More catchup!

Value Viewer is a very useful app that I frequently use to check whether my composition is working from a lights and darks point of view. It costs about $8 and you can use it to see your work as NOTAN or a grayscale that you can darken or lighten.  If the NOTAN shows a strong design, the painting should work too.  Here's an example. If it doesn't show a strong design, and has the lights and darks scattered around, for me that means it needs some rethinking. It's taken me many years to really get that!



Desert Painter

Plein air painting in the California desert is a lot of fun! In the spring our WOBA (Whistler Out-of-Bounds) foursome (Lianne Gulka, Susie Cipolla, Andrea Moore and I) painted in 30º weather .. the acrylics dry out so quickly we now understand why so many southern artists prefer oils! Gotta watch out for tarantulas and rattlers, but otherwise it was a great experience with a whole new palette. Might take a few more visits to master those warm subtle colours!

So much to catch up on!

My apologies to anyone who has read these posts and may have been disappointed when they stopped. I forgot about the blog as Facebook became so much easier. But lots of people don't use FB so here's a quick effort to catch up with some highlights.

For the last 3 Spring Breaks in March, I painted for the week in the Fairmont Chateau Whistler lobby as artist in residence. It was a terrific experience .. great feedback and a chance to get to know their interesting clientele from around the world. It's a win/win/win for the hotel, the gallery and the artist.

Artist in Residence representing Mountain Galleries.

Here's one of my West Coast paintings in Canada House, London, in the office of the Canadian High Commissioner Gordon Campbell!  It was exciting to see it there last year. The new Canada House is spectacular, filled with stunning art from every part of our country.


In the fall of 2015 we returned to Klemtu in the Great Bear Rainforest. An interesting story is that the previous year, the First Nations found a Japanese fishing dory there that had washed across the Pacific after the tsunami. They fixed it up to use for bear viewing, but were always wondering about the original owner. A Japanese friend of ours researched the registration number still visible on the boat, located the owner, and invited him and his wife to come to BC and see their boat again.  He brought his boat's flag and we shared in a very moving reunion and celebration.



Then we returned to beautiful Mussel Inlet to sit on a log in the rain and hope some grizzlies came by.
It's lucky my husband Jim is such a dedicated and patient photographer!

The next day we say on a wet slippery river bank hoping to see the elusive Spirit Bear. We sat for many hours!

As we were packing up at 3pm, resigned to missing the spirit bear once again, our hearts skipped a beat as a young white bear came across the river on a log. She fished for 40 minutes or so before disappearing down the river, and 10 minutes later she came down the trail above us, toward us, but stopped 20 yards away when she saw the colourful obstacles in her path. After staring for a moment, she turned and chose another route. We felt so blessed to have this rare encounter!

I'll do another catchup post in the next couple of days.