This way of making colour swatches feels purposeful and the completed sketchbook page is captivatingly beautiful.

It's through this process that I've learned to appreciate first hand the beauty of working in a limited palette.

I always look forward to the end of the year time. With few obligations over this quiet week, and me tucked up inside a cozy home, it’s the perfect time to reflect on my year of making art so that I can note all that I’ve achieved and celebrate the progress I’ve made in my art practice.

My intention was a simple one: To make yellow paintings. While a single colour painting has its appeal too, for me that just isn’t enough.  I needed other colours to play with yellow, while letting yellow shine in all her glory.  

Making the mini paintings in my collection requires of me a settling down, a concentration and an attention to detail that appeals to my natural inclinations.

This is the story of how one set of these mini paintings were made.

As the year draws to a close, it’s once again time to take stock of my art practice.

It’s all too easy to forget what’s been accomplished over the course of a year if I don’t set aside time for this reflective exercise. So with the help of the notes that I’ve made along the way, I look back on my art year of 2024.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how, as an artist, I see my work entirely differently than everyone else looking at one of my paintings.  Love it or hate it or have no reaction at all, the final resolved painting is all that is available for anyone else to see.  

I’m the only one to have seen a painting from beginning to end and all of the states in between: The good the bad and the messy middle versions.

Do you have limiting beliefs? I know I do. Pesky beliefs that may or may not be true, but hold me back in some way or other just the same.

Case in point: “I don't like working on canvas. Stretched canvas has bounce, and I don't like bounce”.

Using a mitre box and my measurement for the inside corner of the frame, I cut a length of the corner moulding with a 45 degree angle on either end. After testing it against the painting to see that it was the correct length, I used this first length as the template for the other 3 lengths. Once all four pieces were cut to length, it was time to glue the frame together.

Ever since the completion of that project, I’ve wanted to revisit my encyclopaedic source material, saved for many years, and approach the subject matter in a different way and with a different artistic tool kit.

The time feels right to revisit these books of knowledge and use them for a 100 day project.

Do you choose a word of the year: A word or an idea to hold in your mind to return to when you feel the need to focus your attention? Or perhaps an aspirational word fits better. Or maybe a word that will guide you as an artist?

My green slipper orchid pays me a visit in December, like an old friend, just in time for the holiday season. It’s a signpost for this season. December is also the time of year that I turn my focus inwards, look back on the art year that was and begin to think about the year to come.

I make plenty of artwork that if not exactly bad, is unresolved, or in other words not good enough to call finished. I can’t make it “good” or, most often, I lose interest in trying to solve the problems with it to make it good.

Sometimes, when a painting just isn't working, there's no point in fighting it. A dramatic shift is required to move things forward.

This is a story about how I did just that.

It occurred to me recently, although not surprisingly, that these two interests in my life, simplifying my possessions and simplicity in my work, mirror one another. Living with less and making work that is pared down are part of the same desire to simplify. And if I want to make work that is more simplified and harmonious I need that feeling in my surroundings, in particular in my studio space.

Arranging and hanging artwork in your space can be a fun and creative project. By following these simple guidelines, your collection of artwork will sure to be displayed at it’s best.

I’m not really a fan of painting with brushes…I don’t like seeing obvious brush marks in my work so even when I use a paint brush to apply paint I often go right over it with a rag or the blunt end of the brush to disguise the mark.

On the other hand I do like to apply paint and move it around the painting surface with unconventional tools. A paint brush, or even a palette knife just can’t make the kinds of marks that I can get with these tools.

A younger version of me may have been really annoyed that I didn’t get what I ordered and would have complained and probably would have returned them. But the current, older and wiser version of me decided to keep them and figure out how I could work with them. So what if they don’t match the rest?

“Assemblage” is posted in my studio to remind me this is my intention. I am a process driven artist.  Conceptual concerns hold little interest for me in my art practice at the moment.  Making something from nothing and finding beauty in the combination of materials is what interests me. 

December is a contemplative month. As the cold weather settles in and the skies open up to blanket us in snow, I’m snug inside reflecting on the year soon to be over before I begin to dream about the new year and plan for things to come. It’s in this reflective state of mind that I write about my art year 2022.

I remember seeing Manet’s Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) for the first time and crying. While I was familiar with this work through my art history studies, it wasn’t a particular favourite, but nonetheless I became emotional seeing it in person. Art can do this…it can make us feel things. That’s why we live with art.

Making art is often, at least for me, a solitary pursuit. I retreat into my studio with my thoughts, and rely on my own intuition and actions to create something from the materials at hand. But nothing compares to meeting people, including other artists, and talking about art and the joys and the challenges of the art making process. This too is an important part of the journey.