A special visit with Gordon Smith

I met the brilliant and energetic Gordon Smith recently .. at the Equinox Gallery unveiling of his large reflection painting for the entrance of the newly renovated Canada House on Trafalgar Square.  He invited me for a visit in his studio.  I took along some work as requested, and he was tremendously encouraging. What an inspiration he is, painting for many hours every day in his mid nineties. May we all be that excited to get out of bed and get to work at that age!

Bear Drawing .. from adults in Whistler to 4 year olds in NYC!

Everyone likes to draw bears, including our grandson's class in Manhattan. They were such fun to teach, and added lots of great details such as cubs, long necks for reaching high fruit, grasses and ponds. Hope they invite me back!

Some of my paintings at the Mountain Galleries reception in March

 This was a few weeks ago but I just got some nice new photos to post.  Good thing too as a couple of paintings were immediately bought and taken away! Below is Jurgen who took Bear back to Germany where they have no bears left.
I had a week of inspired production painting in the hotel lobby.. who would have guessed?!

Teaching 'How to Draw a Bear'

I taught a lovely group of seniors 'How to Draw a Bear' at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler last week. They were part of a tour group that returns annually for a few days of pre-Easter fun. It was the first time I've tried to articulate how to draw a bear, and I think it went quite well as the results were good and everyone seemed to have fun! 

We started with a square paper, either black, gray or white, and I had gridded where to place the eyes, muzzle, ears etc. Drawing materials ranged from charcoal sticks or pencils, conte, pencil crayons, Graphite crayons (excellent on newsprint for my demo), soft pastels, and even finger paints although no one chose that option. I had a few square mats to show how, as Bob Genn says, you can turn a 7 into a 9 with good framing. Looking forward to having another opportunity to hone my art teaching skills!

                    Artist in Residence at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler    March 24-31

Just finished Day 3 of seven straight days of painting  in the lobby of the hotel on behalf of Mountain Galleries. The Fairmont Hotels and Mountain Galleries are reviving a tradition from the last century, when Canadian artists (including the Group of Seven)  would spend a few days painting at the CP hotels in the Rockies to show the surrounding beauty and encourage visitors to come. The Fairmonts in Banff and Jasper started this again last year, and Whistler signed on a few months ago. What an honour for me, and a great learning experience!
  

Painting in the California desert

I joined some local artists at Whitewater Preserve. This is Terry Masters, a terrific desert artist.

 Sunnylands, a West Coast 'Camp David', invited artists to paint one day when it was closed to the public. This is an agave painting that I did there.

 Another small painting of some friends on the beautiful South Course of Ironwood.

A small desertscape (colours too bright in the photo I think) The desert colours are warm and very muted. So different from our BC Coast palette.

My outdoor studio under the orange tree. Delightful except when a large orange fell on the palette and sounded like a gun shot! 

I did some larger starts and will use my photos to complete them in the next few months. 

Fall Travels and great art viewings!

We were lucky to visit London and Paris this fall, and we saw some exceptional exhibitions. Our favourite was the show on Georges Braque at the Grand Palais in Paris. He started as a fauvist around the turn of the last century, then he started cubism with this beautiful painting.

He then experimented with collage, and the show displayed a letter from Picasso saying that he was trying some of Braque's collage techniques. Braque was a real leader in so many areas of 20th century art.

We also saw a Roy Lichtenstein show at the Pompidou Centre, and we were delighted with his inventiveness and versatility. In the 60s/70s I didn't realize how talented he was, dismissing him as solely a comic style artist. 

In London we attended the Frieze Modern and the Frieze Masters, huge art shows in Regent's Park. At the Masters we were intrigued by this Breughal ('The Census at Bethlehem") that had just sold for £6 million. It was the first time it had been seen publicly as the owners had the original receipt from Breughel (400 years old)! We were puzzled as we (my husband and I) thought we recognized the painting from our art history courses, but the gallery owner explained that the painting we knew was by Breughal the elder, and his son had painted about 14 variations, of which this was one.  You can see Mary in the foreground on the mule, but what has always intrigued and delighted me is that it looks more like Belgium than Bethlehem. 

 We also visited the Courtauld Gallery in London to see some Impressionist favourites. Manet's large painting "Bar at the  Folies Bergères" is riveting.  See him on the right in the mirror? And the trapeze artist on the top left? There's so much to look at in this painting.

Lastly, the National Portrait Gallery. Fabulous portraits by many artists, but my favourite this time was Jonathan Yeo, a self-taught British artist in his forties. He is able to persuade prominent subjects to sit for him, and here are two of them.

Kevin Spacey as Richard III

Rob Lowe