Playing with Colour

 Tonight I did a quick little drawing exercise from a still life (some random objects I put together). My challenge was to choose a limit my colour palette to draw the still life with. I chose an analogous palette of red, red-purple and purples to work with. This is my quick interpretation of the still life.

Branching Out

Spring is in full swing here. The trees have burst into full leafy glory in the last week, we have gone from a limited selection of early spring flowers to a wide variety of gorgeous blooms, and my belly has grown too. So in the spirit of spring and new growth I thought I would branch out and play with some decor ideas for our new little arrival. Looking at the finished pieces I discovered that as much as I 'branched out' and played with these new pieces, I still found a common theme running through them.

First, I still found myself using repetition to create these pieces. Repetition is a constant theme in my work, but this time I did not set out to use it. I was inspired by the branches and set out to create something more organic and unstructured. However, somehow even while working with the organic shapes, repetition seems to have seeped into my work subconciously. Not that I really mind. Secondly, apparently I really like trees. Having decided not to find out the gender of our little one, we had to come up with a gender neutral nursery scheme. We decided to go with a woodland forest theme. When I tell people they respond along the lines of "didn't you use trees for your wedding?" So, yes, I am using more trees, well, at least pieces of trees to decorate the nursery.  And so here are my newest pieces where I branched out, but stayed consistent at the same time.

The rush before a show

Oh, the joys of getting ready for a show.
There is always a last minute rush to finish each piece, not necessarily to finish painting a piece (although that happens too), but to finish those little details that suddenly become important. Things that, before, in your studio, don't really matter, but to be displayed in public they suddenly do. In my studio it doesn't matter that I have not installed a hanger on a piece and it is only hanging by its crossbar on a single nail, that I haven't signed or dated it, or that the edge might need a touch-up.

So today is the day to finish all those little details before taking my work to be hung for the show this Saturday. As a part of the process it also seems inevitable to need to make a trip to pick up some small item or two that you thought you had, but don't have enough of. (They need to sell picture wire in bigger rolls, I'm constantly running out of it)

And yet, despite all the last minute-ness of getting pieces ready (it's not just me, by the way, I think it is a trait shared by every artist) my pieces are ready to be hung and seen. It feels good to have them done and I'm excited to be showing them on Saturday.
missed the details of the show? find them here http://www.nwcrc.ca/recreate-art/