I have been very busy preparing for Art & Music in the Garden 2019, an event that is being held in the gardens of Horticultural Centre of the Pacific. It is a bright, colourful affair and there will be many artists and musicians there. I decided to create a whole new body of work for this occasion and set about taking photographs of the flowers in the gardens at HCP in Spring and Summer this year. I selected a number of the pictures to use in my encaustic paintings using a method of photo transfer in-between the layers of the bees wax. Most of the paintings are 8X8 inches and some are 6X6 inches. My paintings are a playful mixture of photography and digital imaging layered between coloured and clear beeswax. Each piece of art is always meant to be so much more than a photograph. I hope those who see this body of work will appreciate the playfulness and joy of the garden!

It has been an immensely full and joyful year. Uncovering and creating a garden has produced basketfuls of produce. The Bees have done so well and are a constant delight just to sit and watch them at their business. I've been learning to sail and we've acquired a beautiful 25ft yacht we've called Pegasuz. I've been bursting at the seams with projects and ideas.

​And then there's the painting... I find my palette increasing and my style loosening. Suddenly, abstract, which was always so foreign and frustrating to me is becoming fascinating and freeing. I am still very drawn to the bands of colour across a landscape or the sea and I am seeking to capture this essence in a new collection of abstracts called "Sea and Sky". 

My Studio Tour this year has a new home, - Greenwood Studio in my home on Vancouver Island. We moved here in May this year and it has taken some hard work to get settled in here and to keep up with my art. It has been quite a journey. I am glad to be sharing in the Studio Tour on the Saanich Peninsula on Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd October, 11.00am-4.00pm. You would be so welcome to come and visit!

The main inspiration for my 8 new paintings is the incredible landscape of Manitoba just at the point that winter begins to ease back and allow spring to slowly move in. It's an exhilarating time and great anticipation hangs in the air. The snow starts to melt and icy creeks begin to flow. It's a time of awakening and great hope. The colours of the landscape are raw and simple, - blue, white, brown and black. I could paint them over and over.

Link to the map and brochure for the Studio Tour:
https://cacsp.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Fall-Studio-Tour-Brochure.pdf

Here are a few of my newest paintings:

These three paintings catch a glimpse of Summer. A Lighthouse on Vancouver Island, Cows in the field just over our fence and a Prairie wheat field set against the incredible sky. 

So glad to be painting again! The back end of last year was so hectic I could not settle into painting. I need time, and space and most importantly, head space. I'm not lacking inspiration, - it's wild, free and all around me all the time. But there were so many other projects and deadlines and happenings crowding in on my space. It's nice to empty out again, allow myself to clear the brain, take a breath, make space. This is a  picture of the fence at the back of our "field" looking over cow pasture. The snow has blown across the vast fields and exposed soil and grass. I stood there for a long time remembering the seasons that passed, the bright green of Spring, the tall yellow grass of Summer, the stubby brown thatch left after the bales were taken away and the cows were gone. I'm calling this piece, "Memories of Summer"

"Memories of Summer", 20"x10"

There are artists up and down this area just like me this week, scrambling to put the finishing touches on some of our pieces in preparation for the Studio Tour! It's a fun business! Woohoo it's not easy to put your heart out to the world. But I've just been painting because I love it, painting scenes and pictures because I love them. That's the reason. I hope that some of them might resonate with others, reminding them of places they've been. Here are three little ones and a big one, - as usual my subjects cross the continents. I'll pop a virtual tour on here next weekend for those not able to make it to my Studio Tour.