Salish Sea painting series

August 3, 2010July 30, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 11 Comments

I’ve never been one to do a series of paintings on any subject. But I find myself wanting to now. I have three water miscible oil paintings in what may become a lengthy series of seascapes about the beautiful and mysterious Salish Sea.

The first oil painting in the series you have already seen as it is “Winter Sun”

The second is painted on a 16X20 inch gessobord in a birch wood cradle 2” deep. It is the first time I have painted on a hard surface other than finished plywood. I used a palette knife and was so involved in the painting there are very few shots of the progress.

A start…

working to bring the blue forward…

And now for the finished painting…

View and purchase full resolution print of painting here.

For now and maybe forever it is called “Salish Sea 2”

On Thursday I will show you “Salish Sea 3” which is an 8X8 inch gessobord in a birch wood cradle 2” deep that is an abstract oil painting… or at least more abstract than most of my other work…. You will have to wait until Thursday to see though.

Sprout Question: If you could sail the Salish Sea with me what might you like see?

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

A painting only the artist can love

July 22, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 11 Comments

Sometimes it happens. From vision, to brush, to canvas a painting develops in large free strokes, dancing across the canvas engaging me in the swirling energy transferred in a sequence of creative exchanges. I stop. I rest my eyes upon the painting. I put my brush down. This is what occurred with “Cabin on Shore” It is a large brushed impressionist-style painting that maybe only the artist can love.

View and purchase high resolution print of “Cabin on Shore” original here.

18” x 24” by two inch 100% natural cotton gallery quality canvas water miscible oil painting

Below are a series of slideshow images capturing the creative process and detail.

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Sprout Question: Has your heart ever stopped your head in a creative process?

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

The Boys are Back in Town

July 13, 2010July 10, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 20 Comments

Morning is filled with the smell of west coast summer. I go out to water the garden. Snapping twigs and munching tell me I have company – a lot of company. I carefully raise my head from the geranium pot. Then I slip back into the house for my camera.

There is a herd of seven buck deer just on the other side of the deer fence browsing in the tall salal underbrush. I managed to get four decent images of these fellows well embedded in their natural environment. I have to whistle to get them to look at the camera.

Lucky for us they are curious animals and can’t help but wonder where that pathetic-excuse-for-a-whistle is coming from.

Our cool and lush spring leaves these fat and sassy devils more handsome this year than usual.

And for those of you who have never heard Thin Lizzy’s “The boys are back in town” from 1976, here you go….

Sprout Question: What caption would you give each photograph to tell a story as the deer?

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

Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada

Summer Holidays

July 6, 2010July 6, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 26 Comments

A young boy, maybe 11 years old, coasts his bike down the hill towards us. He makes eye contact and grins. I grin back. No words are necessary. It is the first week of summer holidays. The evening is warm and the sun is coming down between trees with bugs dancing in its soft rays.

View and purchase full resolution image here.

With the tide being low, I am able to get closer to where the seals sunbathe in Oyster Bay. I can’t help thinking how their shapes on the rocks mirror the jaggedness of coastal mountains across the water. How many years of July days have seals rested on these rocks?

View and purchase full resolution image here.

We walk on and coming to Reef Bay. Carefully I meander out onto the sandstone. Tall grasses are trapped in a golden glow in front of the beach house.

View and purchase full resolution image here.

But it is the waves that are calling me. Sitting on the warm sandstone, I study them. I listen. I feel. I smell. I see. I engage with their presence….

wave one

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wave two

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wave three

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and wave four

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I hope you have enjoyed your summer evening walk with me here on Mayne Island… swisssshhhhh!

Sprout Question: Are you taking your creativity for a summer holiday?

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

Mayne Island Summer Group Show part 2

July 3, 2010July 3, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 10 Comments

There is nothing that says summer like July and August on the southwest coast Gulf Islands of British Columbia, and no summer is complete without the Mayne Island Trincomali Community Arts Council Summer Group Show. The show will open at “the library” on Friday July 9^th 7-9 pm and the Mayne Island Reading Centre will be bursting with creative abundance for your viewing pleasure.

Last Saturday’s part 1 of this post gave us a glimpse of what to expect. Today’s post will provide a few more enticing examples…

First, is an intriguing image from photographer and artisan Barbara McIntyre with Nomadic Routes Inc. where she is creating healthy choices for people and planet (she has the most amazing handmade soaps).

New Zealand by Barbara McIntyre

Second, here are a few snippets of words submitted from one of her works in progress by author and artisan Leanne Dyck

“My need for the backpack was how we ended up in a sporting goods store talking to one of the cutest guys I’d ever meet in my life. Or, rather, how my Dad ended up talking to him as I tried not to drool.

‘Our little girl.’

Little girl – honestly, Dad, that’s how you’re going to talk about me to the cutest guy in the whole universe. Our little girl – kill me, kill me now.

A red rash rose from my neck and spread over my entire face.”

A prolific writer, Leanne Dyck has published Novelty Yarn and Maynely a Mystery. I also know other great things are in the works such as Turning, Maynely Hidden and The Sweater Curse. You can find out more at her website http://www.oknitting.com .

Third, we pause for a moment to view an image from well known (on Mayne Island anyway) fine arts and freelance photographer Toby Snelgrove

Edith Point North by Toby Snelgrove

Toby Snelgrove’s stunning collection of BC Ferry images is just completing so if you haven’t yet, please do drop by the library and take in a startling original perspective on the ships we rely on to link to the rest of the civilized world. Toby’s show is not to be missed and the photographic exhibition runs until Wednesday July 7^th.

Finally, I will also be showing a series of five photographic images “Window with a View” that were featured on my post “Simplicity” back in February of this year.

window with a view by Terrill Welch

This series of five images is a lovely segue into my solo exhibit “Sea, Land and Time” that will follow the Mayne Island Summer Group Show and open on Friday, September 3^rd. I will have more about that in a few weeks. In the mean time, you can browse my online storefront at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch and see if you can pick out some of the oil paintings and photographic canvas prints that will be included.

In addition to artists, artisans and writers mentioned in blog posts part 1 and 2 for the Mayne Island Summer Group Show, there will also be Native art by Wayne Thomas, sculpture by Cedar Christie plus Tina Farmilo, Donna Williams and Bill Maylone, along with others, will bring their vibrant creativity together for a spectacular exhibit.

The Mayne Island Summer Group Show will run from July 9, 2010 to September 1, 2010 and after the opening night can be viewed during Library hours 11:00 am to 3:00 pm Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

If you are thinking of coming, the Mayne Island B.C. website (which also has a link to the Mayne Island Chamber of Commerce ) can help you with your planning.

Sprout Question: What is your favourite comment or review about your work?

Note: special thanks to Bill Maylone for allowing me to “borrow” parts of his text from the MayneLiner Magazine article.

And, psst! I just received the 2011 calendar for “Sea, Land and Time” and I am so happy with the images and large calendar squares – big enough to write all your important notes. And don’t be fooled when the website calendar cover says 2010 – You can set the start date for whenever you like.

: westcoast winter by Terrill Welch

Cover image. View the whole calendar at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch/calendars/5320339-8-sea-land-and-time All the images in the calendar are taken from Mayne Island.

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

Eagle over the moon

May 25, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 20 Comments

Through joyful tears and laughter the gifts are opened.

Friends prepare for a round of games. I slip outside, where clouds break, allowing slivers of evening sun and a rainbow across the way.

View full resolution and purchase image here.

The ocean is within touching distance and the tide is on the ebb, bringing a young eagle closer to shore – hunting.

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A bridal shower and an eagle over the moon – a good omen I think.

Sprout Question: Where has your creativity recently found something new in the familiar?

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

Canada Geese on family swim day

May 18, 2010May 18, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 24 Comments

I happened to see a family of Canada Geese going for an early morning dip in Georgia Strait at Georgina Point on Mayne Island… would you like to join them?

Time for our morning swim everyone!

Yes that means you too. Now move along...

Don't worry we will show you how it is done.

There easy does it...

Now stay close.

I am so hungry

Me too!... Tasty little morsels

Keep an eye out for junior.

Well, I think they have it figured out.

Oops! There they go again...If you're not careful you are going to be eagle breakfast!

Everyone look right... that's it, beautiful!

I could hear the goslings’ little peeping voices as they swam along. And the eagle flew off to see if he couldn’t find a salmon for a morning snack but he sure watched closely before giving up on a small goose feed.

Sprout Question: If you were to take your creativity for a swimming lesson where would it be?

Bonus: Hatchlings are covered with yellowish down and their eyes are open. They leave the nest when 1-2 days old, depending on weather, and can walk, swim, feed, and even dive. The mother goose leads the way on the first family swim and the father goose takes up the rear. Young Canada Geese or goslings grow so quickly that they are virtually indistinguishable from adults in only about nine weeks. With a lifespan of up to twenty-five years, the oldest known wild Canada Goose was 30 years 4 months old. They mate for life with very low “divorce rates,” and pairs remain together throughout the year. Geese mate “assortatively,” larger birds choosing larger mates and smaller ones choosing smaller mates; in a given pair, the male is usually larger than the female. References – mostly http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Canada_Goose/lifehistory and a few other brief stops on a googling wild goose chase.

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

Winter Sun Oil Painting

May 11, 2010August 21, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 18 Comments

There is something about the late dawn of winter sun, a bruised heaviness that seeps across the sky. I started this painting thinking it might be abstract and lighter, maybe even cheerful, but my subconscious seems to know where to take the brush. Though the quick marks of paint give impressions rather than detail… it is clearly not an abstract painting. And though colourful, I am not sure it is cheerful. In fact, I’m sure this painting is deeply melancholy with bittersweet recognition that the sun is rising… lifting, lifting, lifting us into another, and possibly, better day.

I started by brushing water (it would have been spirits but I’m using water miscible oils) and linseed oil onto the canvas. Then I began adding colour, an underpainting of sorts…

I never let it completely dry but kept working the paint into the canvas as I added more colour.

Using a good sized brush (10) I swished the sky and clouds on and softened them with a cloth and feathery brush. Then I flipped the rocks and sea loosely into place and left them like that.

I came back yesterday and tidied up a bit … as I listened to kd lang’s performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” at the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame induction of Leonard Cohen in 2006.

You might want to do that too as you take in “Winter Sun”

18X24″ by 1 3/4″ water miscible oil painting on 100% natural cotton canvas

There are a few more small edits which I will make and then replace this last image, but it is close enough to complete to share with you.

Sprout Question: What has been your latest personal discovery through your creativity?

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

Far Shore oil painting

May 6, 2010December 5, 2010 / Terrill Welch / 24 Comments

18X24″ by 1 3/4″ water miscible oil painting on 100% natural cotton canvas

I worked on this west coast painting much of yesterday afternoon and into the early evening. At one point I move out onto the covered deck because the natural light had faded in my loft studio. I believe it is to the “tweaking” stage or almost or maybe even completely finished. It is resting now and I will begin another while it lingers in the great room as the day’s light passes overhead. I will peer at it every now and then with a critical eye. At a later point I will take another photo for my redbubble account.

As I was working I mused on a couple of ideas. The first is something my son said when we were talking about song writing. He commented on how sometimes it is best to leave a song and start a new one that will be better rather than try to fix one that is not working. I think this is true for most creative work. Our learning is cumulative. With a certain amount of detachment, we take the work as far as we can, then release it and start again. Drawings in sand, ice sculptures and cake decorating come to mind as ways we can make marks and practice creative detachment.

Speaking of making marks, this is something humans have been doing for a long time. These markings are telling not only of our present but of our past and our imagined future. There is a collective bandwidth of creativity with most creative work gathered around the centre and much less work being created along the margins or fringes. The great work of the fringes will sometimes move to the centre of the bandwidth and new work will develop along the margins. William Blake , Claude Monet, Walt Whitman come to mind as well-known artist who worked in the margins of their time and yet held our attention until their work became accepted and even revered, at which point their creative views and style moved into the centre of the creative bandwidth. This process of margin to centre has always fascinated me because some work just falls off the margins and disappears while other creative work is shuffled into the centre. Most of us work comfortably in the full rich stream of the centre. Only some of us are compelled to work in the margins. Work in the margins is often recognizable by the name calling – bad art, lacking technique, improper, breaking the rules and shocking.

Sprout Question: Where would you place your work on the current bandwidth of creativity?

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

Summer is coming

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

Creative Potager’s summer blog schedule begins the first week of May

budding possibilities - wild rose

The first post for Creative Potager was December 27, 2009. I have been posting a blog Monday to Friday, except for power outages caused by windstorms battering our little island in the Pacific Northwest. Including today, there are 83 posts each with their own sprout question. There are 1,165 comments documenting our creative conversations and 8, 596 times you have come to visit. Creative Potager has become an enjoyable habit to wake up to during the week where I say to myself “what shall I post today?” However summer is coming. I yearn to be outside in the garden, tramping the trails and painting on site rather than inside snuggled up to my laptop. Like the summer wild flowers in this post, I bloom best in untamed places.

each day is precious - wild tiger lily

So after giving it some serious thought, I am changing my posting schedule to twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from the beginning of May until the beginning of September. I may on occasion post an additional submission. But these will be bonus or value-added posts rather than an expectation.

petite lady slipper

I am hoping you can live with this change and that we both will benefit from my scrambling around in the valleys and on the hills and down the beaches of Mayne Island and afar. I am hoping that we can still have rich and engaging conversations between posts even during the long days of summer. I am hoping that the sprout questions will be juicy enough to keep us inspired for the in-between times. I am hoping that you will trust that winter will come with its short days and unpredictable weather and we shall again be glad for our Monday to Friday sprout conversations fueled by the fruits of summer experiences.