Well another month has come and gone and I have been busy but I can't quite figure out what I have accomplished in terms of my art.  I have a couple of new small paintings done and by request, one new carving that is not quite finished.  We did the Reflections of Nature, Wildlife art show and competition.  Didn't put anything in the competition but set up a display booth.  My two lovely grand daughters did enter photographs in the junior competition and showed very well.  They each took home some well earned in the ribbons.

A carving of a Lynx I had in Canmore sold.  Another person came in the next day wanting the same piece so All in the Wild Gallery asked me if I would do another similar piece.  I had to find appropriate stone and did that.  The carving gave me some problems, mostly because I have not been doing much in stone lately, but after two attempts I am ready to start the fine sanding.  I'll do the fine detail once that is done and then the finish.  The pic is of it as of today.

October 14 up coming shows

The  end of summer and I have been most remiss in doing this blog thing.  For those of you who know of the health issues that hit me two years ago and threatened to cut my carving career short I would like to say I have returned to the world of stone and dust.  For how long I am not sure but I have done a few small carvings and am still marketing those along with the paintings that I have done in the duration.  Hopefully I can continue both art forms in the future.

Just to let everyone know that I will be doing Reflections of Nature Wildlife Art Show in Saskatoons, Prairieland Park;  October 25-27 followed by Wintergreen in Regina Centre of the Arts: November 15-17 and Sundog in Saskatoons, Credit Union Centre: November 29, 30 & December 1.  That will close out a very quiet year.

I will probably follow the same pattern next year with a spring REGINART show .  The latter is an artist organised show we did for the first time this spring at the Regina Delta to excellent reviews.

I am also taking a painting class on doing prairie skys next week so that I can improve my technique and get to meet some other Regina artists besides my Oldtimers Friday drop in at the Balkwell Centre.  below are examples of the small carvings done recently.  The first is a soapstone otter and the latter an alabaster polar bear on soapstone base.  These are about six inches long with the bears base representing icy water and that being about 9 inches long.

Well that is it for now but try to drop into one of the sales if you can and catch the reality not relayed by the photos.

After the TRIP

My latest small carvings,  for scale reference these are about the size of my hand.  I have concentrated on smaller pieces for the up coming fall sales.  Reflections of Nature in Saskatoon on Oct. 25-27;  Wintergreen in Regina on Nov. 15-17 and Sundog in Saskatoon  Nov. 29-Dec. 1.  If you are in those areas during those dates be sure to drop in and see the new art works.

The recent trip to Yukon/Alaska/Haida Gwaii/ Vancouver Island/Fernie/Waterton  was a great trip and we brought back many photos of some great places.  The highlites for me were Dawson Cityand the Alaska coastal communities especially Sitka and Petersberg; and Haida Gwaii.  But the entire trip was absolutely fabulous.We live in such a great and beautiful country with such a diverse wonderful population, we really should take better care of our world so everyone gets to enjoy it.  Hopefully I can develop some paintings from all of the stunning things we have seen along the way.

We are off to Alaska and rather than drag the trailer we have modded the old Honda van.  A friend of my son put a raise bed in his and so after seeing his design we added a few ideas of our own.  7 feet of 5/8 plywood cut into three sections and hinged.  The knobs on the end underside are to hold the abs legs.

The backseat is removed to give the depth needed to hold the electric cooler and large items

.The whole seven feet of platform is 12 inches higher than the middle section of floor held up in the center by plywood on edge and the ABS legs made to level the two hinged ends.  this gives enough room to carry an extra spare tire and suitcase etc.

 

 

We also made screens for the rear window so that we can get ventilation without insects, we hope.

So now we have to try this whole thing out and hopefully it works the way it is planned and the van lasts the trip.  Oh by the way I plan to paint while on the trip.  Next blog ???

Up coming sale

Well just a few days to get stuff ready for the ReginArt sale at the Delta on April 30, May 1.  Each of the 8 participants are allowed to show ten works of art and there are some bueatiful pieces to be set up.  Move in will begin Mon. evening and the show opens at 11 am untill 9 pm so drop in early to see the best of the best in ReginArt.

Now to some new pieces or rather a new piece, I have been a little slow in my production over the last few weeks.  Had to sit the grand kids for a week and then recover you know.  At an rate, this is a 12x16 in. painting of a rapids on the Grass River between Wekusko Lake and Reed Lake in Northern Manitoba.  It is mounted in a floater frame, which means on close inspection you can see some of the canvas sides an so the painting wraps around the edges abit.  It is titled 'High Water".

Now that the warm weather has finally arrived I hope none of our local streams look like this.

If you get a chance be sure and drop in to the Delta, April 30 or May 1 and see some of my work up close and personal.

There are times that it is neat to look at different stages of a painting as it developes.  As is my usual I don't quite achieve what I want because I get to involved in the doing.  So here  I am doing a painting with some goldleaf background. The first shows the paintingwith the background colour and the goldleaf applied to about half of the canvas.

Then the subsequent layers of colour trying to get the sunset light lighting the weeds in a bright burning look to the edges of the weed and background.  finally the foreground of grass, etc.  There is also a spiderweb that exists on the right side of the canvas behind the white flowers.  You do not see this until the angle of light hits the fine gold etched lines

 

                                         The  next pic is of storm clouds over the prairie.  Sort of two different cloud fronts at sunrise.

 

 

 

 

 

New work

th

These are the latest additions to my painting collection. Feel free to comment on the first two especially.  This is a diptick of yellow birch and the two pics show the same two canvases but in a different order, not sure which way I like the best.  I think I am calling it Yellow Birch Road, no it is not from Kansas.  The next is a pair of ravens, my favorite bird.  The background is really faded to make the birds feel like they are out in an open meadow, perhaps too much me thinks.  The last last is  a jackpine that grew out of what seems like solid rock.  The picture that I adapted this from shows the tree is actually alive and really distorted like my interpretation.  I didn't think the needles added much and just diappeared into the background.  After critique by my Fri drop in group and my wife and my son even added a valid point, I did some minor allterations not shown here.

That is about all I have to add but remember to put April 30, May 1 on your Calendar and come to  ReginArts first show at the Delta Hotel , Verdi Room between 11 and 8pm.  We have 8 wonderfull artists showing and selling  6 different types of art.  Paintings, stone sculpture, wood turnings, artistic furniture, fused glass hangings, jewellery,metal sculpture etc..  We have a silent auction going on with all proceeds going to Regina Transition House.  The artists involved are donating the art for that part of the show.
So Drop In, its free and you will definately see something you will like and we will try hard to make sure you take it home.  Who knows we may even deliver.
Till next blog, have fun.

A new look?

In these new works I am trying to incorporate the ideas that Andre has tried to teach me during our time together in Costa Rica.  I think the waterfall comes close to impressionism and parts of the cabin do. I do not often do stuctures like the cabin but that was one thing Andre was getting me to do.  It was also from a picture of a cabin at Herb Lake Landing which I had actually been in when I worked in Snow Lake, Manitoba.  Herb Lake Landing was an almost ghost town then with only a couple of commercial fishermen and trappers using the remaining buildings on a seasonal basis.  Now if I can find some reasonably priced frames I may show these at the ReginArt show April 30, May 1 at the Delta Hotel.  It is always nice to get public reaction to your work.  You are all wecome to join the seven Regina artists in this our first of what we hope will be an annual event.

Well it has been a while since my last venture into the blog o sphere and now Christmas is done and our trip to Costa Rica is over so it is time to return to reality.  We had a great trip and I did some art study with Andre van Melle a painter from Montreal.  He tried to show me how to work in a looser impressionistic mode.  I'm not sur he succeeded but he certainly taught me some tricks as to how to look at design and composition plus the use of colour.  I'll be buying a few new tubes of paint for sure. We have been home a week now and all I seem to  have accomplished are some rather large pile of snow.  Perhaps a snow sculpture is in order. 
My next project is to help organize our art show for April 30 and May 1 at the Delta Hotel here in Regina.  This is a project being put together by seven Regina area professional artists.  We are calling it ReginA
             R
             T.
We could have called ourselves the Regina group of seven but that might be a bit presumptious so just ReginArt. Sorry no visuals this time but will show what I did in CR and keep you updated on the show.