Hello my Dear “Bloggees”.
Happy almost December.
Today I find myself seated silently beside my kitchen window, cold coffee by my hand. Unhappy Labrador at my feet. She knows there’s no walk today. We watch as the dreary mix of precipitation pelt the deck and the sleepy gardens along with the last remaining and drooping leaves of trees. Autumn is leaving the stage and winter waits impatiently in the wings.
I have a word for this weather. I call it “Snrain”. The meaning? The unpleasant mix of precipitation…snow, sleet and rain. Maritimers are gifted with it this season of the year.
I gift this word to you. Go ahead use it whenever the need arises.
I don’t know about you but Procrastination is my companion this time of year. When my world loses colour and turns a boring beige and ghastly grey, I lose my Creative mojo. My canvas sits blank, my brushes lay sad, dejected and dry. My Art making well has gone dry. There’s only one thing for it and that being to try something new. That often kick starts the creativity engines into gear.
Some Artists will dig out old pieces and do something fabulous like a redo. Jewellers will take apart a piece and change it entirely. The great thing about being an art maker is the ability to adapt, to change and to go forth with new ideas.
Recycling Art projects can help reduce the act of wasting it, and encourages creativity and resourcefulness. I have tried creating collages from cut up pieces of canvas and I have also added found objects to an old painting to change it up. Sometimes it works and sometimes it simply ends up with a one way ticket to the fire pit. Sometimes I can paint over an old piece but more often than not..just leaving the piece and coming back years later with fresh eyes helps.
Our Feature Artist, Hélène Martin, has an offering for you for the month of December. Her show is based on taking work from previous Plein Air projects and creating something new. She has worked from smaller paintings and brought the images to life again in a larger scale.
Hélène said “The process to bring a small painting to a bigger size is challenging. And working with watercolours and other water mediums give different results, depending on how they dry on the paper. It was a very rewarding experience and I intend to continue bringing my small sketches to larger sizes. It was a lot of fun.”
Come to the Gallery in December and enjoy Hélène's changing small to big!
See you at the Gallery!
Cris