Extremes of Scale (and a farewell)

It was with great sadness that I received the news that my friend and fellow artist Thea Haubrich passed away . Thea was stricken with a number of strokes and in spite of her tenacious spirit and gracious heart she left this life in 2013. Her husband Peter has set up a legacy trust in Thea's memory to assist upcoming encaustic artists with their education. To that end he created a calender in order to raise additional funding and also commemerate Thea's contrbution to and passion for encaustic art. I was honoured to be asked for permission to use my portrait of Thea for the cover of this calender. A large group of people whose lives were touched by Thea gathered at the Shatford Center for the Arts in December to celebrate her life. She will be missed.   

I am preparing a painting for a winter show at the Penticton Art Gallery that is another  stretch for me and also should be a great event. Each participating artist is paired with a new immigrant family and has been asked to create a piece that is inspired by the new Canadian's experience. The event is called Welcome/Home and will be supported by some other social gatherings, perhaps sharing ethnic foods and music. Pretty cool I think. My newcomers are a young couple from Slovakia and after my visit with them I noodled a few ideas and am now well on my way with my painting. You can see me leaning into it below.  

This Land, (Majestic and Fragile), Oil, 48X88"

The large scale of this piece presents challenges and also is fantastic fun to work on. I started with a 2 and 1/2" brush and am able to paint from the shoulder which is very comfortable and exciting. I am now down to 1/2" brushes and closing in on a finish. I was considering the idea of cutting this into three panels to symbolically replicate the Canadian flag and also simplify tranport and the substrates support but............... as sometimes happens I've gotten a bit too invested in the image as a piece and I am concerned that sectioning it may jeapordise it's impact. We will see.

As a member of the collective of artists exhibiting at Tumbleweed Gallery I spend a day on location every five weeks or so. Last week I decided to bring in some materials and work between visits from clients and friends dropping in. I have several coveys of quail wandering around my studio every day and have been thinking about focusing on them as subjects for some smaller pieces. To get me started I did this one of a young quail contemplating how to navigate from the top of a large rock to the ground below. 

Beginning to block it in.

Baby Quail, Oil, 12X9"

I am really excited to be able to take in a workshop with Kristy Gordon in a couple of weeks. I have been following Kristy's work for about five years now and when I heard she was going to be in our area (she lives in New York) I organized a workshop through our local FCA chapter. I look forward to learning some new skills from this excellent painter. I will post my resulting work next time.

If you haven't seen my video on the "My Tribe" opening night at Summerland Art Gallery you can link to it here.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMoSSNsELXA

Thats all for this post. I wish you all a Happy New Year full of blessings!