When life gives you lemons, draw them, 11 x 14 inches dry pastels, graphite on paper

"When life gives you lemons, draw them." (Nikki)

"Color! What a deep and mysterious language." (Paul Gauguin)

Archive for December, 2009

Happy Holidays

Friday, December 25th, 2009


 

Snow on French Lilac

Merry Christmas from Airdrie, Alberta

Snow on French Lilac

Check out the Alberta/Texas phone interview for a pull-out feature in today’s Denton Record Chronicle.

Baking is an art

Monday, December 21st, 2009


 

Tourtiere, a subtly spicy French Canadian ground pork and beef pie, just about to receive the top layer of pastry

In honor of my French Canadian mother-in-law who used to bake the best pies every year at Christmas time, and who is now in the advanced stage of Alzheimer’s, I decided to bake Tourtiere. I only tried making crust once before, but it was more like an edible jigsaw puzzle.  TV ads for brand-name shortening imply that flaky crust is a good thing, but it should probably stay on your fork long enough to reach your mouth. Making pie crust is not for sissies! Well, don’t despair my fellow bakers…as long as it ends up tasting good (using a tablespoon to get the job done) it’s the thought that truly counts.

Norway Maple, work in progress

Thursday, December 10th, 2009


 

Norway Maple, work in progress: 36 x 48 x 2 inches acrylics, will sculpt with modeling paste medium on canvasNorway Maple, work in progress: 36H x 48W x 2D inches acrylics, will sculpt edges of leaves with modeling paste medium on canvas. Gallery wrapped sides painted. The watercolor classes really helped with awareness of color choices, keeping those colors pure and marks fresh, and also a desire to leave more abstract elements alone; less realism and more expressionism. All of those things will be magnified in this painting.

After today, blogging and Artwork will be infrequent until mid-January. Driving up to western Canada, there will be plenty of snow-covered trees and winter photo opportunities along the way to Alberta, B.C. and back. Working up until the last possible moment, I started this painting of purple Maple leaves that were seen in Madison, WI during late August. Modeling/Molding paste will be applied, then painted with acrylics when dry, this will be a 3 dimensional-ish painting.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Learning to give critique

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009


Sounds of Silence 36 x 24 x 2 inches Acrylics over resist mediumCreating Art and talking about are truly two different ways of seeing; the theory of right and left-brain thinking is matter of fact. As an Artist it takes some effort to “switch brains” and reflect on the processes and progress of work in order to accompany my Art with writing on this blog, so I’m really impressed with the mature quality of the critiques given by students at Olive Stevens Elementary School of paintings on their school Art blog every month.

In collaboration with Oxide Gallery, the Denton school has started a blog where students – or anyone else actually – can give a critique of a different work of Art each month. This month the comments regard the recently finished Sounds of Silence, which is also at the gallery.