"Morning Break"

This is a painting I did a few years ago but it remains one of my favorites and I just chose it to go by my name on the website of Canadian Painters. I accidentally found I was listed there- apparently the list is a hobby of Francois Lareau- and is really quite amazing!   I'm getting a bit more organized after DoorsOpen although I still don't have the stacks of additional paintings all  properly set up yet.  Wednesday night is our "long pose" for Life Drawing - a model in a costume so I have to sort out what papers I have for pastels. I think it is time to restock my supply. I used to like cream and buff a lot - but lately I've been enjoying working on darker colours.  Then, this weekend, a workshop to look forward to - portrait painting with David Goatley . I have to catch up on my photography too as  finally decided that the "pots" painting is finished and I'll have to photograph  its final incarnation plus the last "long pose" from Life Drawing, etc.

One week later

It is one week after DoorsOpen and I am still reorganizing.  The laundry room wall had a "food wall" this year and some of the small paintings have moved on to new homes.  I will be re-hanging the gardening tools on that wall- actual loppers and clippers, not paintings,  but I thought it might be a good time to post a picture of the sixteen varieties of apples when they were displayed as a group in a show in White Rock. I call them "Iconic Edibles" because they have gold backgrounds like icons and are the focus of attention.  DoorsOpen was really busy this year as our group of three nearby artists was on the bus tour. It also seemed like some cars were following the bus as a lot of people arrived at the same time.  This year's Arts Awards ceremony was this past week at City Hall and I was a finalist in the Volunteerism category.  Lots of art activity in Richmond - but we still need display space for local artists.

Tomorrow is the day...

I'm still sorting out  for DoorsOpen but I will put out some of the fruit and veggie paintings. They were all painted from "life" a few years ago and some have gone on to new homes. I have three apples up in the kitchen - on my very limited wall-space now that I have more storage and less walls. It is nice to have a bit of art up in a kitchen and this is where acrylics shine . If they get dirty in any way, they can actually be wiped off with no damage to the painting. This pomegranate painting got a bit of a re-do after the colour workshop as I worked more complementary colour into the background.  This is another neat thing about acrylics - you can make changes well after the fact!  I felt the background change brought out more vibrancy in the cut pieces. I think when pomegranates are in season again, that I may very well paint some more.....Off to fix up some labels.  I'm trying a DoorsOpen "special" of 25% off.

Magnets on the furnace and rock-moving crows

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I've created more display space by posting a few pastel drawings on the furnace - with magnets. This is Monique with a bit of exaggeration to draw more attention to the shoes and pose.....Still more work to do to get ready but I did finish clipping the edges of the garden beds. They need a bit of shape-improvement as some edges are a bit wonky where grass grew in or where plants grew out and obliterated grass.... and that won't get done this week. I found a few more rocks that the crows had moved- always nicely arranged at the base of a plant. I wonder if they are voting for favourite plants...or perhaps are frustrated landscape designers who think some of the front garden rocks should be in the back garden. I've picked up a couple of buckets of rocks just this spring. I see that they only take the smooth river rocks - never rougher-finished gravel chunks. I hope they are only moving them from front to back and not taking them into other gardens - after all, this is Richmond, we are on pure clay soil,  and all those rocks in the front yard were bought and brought into place. I wonder if they will continue with more rock moving or if it was a passing fancy? I did read of a shrine in Japan where the crows move rocks to such an extent that warning signs have had to be posted to warn visitors of the dangers of falling rocks. I think the crows  must do the arranging in the very early morning as I've never caught the would-be landscapers at their task.

still working on it...

I am not ready yet for DoorsOpen. Today is a nice day so I want to finish trimming the edges of the back garden which will make things look much neater. Of course, it is never as simple as just clipping grass- there are always those stray weeds that catch your eye - or more twigs to be picked out of plants. From the amount of twigs gathered, a person would think we would have branchless trees by now but the trees look fine and the branch shedding continues. I'm organizing inside too.  I'm thinking of putting "Danish Danish" in the laundry room with other "food" paintings when I take the garden tools off the wall. Things will look different this year as I painted the laundry room turquoise- quite a change from the white walls. Still too many paintings- most of the figurative work is going to end up leaning in stacks, I think. Yesterday, I had a visitor who didn't realize it is next weekend for DoorsOpen but she said she would be back. I promised cookies for the open studio.

Getting ready for DoorsOpen

I've just moved "Winter Pond" to a new location in my studio as I get ready for DoorsOpen. I painted this a few years back and I still like it! It is a scene from just up on the nearby dyke - from a winter when we had snow. So often around here, if we do get snow, it is grey skies and then it turns to rain and there is no time to really enjoy it. But that time, we had snow and then a cool but sunny day. I liked that the bull-rushes of the marsh added some warmth to the scene. Needless to say, I did not paint it on the spot (too cold!)  but used references. Then it was built up from a beginning where it was blocked in in monochromatically. Paynes Gray and white.  Somewhere under the layers there is pink on the snow in the sunlight.  There was also a glaze of blue.  I did a series of snow paintings and some have moved on to new homes. For DoorsOpen, I am going to mark prices 25% less - since I can't normally just reduce prices without having a gallery mad at me! We'll see if it makes any difference. One of the problems with all the doom and gloom talk about the economy is that people hesitate to buy art - but it will last longer than a fancy meal out - or a hockey game. There are not as many artists with open studios for DoorsOpen as there used to be for Artists Among Us- but maybe it is just because some artists have moved out of Richmond or have downsized to condos. This year, the city-owned bus is doing some tours- four different itineraries. The Sunday afternoon one is to 4 artists studios - and I am one of them! It will be interesting to see how that goes. I'm still figuring out what to hang *where*.  This will actually be the first DoorsOpen I will be showing the European paintings as they have been elsewhere since I completed the series. I'll also have a free draw for an original painting.

Another take

This version of Helen in the peasant costume was done in 2 hours at the colour workshop- from a photo. We were allowed to use our own mediums, not  necessarily watercolour that we had been working with. I used a limited palette - but with added white, of course. This is a small painting- 9"x7". I was interested in working some neutrals into the background and more colour into the shadows. However, I wasn't daring enough to go with the vivid green Matisse used in the portrait of his wife. I can admire more abstraction in figures and portraits but it doesn't seem to be my thing. Funny, a lot of figurative work seems to sell in New York but not here. I've been admiring work by Margaret Bowland which is imaginative, yet realistic too. She is in a New York gallery.