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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Making art is messy.

When I paint on deep wood panels I usually dribble paint or other media down the sides when I’m working. This is part of the artmaking process, I know, but when a painting is completed, I like the sides to be dribble free, preferring instead a tidy and uniform finish.

It was my builder who suggested we build the wall out of pegboard rather than plywood. Doing so would allow me many options to easily rearrange my paintings in progress on hooks, at just about any height and any configuration. The pegboard is 4’ wide, so we used that dimension for the height of the wall with the bottom edge of the painting wall 33” from the floor.

As the days progressed, I recognized in myself a tendency to try to “make art”. I lost sight of just making for the simple pleasure of it and having the “art” be a byproduct of the making process.

Knowing when a painting is finished is a question that I’ve been thinking about for some time, especially since my current interest is in expressing myself through making abstract imagery.

After the first few passes on a painting, it’s simple enough to know that it isn’t finished because, well it's only the beginning. Then as more marks and materials accumulate on the surface of the painting, it's a much more difficult question.

I found a collection of small pieces of paper that I used in another project that had been languishing on a shelf for years. Imagine a fishbowl, just the right size for one little goldfish, filled almost to the top with scraps of torn paper all about 1” square.  Each square is painted either yellow, orange or red on one side.  Imagine that there are several hundred of these little goldfish coloured squares. 

Aside from the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, the shopping and celebrating, December seems to bring with it the need to look back on the waning year, to reflect on what has been, before looking toward the new year to come. So it’s with this spirit that I write about my art year in 2021.

I started making mini paintings by chance when I was participating in my first art market. Each artist was asked to donate something reflective of their practice to be used as a draw item.  I had some older work on paper that I cut down and mounted on cards, and along with their envelopes, I wrapped up five of these one of a kind greeting cards into a little bundle as my donation.

I love the finishing stages of making an acrylic painting, preparing it for a life outside of the studio. There are so many decisions to be made while in the midst of making art. That’s why I enjoy the finishing process so much. It’s a pleasure to switch from decision making to task mode where few decisions are required.

Recently I made a start on cleaning up and sorting out my studio, a task that I undertake a few times a year after the end of a productive period of making.  Cleaning up and sorting through my materials helps me to move from one project to the next and I often find little treasures of material that help to inform the next series of work.  This time I had a lot of scraps of collage paper lying around.