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BILL HIBBERD contemplating the thin places
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  • ART RAFFLE
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Extremes of Scale (and a farewell)

12/28/2013

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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.   
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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.  
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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. 
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Beginning to block it in.
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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!
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