Tag: play

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Painting Demo / Brush Up Your Skills in 2025

Hello Paint fans!

I am offering a PAINTING DEMO in my studio at 12-1 pm on Saturday Jan 4, donations welcome! I will be blocking in a simple still life, and sharing some of my thought process while I build up the image. Although I will be working in oil paint, most of the elements of painting cover acrylic painting too. If you have questions about the painting process, my painting classes, or would just enjoy watching me paint, please drop by. 🙂

Location: #430 – 1000 Parker Street, East Vancouver

PAINTING CLASS OFFERINGS 2025

Have you noticed that you have some areas in your painting practise where you feel “stuck” and have questions about how to move past your blocks?

Never fear, it’s only paint, right? I am here for you!

Would you like to feel more at home with paint-handling, colour mixing, and composition, loosening up your brushwork, and expressing your own unique vision?

Starting mid-January I am offering my Painting Skill-builder Class, which may be what you need at precisely this moment! Check out my Classes menu on my website to learn more.

Make 2025 your year to expand your art!

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Neil Gaiman: Make Good Art

This seems to be the week of excellent tips from friends on inspiring videos. Interesting that both of the ones I am posting are of fellows from the UK.

Recently writer Neil Gaiman was invited to address the University of the Arts Class of 2012. It’s incredibly inspiring for anyone who needs encouragement to keep on making art. Watch this.

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John Cleese on Creativity

An artist friend tipped me about this excellent lecture on YouTube by British comedian John Cleese, on which he succinctly outlines key elements for creativity.

Cleese: “Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.”

Link to the lecture here

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Drawing in the Dark (Part 2)

Vancouver Opera premiere of Lillian Alling, Act 1

Excerpt from Vancouver Opera’s Blog

The things people do in the dark of a theatre.

Some people sit riveted and try to taking in everything that is happening on stage. Others glance upwards and down as they read the surtitles. And others may close their eyes and simply let the music and singing overtake them.

Not artist Val Nelson.

Val draws the opera when the lights go down. Ever so discretely and imperceptibly that her fellow seatmates do not even know this was happening. Val first came to our attention when she drew at Madama Butterfly last season.

On opening night, she was once again armed with her drawing pen to help us record the world premiere of Lillian Alling.

(read more…)

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The Wanderer

Ever toil away at a problem, getting nowhere, then finally give up in despair and take a shower, or go for a drive? If you have read Jay Ingram‘s book “Theatre of the Mind”, you will recognize that state he talks about, where in doing something familiar that requires little brain energy, your imagination is free to wander and relax, and “eureka!” the solution to your problem pops seemingly out of nowhere.

Creativity needs that open space in order to forge new “links” previously unrecognized. For me, that freedom to follow my instincts in the painting studio is key to making work that engages me, and hopefully the viewer as well.

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Drawing in the dark

Last week I went with my husband to see Vancouver Opera‘s production of Madama Butterfly. I wanted to see if I could do some drawings of the production. Since you can’t see what you are doing while sitting in the dark, there is little opportunity to self-edit, and no choice but to be free to make marks, constantly obliterating the actions that have just been carried out, without preciousness. The resulting drawings are records of movement through space and time.

Val Nelson, Madama Butterfly, Act 2, 2010, 8.5 x 11 inches, ink on Stonehenge paper

This way of working reminds me of something I read about Cy Twombly, who reportedly practiced drawing in the dark when he was drafted into the army and worked as a cryptographer in 1953. Having seen “primitive” mark-making in North Africa, he was intent on recovering the directness of the unschooled, unselfconscious artist. One can’t help but also think of the drypoints and drawings of Ann Kipling. This is the kind of drawing that I find very exciting to do, something that retains the essence of a state of mind in focussed absorption.

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John Baldessari and respecting one’s audience

John Baldessari, Beethoven's Trumpet (With Ear), Opus 127 2007 Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York © John Baldessari Resin, fibreglass, bronze, aluminuim and electronics

The American artist John Baldessari, in a podcast from Tate Modern, states that he acknowledes his audience when making his artwork. His opinion on this developed through his need to communicate with his students; he needed to find ways to hold their attention. In his artist talk he says that he feels it is his job to provide enough “meat” for a more intellectual audience, but also to be able to connect with the average viewer; “I can’t control who will be looking at the work.”

Famous for sometimes poking fun at the artworld, here’s Baldessari in a version of I’m Making Art circa 1971.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA6Gp3QvKwI&feature=related]

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Passion and Work

My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme, published by Alfred A. Knopf

Julia Child
photo: Paul Child

I waited six weeks to receive an email from the Vancouver Public Library that the book I had reserved was waiting for me at my local library around the corner. I was in luck–it was a Thursday night, which meant the  library was open late. I could nip out before dinner and grab my precious object tout de suite.

Running all the way, I enthused to the librarian about my excited anticipation to read Julia Child’s already iconic biography, My Life in France. From the first page I knew I would not be disappointed. I’m half way through, and already mourning the event I know is coming––when I reach the final page.

Ms. Childs’ engaging story of her journey to becoming herself through her love of French cooking, and her descriptions of an American woman living in France in the 1950’s is an entertaining and delightful read.

Here is an excerpt describing a philosophy on cooking the lowly scramble egg by Chef Bugnard, one of her instructors at the Cordon Bleu cooking school:

His eggs were always perfect, and although he must have made this dish several thousand times, he always took great pride and pleasure in this performance. Bugnard insisted that one pay attention, learn the correct technique, and that one enjoy one’s cooking––”Yes, Madame Scheeld, fun!” he’d say “Joy!”

I am not the most adept of cooks; though I love eating, I’m the type who can make a decent meal when called upon, but most of my artistic energy goes into work in the studio. Reading My Life in France has me thinking that maybe I should sign up for that cooking course; I might actually enjoy myself.

Go, go at once, dear reader, and get yourself a copy of this wonderful book.

Posted on

Passion and Work

My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme, published by Alfred A. Knopf

Julia Child
photo: Paul Child

I waited six weeks to receive an email from the Vancouver Public Library that the book I had reserved was waiting for me at my local library around the corner. I was in luck–it was a Thursday night, which meant the  library was open late. I could nip out before dinner and grab my precious object tout de suite.

Running all the way, I enthused to the librarian about my excited anticipation to read Julia Child’s already iconic biography, My Life in France. From the first page I knew I would not be disappointed. I’m half way through, and already mourning the event I know is coming––when I reach the final page.

Ms. Childs’ engaging story of her journey to becoming herself through her love of French cooking, and her descriptions of an American woman living in France in the 1950’s is an entertaining and delightful read.

Here is an excerpt describing a philosophy on cooking the lowly scramble egg by Chef Bugnard, one of her instructors at the Cordon Bleu cooking school:

His eggs were always perfect, and although he must have made this dish several thousand times, he always took great pride and pleasure in this performance. Bugnard insisted that one pay attention, learn the correct technique, and that one enjoy one’s cooking––”Yes, Madame Scheeld, fun!” he’d say “Joy!”

I am not the most adept of cooks; though I love eating, I’m the type who can make a decent meal when called upon, but most of my artistic energy goes into work in the studio. Reading My Life in France has me thinking that maybe I should sign up for that cooking course; I might actually enjoy myself.

Go, go at once, dear reader, and get yourself a copy of this wonderful book.