Thanks again for all the comments and support. You guys rock!
It's been a busy week. I've been keeping up so far and even managed to get a bit ahead. But by Friday, I was starting to slow down. The 3rd winter Scene sketch below was Thursday's painting. I like it quite a bit and I think it took me considerable more time than any of the others and that is why my time felt compressed. That and all the other running around I do during the week!...There seemed an awful lot more of that. I can barely believe that tomorrow will be DAY 20! I have appreciated everyone's comments and I really am enjoying this challenge. I think I'm going to stick with landscapes for a bit more yet. As you can see, I can come up with a variety of landscape ideas AND painting and repeating a theme is actually a VERY valuable exercise. The grain elevators above are an attempt at value studies, but I do like the "graphic" nature of them as well!
Thanks again for all the comments and support. You guys rock! I have been painting daily, just not POSTING daily...I think I felt like I was spamming everyone so I stopped. I think posting them on FaceBook daily is more acceptable. I still want to keep my blog subscribers!! I love you guys!
So here they are...the last 5 days, most recent first! Please tell me what you think and which one(s) you like the best. Any feedback is always appreciated...even tell me about the ones you DON'T like too! I can take it! Enjoy! Here's my Day 8 painting. This is from a photo looking east of the Tansey farm. See the photo below. This painting is very sketchy and when I was working on it I just looked at it and said...NO MORE - STOP! I like it this way so I resisted overworking. I am going to paint another one using this photo though! Forganites...you know who you are...can you recognize where this is?? We had a big dump of snow again and all the roads leading across the interior of BC were closed for awhile for avalanche contral and just plain bad conditions! On the morning hike I noticed a strange bird call and looked up to see this puffed up fellow! He looks so dignified!
According to my Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America, I believe he's a Northern Harrier, due to the "owl like facial disc" and his colouring and the strange call I heard! The magpies were really annoyed with him and staying clear! It's Day 7 and I've changed gears to practice clouds and prairie scenes. I grew up in the middle of the Saskatchewan "flat" prairie. People always think it is pancake flat , but not so! To get to my folks farm, one must travel down a small incline (fairly small!) and in the far distance you can see on the horizon, a blue line of hills called the Coteau Hills, part of the geographical formation called the Missouri Coteau, one of Saskatchewan's driest areas. I'm likely to continue on the landscape stream for the next week of the 30 day challenge. I really do need the practice. You can see the photo I used for my painting below. I'm still working on expressing colour and value to make my work "read" correctly. Mixing and painting interesting neutral colours is the key here, I think. I spent nearly 3 hours (yikes) shovelling snow yesterday just to keep the driveway cleared. Austin and I took a walk around the neightbourhood this morning and I took a photo of our local mountain Spion Kop, peaking through the clouds! This photo below is looking towards Wrinkly Face Provincial Park, east of our house. We'll be off snowshoeing here this weekend I bet! And its snowing as I write. In fact the Southern Interior of BC has a snow fall warning in effect. We are in for a BIG dump of the white stuff. Guess what I'll be doing in the morning, bright and early? Stay warm!
I have tons of mountain pictures I've taken over the years. The painting below is a combination of a few of those, plus one from a friend. Below is a cropped photo of the Crowfoot Glacier in the Rocky Mountains in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. I did a value sketch before hand and cropped and changed the horizon line and a bit of the viewing angle to make the painting "read" a bit better. I'm still working on getting values and colour temperature to read "right". Jerry Markham, an artist with whom I have taken a landscape workshop, recommended a book called Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting. I don't have it yet...but it's inexpensive and full of great info...from what I've seen. The book I do have and recommend is this one... I purchased this book in Pasadena at the Pasadena Museum of California Art back in September when they had the Edgar Payne exhibit. Its a great book too...still haven't read it all though! That's today's painting. If you have any favourite art books on landscapes, post the name and share! I'll be sharing a couple more in the next few days! Time to go shovel snow!
I am still painting, just not posting everyday! I did get a little behind on Friday, but I feel caught up now! I'm finding it a challenge to post daily, usually due to the fact that by the time I finish my painting, its dark and I have to take the photos inside...the lighting in my studio area is still not that great, but it will have to do! I'm learning more about taking indoor painting photos! Here's my latest bunch of paintings from the last three days! My favourite of these three is the Lake Louise Sketch. I used a couple photos I had of Lake Louise plus a photo of a painting by California Impressionist painter Edgar Payne (1883-1947) of Lake Louise to get the colours and values. I enjoyed working on this one.
The palette knife painting of Mount Baker was a lot of fun to do. I need to do more palette knife. I find I enjoy the looseness, and the ability to blend thick paint gives me interesting paint effects! Which one do you like!?? Thanks for looking! This was inspired by the fall colour photos I took up the mountains on Beaver Lake Road just east of our house this autumn. I'm also trying to implement and remember the techniques and lessons I learned form the April workshop I took with Neil Patterson. I'm still having a hard time with making the colour work and with just laying on LOTS of paint. Maybe its because I'm feeling stingy after the Christmas frenzy??
Here's a couple photos that inspired today's painting... Enjoy! Happy New Year Everyone! Well, I am starting 2013 by participating in a 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge. Artist Leslie Saeta, whose workshop I attended in Pasadena in September, is hosting this challenge. She has over 250 participants doing this with her! I've signed up and will be posting a painting a day for January. Here's the first one: I've decided to focus on landscapes this week and use a limited palette. A limited palette for me is Cad. Yellow Light, Cad. Red Light, Perm. Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue and Pthalo Green (blue Shade) plus Titanium White. This will force me to focus on a couple things... one, mixing colours and two, planning colour schemes. Landscapes are also a challenge for me as I think I don't do them very well!! I tend to fiddle and I want to just lay on thick paint with less strokes. I have tons of landscape photos so I have lots of material to chose from! On the weekend I threw everyone's name from my last newsletter campaign signup into a hat and I drew two names for these paintings: Congratulations you guys! And thanks for signing up for the newsletter! I hope you'll join me and cheer me on in the 30 day painting challenge as well...I'll be posting here daily and those posts will be on FB too!!
I thought I would share this photo of this mis-placed winter resident! I was certain all the robins had flown the coop for balmier weather, but this fellow must love my mountain ash seeds too much! I hope the weather stays as mild as its been for him...I think he's a him...! Okay I'm being silly...yes that is my feeble attempt at humour...that is ME falling off the earth! But I'm back. Terribly busy this fall...so lots of new things happening! This wall of paintings are the ones that I packed up and took down to the Lake Country Art Gallery's Under 100 Show and Sale! There is an Open House TODAY starting at noon November 17th. I'll be there! Looks like tons of great affordable artwork, so come check it out! My BIGGEST news is that I've been busy busy revamping my website with an online STORE!! I have joined the world of e-commerce and now people can purchase my smaller paintings, fine art prints, cards and calendars right here on my website! CLICK HERE to go to my store. Tell me what you think! So if you'd like a gift for someone or yourself, how about a calendar! I have a limited number available. CLICK HERE to go look at my 2013 Calendar. The two paintings above need new homes! So I'm doing a holiday draw for two lucky winners in December. Each person will get to take home one of these paintings. I'm celebrating another year of blogging and painting! Which brings me to how to win yourself a painting? You MUST subscribe to my newsletter! Yes I am beginning a once a month newsletter. I will no longer be sending blog updates to everyone via mass email. So PLEASE sign up to stay in touch with me and my art blog! CLICK HERE to sign up. AND you can also get your name in two more times in the "hat" when you sign up for my blog (see the side bar) AND "like" my Facebook Fan page SHEILA TANSEY FINE ART. My first newsletter comes out early next week. So if you've already done one or more of these things, well you are already in!! So it looks like a great November and December so far...Stay tuned...I'll be back painting and submitting entries for more shows! Here's a couple lovely fall images to remind us what a lovely autumn we are having here in the Okanagan so far...we've only had one dump of snow so far here...and its all gone now! Have a great week! AND don't forget to sign up!
I have returned safe and sound, inspired and motivated from the oil painting workshop in Pasadena, California! The weather was great, the instructors were exceptional and the people attending, fantastic. Leslie Saeta and Dreama Tolle Perry held an awesome workshop with wonderful, insightful demos, a fun exercise, lots of tips on painting and marketing and 2 gourmet dinners! I have now developed a huge liking for gelato! Here's some highlights from my trip! You can enlarge any of these photos by clicking on them. Both artists have completely different approaches to their paintings. I learned a tremendous amount about transparent oil paints and working with oils from Dreama. I learned how she gets all those goregeous colours in her work! While I have done quite a few paintings with a palette knife, I learned a lot from Leslie on how to handle the knife with confidence. She can paint anything with that knife! Leslie treated us to TWO evenings of gourmet dinners, and marketing talks at her home. Her home is a lovely old house with an old carriage house she's converted into her studio. If you click on any of the photos on this post, the photo will enlarge! Below are group shots of more of the demos we all did! It was wonderful seeing everyone's unique styles come out when painting the same subject matter! Click on each image to enlarge it! Here are three more studies I did at the workshop. I know its been a long post, but I hope you've enjoyed it! I'm quite inspired to get on with more work! And if you are inspired to take a workshop from these two amazing artists, check out Dreama's workshops here and Leslie's workshops here.
Artwalk 2012 was held on September 8 and 9th. I showed 12 pieces, 10 in my own booth and two in the FCA Central Okanagan booth. While I sold only one piece, the one above, I had a great time, met lots of people and had great feedback about my work. The exposure for a new artist like me was excellent! I've posted all the paintings from Artwalk on my facebook fan page Sheila Tansey Fine Art. Click on the link, and my photo album is ArtWalk 2012. And while you are there "Like" my fan page...I need more likes! I'm also excited to say that I'll be travelling next week to Pasadena, CA! No, I'm not going to scope out the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (although that would be uber cool for the geek side of me! ) I'm off to attend a 5 day oil painting workshop.
In April of 2011 while I was listening to Artist's Helping Artist's on BlogTalk Radio, I won the grand prize of an oil painting workshop with the two hosts Leslie Saeta and Dreama Tolle Perry!!! Check out their websites and artwork! Both of these ladies are very well known and successful artists and I feel deeply honoured to be attending. I will have a full blog report when I get back! Stay tuned! I fell off the old blog band wagon about the end of July...eep...where did the time GO?? While I had a great summer, it was darn busy and as you can see, I have been up to my elbows in creating! YES! I am getting ready for Artwalk 2012 in Lake Country, BC. I'll be showing 10 works (8 of them brand new!) in my own display. I will have 2 more new paintings with our FCA-Central Okanagan Chapter booth (Federation of Canadian Artists - this was juried as well and 2 of my works were selected). I'll be at the Memorial Hall this year, just across from the High School. The hours are 10:00 a.m. to 5:0o p.m. both days Saturday and Sunday September 8 and 9th. Admission is only a twoonie for the entire day! Here's a sneak-peek at a couple of my new works! See you at Artwalk!
P.S. If you can't get to Artwalk this weekend, I promise to blog and post the work I've been doing plus highlights from the summer...stay tuned! I'm "recovering" from a road trip from our home in the Okanagan to my hometown of Forgan, Saskatchewan and the farm I grew up. The driving there and back was long and a bit stressful...see below!..and aside from the 14 hours of driving time (broken up into 2 days each way), we had a wonderful time as a family. My family gathered in Saskatoon and our parents farm south of the city, from the Okanagan, from Toronto and Kingston, ON, and Warman, SK to celebrate my parents 50th wedding anniversary and my nephew's highschool graduation. It was low key, but it was a lovely time, catching up and reconnecting with my siblings and getting to know my nieces and nephews. Prior to leaving I was very busy and I managed to create a few pieces of artwork as gifts for my parents, my nephew and my only sister...who I realised I hadn't gifted an original artwork...ever...silly me! Enjoy! Next post will have a few more photos from our trip. Stay tuned!
I worked my volunteer shift at the Lake Country Art Gallery last week. Check out the latest cool exhibit Bones of Tobias by artist Lori Mairs. Have you ever tried to sketch people moving? The art gallery is right across from the Aspen Grove Golf Course in town, so I took the opportunity to practice some fast figure sketches of some golfers and other people sitting and moving about. Wow, it takes some doing...I love practising powers of observation! Really all I'm able to get is shape and value! To ignite my creative painting process, which seems to be really slow at the moment, I decided to do a flower painting study, using an another online video workshop by Hedi Moran. Here are a couple steps in my process: And this is my own flower still life sitting on my easel right now! The sparse flowers in the vase are really only there for colour and shape reference. In painting flowers I've learned that the set up can be tricky, flowers DON'T last and working quick is the key...luckily these flowers are in bloom in my front flower bed...
I thought last month was busy...well June is flying by ever so quickly. It's been a mismash...busy events, unexpected events, happy and sad. And part of it is the weather...um...excuse me...it's supposed to be the SUNNY Okanagan...at least we aren't complaining about the heat or lack of RAIN! While more hearts have always been on my "to paint more of" list, I decided I to do it now... These hearts are on 4X4 inch gallery wrapped canvases...small, but I think they pack a punch and they are a joy to paint. These are going to very good homes... This is a real plein air piece...done at Gardom Lake while watching my oldest son's classmates kayaking across the lake...it even has sand and rain on the canvas! My youngest son Liam, came home with this piece of artwork that he created at school! Isn't it lovely?! He also mentioned something to me about painting shadows..."Mom I saw lots of people at school painting their shadows black...but I've watched you and you don't use black for that so I did what you do...I used a darker colour for the shadows. " Wow!! An Impressionist and Colourist in the making! He's correct! One way to do shades and shadows is not to create dull neutrals, but keep the colours fresh by using a darker version of that colour! And here's a video of Austin and I participating with our dog agility club at a demo during Oyama Fun Day on June 3rd! We've improved over a year! You can view more videos of other dogs here. And one of our more happy and unexpected events was a visit from my brother in law, Allan. He realized a life long dream on May 28 by summiting North America's highest peak, Mount McKinley, or Denali as many people call it. Congratulations Al! A remarkable feat...while Mount Everest is by far higher at over 27, 000 ft (McKinley is just over 20,000 ft), McKinley is as dangerous and formidable. Not for the faint of heart. Enjoy the photos. Well this month I FEEL liked I've been climbing up peaks, and languishing in valleys...its all a process, like climbing to the summit. I hope your climbs are interesting, have great views and are inspiring...like Al's climb! Congratulations to you again Allan!
I've been offline of lately... I've had a horrible cold AND I am catching up on home/yard/domestic issues..just stuff that has now created within me this BAD RELATIONSHIP with my house, my yard, my PILES OF STUFF TO GET TO...I NEED ORDER! Art is on the back burner too because it's really bad when I can't find that special pencil/palette knife/sketchbook etc...well some of you know how it goes :-). These two paintings above are off to a local show and sale here in Kelowna starting June 3 until the end of the month. Location: The Rotary Centre for the Arts downtown in the Alex Fong Galleria. Click on "Now Showing"...it'll be up next week. Here's a bunch of photos from a recent long weekend trip to Vancouver...my home for nearly 20 years before we moved to Texas and then the Okanagan. Still love it very much...although some things I don't miss...can you tell which is which?? A Mother's Day Hike. The locals are always fun to watch And a week of painting studies of flowers, composition, value studies and still life I had a wonderful day...I hope you did too!
Last week, I attended a 3 day painting workshop by Master oil painter Neil Patterson. I am still digesting all I learned. Neil paints loose and colourful, something I am trying to achieve with my work. In 3 days, I "produced" 14 painting studies. All were painted with acrylic paint except the last 2 - I decided to try oils again - I'll be sticking with acrylics for the time being! I'll go into more detail on this and other things in my next post. Right now I just want to share with you some of my studies! REMEMBER - they are studies...These are ones I'll likely keep for awhile...I've already got 7 of them that are "refuse and recycleables"! Most of the paintings were 16X20 or 9X12, much larger than what I normally paint. To give you an idea of how fast I painted and the size relationship of what I usually paint, look below - My apple painting is 6x6 in. The floral is 16X20. About 8 or 9 times bigger! I may not paint larger YET, but I will certianly loosen up my brushtrokes. The other thing I learned is the advantages of painting on a dark surface, rather than a bare white canvas. The darks are there for you already...you just need to paint the light! Easier said than done...it still takes practice! I also have a couple images from the weekend of the Opus Plein Air Challenge. Its sure was a challenge...trying to find something interesting to paint, setting up outside, composing, painting within the time limit and finishing up. A great experience, but full of annoyances!. The canvas we were given was 16X20, too big for my light plein air easel and ME...I had to lug my full size french easel around...so I didn't go far from where I parked. I wanted to paint an urban cafe scene....I was not very pleased with my result (canvas too big, paints dried too fast, ...Oh I could go on...) BUT I did enjoy it, will do more of it. I will NOT paint this large outside ...and I may use oils outside...not acrylics....they dry too fast!
Next post I will highlight a couple important things I learned from both of these painting experiences. AND I will come up with a new theme for the month of May! Stay tuned! I have occassionaly been participating in the Daily Paint Works Challenge and this week's challenge was the Up Close Animal Challenge. Well, who's animal face to I know the best?? Teddy! I happened to take some funky photos of Teddy the other day and I decided on a close up of his eye! Check out some of the comments I got here! Just look for "Seeing Teddy" in amongst all the works and click on it to see the comments! It's nice to share and participate in something like this! All my themes so far are sourced from photos.... I've really been antsy to paint from life...so I rummaged again through the fridge and found an orange. I'm really learning tons from life painting. And speaking of life painting....
I could potentially go to 3 - 4 art events this weekend...but I chose one. I am participating on Saturday in the Opus Plein Air Challenge! We need to be there by 10, find out where the painting "zone" is, set up and finish a painting outside by 3:00. Looks like a nice day weather wise. I'll report how that went in the next blog post! Have a great weekend! Okay...I have diverted a bit from my farm animal theme...I HAD to do the Daily Paint Works weekly challenge last week so I sat down one day and painted an apple. The challenge was to REALLy look at the lights and darks (values) and with minimal brushstrokes, just get it down...Still life is one of THE best ways to really learn to paint... So a Granny Smith was all the fruit I had as I rummaged through the kitchen..And this was the result. I used a masonite board primed with white gesso (3 coats) and then I brushed a coat of lamp black acrylic paint all over as a dark ground. I set up the apple on a small table on my work desk with my light coming from the right. I like it! I've had this guy sitting around for awhile and I finally decided to finish him. He's a much larger version of the 6X6 in. painting I did earlier in March. "Abandoned - Where to now?" Serendipity struck on Wednesday. I was volunteering for my monthly shift at the Lake Country Public Art Gallery. The day before I had read an art marketing article about how important it is for artists to be present in galleries that represent them. Two gentlemen came in early on and chatted with me while they viewed the artwork. They wanted to know which painting was mine...the member's juried show was still on and I showed them the painting at the right. Well they loved it so much they bought it! They are artists themselves and were visiting from Sedona, AZ! So my Forgan wagon from Mrs. Sonmor's old place is going to have a home in the states!
If you are in town, don't forget the Junk Yard Joe's Exhibit at New Moon Gallery in West Kelowna. The opening night is April 21st from 6:30 to 9:00. Come see the interesting artworks from this challenge. The exhibit runs from April 21st to May 5th. My work is one of many and Linda, the gallery owner, used my piece as one of the promo pieces for the opening night poster! Happy Easter! One aspect of Easter is for me, the arrival of spring, new life and light. Bunnies represent a lot of that to me so I thought I would paint a small portrait of this little guy. Sunny Bunny lives here, at my friend Monique's small farm. Her bunnies are pets, but she also collects the hair and eventually she'll be spinning it into yarn!! April is turning out to be a very busy month for me. "Chevy Chicken Roost" is going to be at the NEW MOON GALLERY's show called JUNKYARD JOE's. The opening reception is on April 21st! There are a few cool art history and a costume drawing session in the works at Lake Country Art Gallery. There is a cool life drawing session with historical costumes happening on April 21st. Check the link for the schedule at their new website!
I'm registered for a couple events at OPUS. One I'm really looking forward to is the OPUS Outdoor Plein Air Challenge on April 21st. Then there is a one hour session on April 15th on enhancing your art with digital media! And last but certainly not least, something I've been waiting for months to attend...a 3 day FCA hosted workshop on Colour by artist Neil Patterson from April 25-27. So, April 21st is a BIG DAY by the looks of it...I'm still not sure how I'm going to manage THAT. :-) The Farm Animal Theme is still going strong, in addition to a couple other events/ deadlines I've been aiming for lately. In fact, I am going to extend this theme into APRIL! I have plenty of material and I have not exhausted it yet! Cows, hens, some goats...maybe that camel, and more...stay tuned! What else have I been doing? Well, for those that don't know, I belong to the Lake Country Jumping Agility Mutts (LCJAM) club. We practice dog agility with our canine buddies. On March 25th, a few of us attended a fun match in Armstrong hosted by the DogoPogo Agility Club from Vernon. It was a blast! AND an EXHAUSTING day of running our dogs...4 events (some members with 2 dogs ran MORE times). We all did very well and had a great time! For your viewing pleasure, I have posted a few videos that a friend took with my camera of a few of us running the last event (Jumpers) on that day. I've created my own video channel with the rest of the videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/SheilaTanseyFineArt?feature=mhee
Enjoy! More paintings are on the easel! My farm animal theme is not progressing as I'd hoped...I seem to have a delay in my progress - there are a couple other deadlines for show entries that I'm attempting to make. It will be seen if I can make them! So right now DUCKS R US! These are dedicated to you DUCK! You know who you are! Remember this blog post....http://www.tiltedeaselstudio.com/2/post/2012/01/a-challenge-and-lost-treasures.html Well my beloved Kermit has been FOUND!!! He's looking a bit dusty, after having spent an unknown amount of time upside down, stuck between a closet wall and dresser in my oldest son's room! AND Isaac was the one who found him! I am so happy! Kermit is too, don't you think?? He's going to stay here on my work area for awhile!
At least I HOPE its winter's end! It's spring break for the boys school the next 2 weeks. I hope I can continue to paint the farm animal theme. :-) I have been working on a 12X12 in. canvas with a rooster, but I've been experiencing dissatisfaction with him, so today I started again and produced this 6X6 sketch....when stuck, start from the beginning! I'm trying to keep the brushwork LOOSE and colours VIBRANT. With spring around the corner, the whole family decided to go SNOWSHOEING Saturday morning! I finally scored a sale on another 2 pairs of snowshoes...so now we all can go at the same time! Now that winter's nearly over :-) Could you RUN with such abandon down a snowy trail? I'm going to strive for that...ears back, tongue hanging out (that is a given), wind in the face, running like nobody's watching??! I always get distracted, though, with those small things in nature that sing to me and catch my eye...
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