Prickly Pear Blossoms

Prickly Pear Cactus Blossoms

Oil on Board

I'm just nicely back from our annual Art Retreat at the Brady Ranch near Eastend Sk.  I painted a few paintings whilst down there and I will post them in the next few days.  We had a fantastic time once again and I discovered new facets to old friends that totally amazed me.  My friend Garry Harris and I had a great time painting en plein air on top of Brady's Butte and he took the reference photo for this painting.  I've taken some artistic license with it, but I can.  I remember the first time my brother Richard experienced Eastend.  While on a photo shoot along the Frenchman River he decided he needed a lower perspective on the world and promply sat on a nesting of very prickly cactus's.  I declined to help him remove the needles from his buttocks!

Eastend, Saskatchewan

I may have posted this painting before but I include it now to illustrate the place I am leaving for tomorrow.  It is called Eastend and is situated in the the south west corner of Saskatchewan, very near the American border.  A number of artists, including poets, musicians, potters, painters and drama people gather at Wolf Willow Ranch for a number of days to celebrate Life and Art.  We make Art, cook great food and enjoy the great outdoors. There is time to walk in the meadows and hills and discover ancient Tee Pee rings, arrow heads and spears and maybe even dinosaur bones.  This time of the year the geography can look like Ireland or Wales, it is so green and vibrant. Later in the summer it will be extremely dry and brown.  Many many years ago this land was teaming with buffalo and Native American Indians but sadly that is no longer so.

Where the Buffalo used to Roam

This painting was inspired by some words that the author Sharon Butala read to a group of us at our Retreat at Wolf Willow a couple of summers ago.  She talked of large herds of Buffalo moving across the grasslands near Eastend, SK many years ago when there were untold numbers of them before the senseless slaughter began. A blight on Canadian and American history in my opinion. Anyways, I see this hillside from the verandah of the house I sleep in and walk there often. I lost a pallete knife up there somewhere and suspect it got used in a birds nest.

Thinking about Eastend

Stone circle near Eastend, SK

I painted this oil a number of years ago, it has been hanging in my sons home up to awhile ago. I remember being quite taken with Sharon Butala's book The Perfection of the Morning and her remembrances of walking in the grasslands around Eastend Saskatchewan. She talked of the almost mystical experiences she had on these meanderings amongst the grass and stone tee pee rings she found along the way.  I myself have had some memorable times in those strangely wonderful hills while down that way on our annual July long weekend Art Retreat. Anyways, this painting is a memory of those times walking and painting on bright sunny days amongst the grass, wild flowers, cactus, the wind and red tailed hawks screaming overhead. I look forward every year to be there with my beloved friends and landscape very soon now.

Work in progress

An Oil I'm currently working on. Loads of paint applied with a palette knife on a birch panel approximately 30 x 40 inches.  Having fun with it for sure.

Collaborative Paintings

Dean, Darrell and Jan exhibiting some Mirth

Bonny, Darrell, Jan and Dean

Darrell and Dean having a quiet moment

Jan Layh and Dean Bauche

Dean Bauche and Bonny MacNab

The Four Amazing Amigo Painters

New Owners with Darrell and Shawn Majumder

Four Amigos with Shawn Majumder and owners of Collaborative Painting

You might be able to tell that we seem to be having a lot of fun in these photos. I had the opportunity to hang out with my great friends Dean Bauche, Jan Layh and Bonny MacNab this past weekend in the Battlefords where we were asked to paint a collaborative painting for the Dekker Center Gala. The painting was to be auctioned off to help with the operating expenses of this amazing facility.  Well it turned out that we had time to paint two pictures which were auctioned off for the tidy sum of $4500.00!  The auctioneer was Shawn Majumder, of CBC's This Hour has 22 Minutes fame.  He did a wonderful job for us and many thanks go out to him for that.  Rob Rongve of RBC Securities bought us a very good bottle of wine which definitely added fuel to the fire, thanks Rob! We had a blast. The following three days were spent facilitating an Art Retreat/Workshop with 15 participants and this turned out to be a huge success as well.  So, it turns out that they want us back for next year and seeing how we had such a nice time we will be back!  Thanks so much to Barb and Dean for opening up your home to us crazies, I hope that bottle of good scotch is there when I come back Dean!

Mountain Creek

Mountain Creek  Oil  8x10

While out visiting my son Michael in Seattle, WA. we had a few opportunities to go on some awesome hikes.  This painting depicts one of the many wonderful sites we came across just outside of Seattle. What a lucky fellow my boy is to live so close to many great outdoor experiences.

Is Winter finally over?

Winter Splendour
30 x 36
Oil on Canvas
 Bill Shurniak Collection

I haven't spoken of my solo exhibition at the Shurniak Art Gallery which ran for 2 and a half months.  The gallery is a world class establishment that houses Mr. Bill Shurniak's private art collection which has been garnered together from his travels all over the world.  Bill has worked in Hong Kong and Australia for extended periods of time and still travels there extensively for work purposes. I was delighted to be invited to show there and received many favourable comments on my work.  There was visits from many parts of North America and one from Europe as well!  I think if our winter hadn't been so harsh there would have been even more visitors.  I had a delightful surprise awaiting me when  I travelled down to gather up the paintings to bring home.  Mr. Shurniak had decided to purchase one of my personal favourites for his private collection! I have posted the painting above for your interest. It was painted maybe 7-8 years ago when I still lived in The Pas, Manitoba and is a memory of a wonderful time my family spent walking in the forest on Boxing Day. This could be my last winter depiction for awhile, the snow is finally starting to melt around here and its high time.

A Fence in Passing

This is a monoprint using encaustic wax on rice paper after which, if I remember correctly, I marked up with darker wax marks made with a kiska.  The piece was born out of a passing glance at a rusty corrugated fence down my back alley.

Variation on a Theme

I liked a similar approach to a recent painting so much that I decided to give it a go using different colours.  The original painting was produced from a quick charcoal thumbnail sketch, which I am very fond of.  I used a diluted mixture of viridian green and magenta to do the lay in for this one, followed by thicker applications of the same colours, with the addition of some orange. I like to erase paint with various tools, you can see evidence of this here and there.
I have been juried into the annual Federation of Canadian Artists National Open Show to be held in Kamloops, BC beginning April 19th.  Be sure to check it out if you are in the area!

Ice

Did you know that one snowflake contains 10 quintillion water molecules?  Or that no two snowflakes are alike?  Take some time to let that sink in, give it some considered consideration. The one thing that is alike in all snowflakes is that they have six points and then from there things get kind of crazy.  Snowflakes epitomize all of the creation concept for me, I love meditating on that.  Anyways, this is a 12 inch square oil painting of another manifestation of water molecules in an altered state of mind.

Full moon falling

Nocturne in Pink

I meant to post this painting when the moon was full around a week ago but forgot for some reason. It is loosely based on the now non existent Blue Hotel, which I have been using as a model for some time now and likely will continue to do so.  Problem with some of these paintings is that its hard to determine which side is up, the jury's still out on this one.  Any suggestions?

The colour of Ice

Johnson Ice

This Oil painting came about after some consideration on ice and the many colours found within it. My son likes to climb on ice, whether it is glaciers or frozen water falls so this painting commemorates an experience he had while we were hiking in the Canadian Rockies a few weeks back. I call it Johnson Ice, after the water fall we viewed at Johnson Canyon. Sometimes I wish he would take up hiking with his girlfriend on flatter ground!