-only

I know I will find it hard over the next couple of years to walk past these arbutus tree beauties and not set them to paint and canvas. However, my compromise is to simply take references as desired and file them away for later. This shift in focus does not need to be forever, just for now. It feels like keeping my footing solid as I venture forward into the unknown of this programme that I suspect will take me in directions I have yet to discover. I want to be flexible and ready to overturn limiting believes and discover blind spots in my critical thinking and art practice while at the same time carrying the best from the past with me, even if I throw various aspect aside as I go.

I keep walking. There are still no other vehicles in the park parking when I return. It seems as if no one else has arrived since I left a few hours ago. I really don’t mind. I was more than ready to receive this intimacy that nature had to offer. I read every possible note and passage for all of us.

Exploring Art Theories

Sunday November 17, 2024

Following a reviewed my journal and notes, I see a gap worth exploring. That gap has to do with developing an understanding of current art theories. My habitual reference gathering and studio practice is solidly established. This means I can put my learning efforts for a few weeks into researching and reading about art theories without anything going off the rails.

My background is in theories of Sociology, Feminist theories and Gender theories with my last attentive and focused learning ending in 1998. With this in mind, I thought I would begin with Art Theory: A Very Short Introduction by Cynthia Freeland (Oxford 2003) 

I read the conclusion first starting (p. 138, Freeland, 2003)

Abstract

“Art theory is not like scientific theories, such as Einstein’s special theory of relativity or Darwin’s theory of evolution: there do not seem to be any ‘laws’ of art that will predict artists’ behaviours, or that explain the ‘evolution’ of art history by detailing what ‘succeeds’ in making a work beautiful or significant. Art Theory: A Very Short Introduction concludes that despite these differences from science, art theory is still an explanatory enterprise: it involves the effort to organize a dizzying variety of phenomena so as to try to say what they have in common that makes them special.”

Then the Introduction (p. xvii – xix Freeland, 2003)

“A theory is more than a definition; it is a framework that supplies an orderly explanation of observed phenomena. A theory should help things make sense rather than create obscurity through jargon and weighty words.”

“It should systematically unify and organize a set of observations, building from basic principles. But the ‘data’ of art are so varied that it seems daunting to try to unify and explain them. Many modern artworks challenge us to figure out why, on any theory, they would count as art.”

“A big problem about laying out the data for this book is that our term ‘art’ might not even apply in many cultures or eras. The practices and roles of artists are amazingly multiple and elusive. Ancient and modern tribal peoples would not distinguish art from artefact or ritual. Medieval European Christians did not make ‘art’ as such, but tried to emulate and celebrate God’s beauty. In classical Japanese aesthetics, art might include things unexpected by modern Westerners, like a garden, sword, calligraphy scroll, or tea ceremony.”

“Many philosophers from Plato onward have proposed theories of art and aesthetics. We shall scrutinize some of them here, including the medieval colossus Thomas Aquinas, the Enlightenment’s key figures David Hume and Immanuel Kant, the notorious iconoclast Friedrich Nietzsche, and such diverse twentieth-century figures as John Dewey, Arthur Danto, Michel Foucault, and Jean Baudrillard. Of course, there are also theorists in other fields who study art: from sociology, art history and criticism, anthropology, psychology, education, and more; I will refer to some of these experts as well.”

“Art theorists also ponder questions about artists: who are they, and what makes them special? Why do they do the sometimes odd things they do? Recently this has led to intense debate about whether intimate facts concerning artists’ lives, such as their gender and sexual orientation, are relevant to their art.” (p. xix Freeland, 2003) 

In reviewing these brief texts, I can see I have work to do. However, I shall start by reading this book and see where it takes me.

Reverence: 

Freeland, Cynthia, Art Theory: A Very Short Introduction, Very Short Introductions (Oxford, 2003; online edn, Oxford Academic, 24 Sept. 2013), https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780192804631.003.0008, accessed 17 Nov. 2024.

Working Summary of Ideas, Plans and Practice

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Monday, 5 October 2026

Excerpt from Terrill Welch MA Fine Art Journal

Tuesday, 29 October – Wednesday, 30 October 2024

Working Summary of Ideas, Plans and Practice

Ideas: 

I am currently exploring the possibility of increasing peace through a sustained engagement with the land at the edge of the sea where the land is revealed and covered by the changing tides in what I am tentatively calling a macro landscape sea floor series of paintings. This series will aim to connect us with nature’s quiet yet profound rhythms, offering a visual meditation on the resilience and grace found within the sea and along its shores.

The paintings in this series will reflect the intimate gaze of observing the sea floor while the tide is low. I am searching to see if this new series will deepen my understanding of how our observation and connection with nature can contribute to a broader understanding of how peace is derived. If I hold the objective of understanding peace in my thoughts and as a direct intent of my painting process will this desire and learning be discernible and available to viewers?

My working definition of peace is best summarised in a quote from Etty Hillesum. 

“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.” (Hillesum, 2002, p. 535)

Hillesum was born January 15, 1914 in Middelburg, Netherlands. She died in Auschwitz concentration camp on November 30, 1943 at the age of 29. 

For this series, I am working with a rough definition of nature which includes flora and fauna in its natural state and the activities of humans who live and work respectfully in harmony with their natural environment, specifically as observed on Mayne Island in British Columbia, Canada where I live.

Plans: 

My best guess is that I will likely have at least twenty of these small painting sketches for my project over the next two years and I hope to have about twelve larger paintings tentatively in the size of 48 x 40 inches completed in oil on canvas. I have ordered some 12 x 10 inch canvas for the smaller painting sketches and studies and I will also likely complete some medium size paintings that are 24 x 20 inches. To answer some of my questions about impact of this work I will also want to create a viewer feedback opportunity. I am not sure how this will be designed yet or how formal or informal the process will be. 

A few of my draft questions in relation to this body of work include –

How will I know if my focused intention on peace during my painting process creates a change in the areas of peace within me and/or in the amount of peace that is reflected and received by the viewers of the artwork?

Is there any noticeable difference in the paintings in this series from my previous work?

Could this work be powerful enough to impact both myself as the creator of the paintings and the viewers of the paintings by enhancing our ongoing experience of peace over time?

This completed body of work can then be shown together in a suitable public gallery or venue space or in part in my own gallery. It will also be possible to place it in a virtual gallery for online viewing using something like Kunstmatrix art spaces :

https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en

Practice: 

Separation between my act of living and my art practice are fleeting and microscopic at best. Sitting and walking in nature is accomplished within a flow of activities such as getting groceries, picking up the mail, car picnics, daily walks and providing primary care for my husband, David, who had a severe stroke fifteen years ago. As his cognitive abilities become more compromised, he can no longer stay on his own overnight and is finding it difficult to travel away from the island. My art practice exists within this tension of daily living and responsibilities. My studio is within our living space and painting breaks are used for putting such things the laundry in the dryer and getting potatoes into the oven to bake. The business side of my art practice is its own creature with a gallery space at our front gate that is open daily for walk-in self-browsing supported by an online gallery, social media posts and a monthly newsletter to art collectors and serious fans. Then there are the galleries and venues that represent my work that require less time but not none.

Since 2020, I have less ability to spend whole days traversing the shores and seaside trails. I have extremely limited ability to explore shores and trails off of our island. It is simply a fact. The constraint has meant taking my practice deeper into this specific place. I call it “thriving in place” and I completed a year of artwork in 2022 – 2023 with this intention. In fact, these constraints are what led me to examining and considering the sea floor as a subject of study. 

Several times a week, I wander down to the sea shores around Mayne Island at various times of day to gather inspiration and photographic sketches for later reference in the studio. In my reference gathering of these photographic sketches, I often take a child’s view and get low to the earth’s surface. I have found this releases a kind of inner curiosity and strengthens my ability to observe without having to know what I am observing. It is a way of framing by shape and texture in those moments before my brain begins the naming of things. This allows me a more fuller multiple sensory experience and memory. 

Once back in the studio, I edit and keep these photographic sketches in an album of references for my sea floor series painting project. I then take the images that resonate the most and decide how I might use them individually or together in a composition. From there, I choose a surface and set my intension of rendering the essence of peace as I worked from memory, references and intuition. I tend to work my surfaces wet-into-wet in a wholistic way building up passages in overall layers while standing at the easel and moving repeatedly back and forward from the surface.

Context: 

What other painters and artists have approached this subject of peace through history and in contemporary art?

Historical – 

Monet’s Waterlilies panels at the Musée de l’Orangerie Paris, France that were a gift to France. These are of particular interest for their all over painting quality. 

Rothko’s Chapel in Houston, Texas, U.S.A 

Matisse’s Chapel in Vence, south of France

Richard Diebenkorn, U.S.A and his series of work that moved between abstract and figurative landscapes.

Contemporary – This I am still researching though the work of Lois Dodd, Alex Katz, and Peter Doig seems like a possible place to start. 

What artists and writers have a strong influence on my painting practice?

Since January 2010, when I made a commitment to develop a full-time painting practice, there have been many painters, poets and writers who have figuratively and sporadically sat with me as I worked. However, so far there are just two individuals and three books that have provided me enduring company during my journey. My frequent visits to these three books is evident in their tattered covers, pencil and pen marked pages and frequent bent over sticky notes. In no particular order, they are The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life by John Daido Loori (2007) and New Selected Poems, Volume One (1992) and Two (2006) by Mary Oliver. Both Loori’s book and Oliver’s two volumes of poems bring me back to how I want to approach nature and my art practice. There is an emphasis on observing, noticing while at times waiting for permission to access what the land and sea have to offer. There is an underpinning of honesty and respect that is devoid of naivety and false reverence.

Reference list

Hillesum, E. (2002) Etty the Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943. Edited by K.A.D. Smelik. Translated by A.J. Pomerans. Grand Rapids, Mich. Eerdmans.

Loori, J. (2007) The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life. New York: Ballantine Books.

Meiers, A. (2020) How the Rothko Chapel Creates Spiritual Space, JSTOR Daily. Available at: https://daily.jstor.org/how-the-rothko-chapel-creates-spiritual-space/ (Accessed: 30 October 2024).

Monet, C., Kendall, R. and Marzo, B. (2000) Monet by himself : paintings, drawings, pastels, letters. Boston ; London: Little, Brown.

Oliver, M. (1992) New and Selected Poems, Volume One. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press.

Oliver, M. (2006) New and Selected Poems, Volume Two. Boston, Massachusetts : Beacon Press.

Rothko Chapel (no date) http://www.rothkochapel.org. Available at: https://www.rothkochapel.org/learn/about/ (Accessed: 30 October 2024).

The Silence of Mark Rothko: Documentary – YouTube (2016) Youtu.be. YouTube Movies & TV. Available at: https://youtu.be/VT8tvCCbmYI?si=uhhIeQ5jArycfV9o (Accessed: 30 October 2024).

Virtual galleries for art | present your art in 3D‎ | art.spaces | KUNSTMATRIX (no date) artspaces.kunstmatrix.com. Available at: https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en (Accessed: 30 October 2024).

Additional notes from lecture:

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Has the group session broadened or challenged your thinking in relation to your field of practice? How and why?

There are several observations worth noting: 

I appreciated the reminder that we live in a globally influenced world where artists create discussion and discourse. 

I am intrigued by the work of Dorothy Hood and her “Homage to Gorky” 1969, oil on canvas, Overall: 70 1/8 × 60in. (178.1 × 152.4 cm) that is currently held in the Whitney Museum of American Art collection. I am assuming that she means Arshile Gorky whose work and life I have recently been studying. Out of curiosity, I will do some further research to see where their work intersects. 

New Materialism – read more about:

The Arts and New Materialism: A Call to Stewardship through Mercy, Grace, and Hope by Nicholas Leonard

Art and Design Education, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA

Humanities 2020, 9(3), 84; https://doi.org/10.3390/h9030084

Submission received: 24 June 2020 / Revised: 7 August 2020 / Accepted: 13 August 2020 /Published: 17 August 2020

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/9/3/84

I am always fascinated with how artists use their bodies within their art, not just in the making of a art but how bodies can become part of the work such as that of Joseph Beuys in his 1974 “I like America and America Likes me” and also Florence Peake “The Keeners” performance, 2015. The idea of art being temporary in its physical form where only imperfect and partial residue is left behind in memory, photographs and video. Could this be true of all art, that in the process of creating, the work is already dissolving because the artist has changed, the viewer has changed and the art product has changed?

The Story About My Making Practice

Saturday, 2 November 2024

There are stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. There are stories we tell others about ourselves. Then there are stories others tell about us. All these stories are predominantly fictional with a skeletal structure of facts. It is not that we intend these stories about ourselves to be fictional. Rather, in the process of flawed remembering and telling and retelling, they come to be this way. With this acknowledgment, I have done my best to concisely tell others about my making process.

In my art practice, I make a conscious effort to remove myself as the hero in the work and allow my subject to hold this central role in conversation with the viewer, with the first intimate viewer being me. 

This is the story I tell others about my making of a painting in 297 words:

When painting, I do most of my exploring before I start through incessant internal iterations developed from my reference gathering practice of photographic sketches and small plein air studies. Once an idea holds my sustained excitement, I begin. 

I squeeze oil pigments in my left-handed, muscle memory order onto palette paper. I quickly mix a few colours knowing that I will make refinements later, sometimes right on the painting. 

I begin with two brushes, one each for light and dark. The specific brushes are decided by the size and material quality of the surface and the marks I want to make.

I lightly hold an intention for the work and then start with minimal lines in paint or pencil to guide my process on the dry, often complementary coloured, ground or underpainting. 

Developing the whole surface in rhythmic motion, I stand to paint and settle deeply into the core of my body rather than painting from my wrist or arm. At regular intervals, I move back and forth about six feet from the easel. There is no music playing. I prefer to work in silence allowing my subject to take up most of my internal and external meditative attention.

Eventually, the surface is loosely covered in paint. At this point, my reference materials are of little value and I set them aside. I again breathe into my intention. With soft focused eyes, I continue somewhere between my full-sensory memory for the work and fragments of information from other experiences. My brush-to-canvas movements are equally spontaneous and considered. After a while, I step back and pause. My critical thinking fully engages. I review what is left behind on the surface. Does it work? Is it asking for anything more? Have I said all I can say for now? 

The Risks of Surprising Myself and Other Plein Air Adventures

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Tuesday, 29 September 2026

How does a seasoned painter surprise themselves and paint what they do not yet know? It was a good question and a practice that Tracey Emin embraced with rigor and is discussed in detail in My Heart Is This Tracey Emin On Painting by Martin Gayford (2026). So I thought, why not? Give it a go. What is the worst that could happen? A bad painting? Yes, the results were a bad painting.

I began plein air with a grand manicured view in a location I was not familiar with on southern Vancouver Island at Otter Point Place. Possibly the most awkward part was the landscaped view. I had no idea what I might do with it. I started to paint the mountains on the far side of the strait and the sea and sky. It fell apart. Then I decided to lean into the feeling of the place through abstract mark making. Well things went from bad to worse.


I stopped there because I had absolutely no idea how I could salvage it.

Unsigned and untitled exercise in painting something I didn’t know and surprising myself. Plein air 10 x 8 inch acrylic on linen at Otter Point Place, BC. Saturday, 26 September 2026.

I will paint over it at some point but first, I spent some time with it to see if there was anything at all I wanted to bring forward into the next work. Nothing came to mind… except maybe stop trying to surprise myself. 

The next day late in the morning we went to the Jordan River beach area. My dignity was still smarting from the disaster from the day before. But I shrugged it off and set up my easel on a flat area of sea washed rounded, flat stones.


I didn’t take many in-progress images besides this one.


And then forty-five minutes from start to finish, it is done.

“By The Sea at Jordon River” by Terrill Welch, acrylic on linen board. Plein air, Sunday, 27 September 2026.

Artist notes: With a warm sun and underlying cool breeze the temperature reached 19 degrees Celsius as I stood on the round flat rocks at the easel. In 45 minutes, I gathered the main sensations and shapes and chose to leave it rough and fully of sensory information. This is the last day of full sun for the week as cooler more unsettled weather moves it.

As usual, when something doesn’t work, it is important to remember that it is just paint on a surface. Life and limb haven’t been risked in the process of mark making. Let it go and move on. I am not sure I am interested in surprising myself any further but it was insightful to paint what I didn’t know before moving on to being with nature beside the sea. I will likely say more in the data collection post for this painting a little later on but this will do for now.

Harbouring Hope Painting Data Collection

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Painting Data Collection 

Tuesday, 22 September 2026

Title: Harbouring HopeDate Completed: Monday, 21 September 2026
Materials: oil on linenSize: 23.6 x 27.5 inches (60 x 70 cm)

Figurative/Abstract Self Assessment Band-Scale Rating between 1-10: 5-8

This painting still has strong impressionist leaning in the reflections but it also has an overall abstract sensibility to the shapes at the top of the painting. 

Reference Gathering: 

My reference gathering was thoughtful but cut short. I hadn’t planned on painting this scene. It was just an irresistible moment, like when a dog spots a squirrel. Their reaction is predictable and almost involuntary. My leash was that my husband David needing a bathroom and the ones in the park were closed. So we packed up and headed for the ferry with me turning back several times to look at the boats in the marina as we walked along the path back to the car. Their abstract shapes formed an enticing composition that wouldn’t let go of me.

Here is one of those reference images.

Marina at All Bay in Sidney, British Columbia mid September 2026. Photograph by Terrill Welch.

The next morning I pulled up the images and thought, if I just take this one small area here on the right, it will make a painting. That small suggestion from my mind to my heart was all it took. Now we have a painting! 

Making Process:

The making process was a process of simplifying to reach the core elements of my investigation and curiosity. 

Work-in-progress on “Harbouring Hope” by Terrill Welch, 23.6 x 27.5 inches (60 x 70 cm) oil on linen. Sunday, 20 September 2026.

I took a step back and then leaned into the spaces between the shapes and the light. This gave breadth as well as depth for emotion and energy in the work. The painting took shape over a period of six days beginning with oil sticks over a yellow acrylic ground on stretched linen.

Finished Painting:

“Harbouring Hope” by Terrill Welch, 23.6 x 27.5 inches (60 x 70 cm) oil on linen. Monday, 21 September 2026.

Making Notes:

I had just come from visiting a friend in the hospital and we stopped to have a picnic dinner in the park beside the marina at (what is now called) All Bay in Sidney, British Columbia. I took some reference images because the shapes and colours felt hopeful and there was a peaceful, reflective, deep calm about munching on sandwiches and looking out into the bay. I want to investigate the big gestures and emotions in this moment without getting caught in the weeds of visual or thought preciseness.

Reflective Analysis:

The painting of boats in a harbour is an old subject and likely has been happening as long as there have been boats. The question is, can I offer something more or unique in my approach? I reach into the big abstract-like shapes of the boats to carry the emotion of the work through their soft reflections. I pushed the horizon line high and let the sea in the bay hold the sky for me. I focus on the feeling of the moment rather than the details which allows the structure of the work to read true without getting caught up in the weeds of specifics and my own thinking. To pull this off, my brushstrokes must be filled with concentration, intuition and repeatable, confident, decision making. No second guessing. Make a mark and leave it. Make another mark and leave it. Paint something out, then paint it back in with the same confidence. It is not about getting it right but knowing what must be left behind, from the first mark to the last mark. The relationship of the marks within the composition outweighs architectural accuracy. The boats may feel like they are floating in the painting but no boat maker would build them this way. The most important aspect is that the work, in my first viewer’s eyes, reads as emotionally and physically whole. 

Reflexive Analysis: 

I have been musing about how there are no shortcuts in painting as there is in life. I must bring my whole vulnerable self to the easel, every time. I must be willing to investigate and admit, at least to myself, why I paint what I paint. In this case, it is part of processing the illness and healing of a dear friend who is in the hospital. We have been friends for over thirty years and I feel we are somehow both too young to be faced with her circumstances. But in truth, age has nothing to do with it. Illness has no fixed criteria. The details are private and personal but the experience is universal to human kind. Again, my painting practice takes on an undeniable reparative or healing undercurrent that isn’t visible in either the painting process or the end result, unless I choose to share it. I don’t usually paint boats in a harbour. In fact, I know little about boating or marinas. But I do know the sun and the sea. The boats are simply supporting actors for using shapes, forms and colour to facilitate a harbouring of hope. 

Key Findings: 

There is an openness in the space offered in this paint through the boldness of the shapes. This reminds me of painting the seafloor and focusing on the close up views of the seafloor and allowing abstract elements to press against more figuratively mark making. 

Anything else: 

I like the freshness and the depth of this work. I couldn’t have stopped myself from painting this painting no matter the risks of the derivative nature of the subject. I am glad that critique didn’t create a barrier but was left as – duly noted, before I proceeded. 

Gaining Momentum When A Studio Practice Stalls

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Monday, 14 September 2026

This week has been one thing after another that has pulled me from my studio or out in the field gathering references or plein air painting. It happens but that doesn’t mean it should be allowed to erode my forward momentum. I am waiting for some new art supplies and there are other art business tasks to complete before I embark on a week-long painting trip at the end of the month. However, the truth is I have many ideas on what I want to begin in the studio and nothing is settling yet. So my solution is often to work on what I do know as a way of moving myself forward. In this case, I know for sure that I need some grounds on surfaces that are dry and ready to go. So, I begin there. 

I have begun to add Tri-Art, a Canadian brand of acrylic paints when I need replacements for my Golden acrylics that are made in the United States.

This is one of my many small moves to help protect and build our Canadian economy. The principle is that we can do more for each other than anyone can take away from us. The Tri-Art paints do handle differently and are more fluid in consistency but I am willing to give them a try, especially for grounds which I want thin anyway. We each must do everything we can, consistently and repeatedly, as citizens and as small businesses.

Now, I have two larger linen canvas and three small boards ready to go. Ta-da!

That is likely all the painting I will get done today but it was necessary and important work in preparation for another day. I am now not stalled. I have moved forward in a meaningful way to support the next couple of weeks of my painting practice. 

What about you? What do you do when you are working on a project and get stalled? 

Now I am off to check the mail and see if I have a notice in the mailbox for those art supplies I am waiting for to arrive. 

Oyster Bay Late August Painting Data Collection

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Monday, 7 September 2026

Painting Data Collection 

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

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

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

Reference Gathering: 

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

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

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

Making Process:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finished Painting:

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

Making Notes:

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

Reflective Analysis:

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

Reflexive Analysis: 

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

Key Findings: 

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

Anything else: 

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

Arbutus in August Painting Data Collection

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Painting Data Collection 

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

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

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

Reference Gathering: 

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

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

Making Process:

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

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

Finished Painting:

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

Making Notes:

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

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

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

Reflective Analysis:

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

Reflexive Analysis: 

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

Key Findings: 

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

Anything else: 

Not at this time. 

Memories of Mornings by the Studio Window Painting Data Collection

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Painting Data Collection 

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


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

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

Reference Gathering: 

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

But there are two images that provide a starting point. 

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

Making Process:

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

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

Finished Painting:

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

Making Notes:

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

Here is a digital room view for size context. 

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

Reflective Analysis:

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

Reflexive Analysis: 

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

Key Findings: 

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

Anything else: 

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

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

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Monday, 17 August 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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