March 2017
One post a year does not a blog make.. oh dear. One of the biggest recent highlights was donating a 48x48" grizzly portrait to the Audain Art Museum's first anniversary fundraiser
One post a year does not a blog make.. oh dear. One of the biggest recent highlights was donating a 48x48" grizzly portrait to the Audain Art Museum's first anniversary fundraiser. It was in the live auction, along with pieces by much more prestigious artists like Gordon Smith, Guido Molinari, Paul Wong, and Martha Sturdy so I was pretty nervous. But happily, there were several bidders and it sold for 30% more than the usual price!
Point of View
I am spending more time painting grizzlies as I feel strongly that they need our advocacy and protection. Many people don't realize that there is still a trophy hunt in B.C. (I think it's disgraceful for people to shoot these gorgeous creatures to hang them on a wall.) Much better to promote photo tourism and allow many people to repeatedly enjoy the same bear . And it brings in more tourism revenue to the province. Their territories and routes are getting diminished and criss-crossed by logging and human activity. I am the official artist of the Grizzly Bear Foundation and will be donating other paintings to that cause.
KNIGHT INLET LODGE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
In June 2016 I was invited to be the artist in residence at Knight Inlet Lodge, a wonderful grizzly viewing floating lodge in Knight Inlet. It is accessible by float plane 25 minutes from Campbell River. I highly recommend it as a way to very safely but closely observe and learn about grizzlies.
Below are pics of Bella, a mother of 3 cubs, teaching them to turn over rocks and find the grubs and other protein below. They are new cubs and all the bears are lean in June. At the bottom she is nursing them on a beach after they were alarmed by something and fled up a tree. Very calm mom!
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.
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!
