Show in Wesleyville

I will be showing work and teaching workshops in Wesleyville in early July. Here's the schedule:

Painting I with Tara Bryan
Friday & Saturday, July 8th & 9th 2011, 10am-5pm
$175 + HST, bring your own materials (or purchase them at the studio)
An introduction to oil painting, with the basics of mixing colours and creating a painting. We will discuss choosing a subject, composition, and different techniques of applying paint. Bring several photos you are interested in working from.

Painting II with Tara Bryan
Monday & Tuesday, July 11th & 12th 2011, 10am-5pm
$175 + HST, bring your own materials (or purchase them at the studio)
For people with some experience handling oil paints. We will focus on planning and completing a painting, discussing different techniques and mediums along the way. Bring several photos you are interested in working on, and any questions you have from previous paintings.

Drawing: Edges and Contrast with Tara Bryan
Wednesday, July 13th 2011, 10am-noon
$40 + HST, bring your own materials (or purchase them at the studio)
Using a variety of drawing tools, we will focus on different ways of looking and defining space to create realistic drawings on paper.
Sharpie pen, drawing pencils (a set is best, in a range from 5B to 5H), white eraser, and paper- newsprint, white drawing paper.

You can call or email to sign up for any or all classes, or for more information.
Janet Davis
Norton's Cove Studio Inc.
Located at Job Kean Shop, Brookfield
Mail to P. O. Box 223 Wesleyville, NL A0G 4R0
Telephone 709.536.2533 Fax 5795 Fax to email 5791
www.nortonscovestudio.com

Show's open!

The show "What passes for Spring" opened at Christina Parker Gallery on Saturday, May 15, and J. M. Sullivan's article about it was in The Telegram on Friday. You can see it at http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=340729&sc=85

These days, I am finishing up the paintings for a show at Christina Parker. These are smaller than the paintings at The Rooms, but still focus on icebergs, with a little fog thrown in for good measure! The painting above is 24" x 72" and is titled "Purple Haze". I don't want to give away the surprises before the show opens, but I may send along a few teasers between now and the 15th.

The opening at The Rooms was a great success- I was gobsmacked to find the Theatre packed for my artist's talk! The window next to the large painting below looks out to St. John's Harbour; the large painting was done from a photo of that view, leaving out the buildings, wharves, ships, Cabot Tower, oil tanks and anything else man-made, and bringing icebergs inside the narrows. The icebergs around the narrows were taken from late 19th and early 20th century photos in the Archives, so they are like the ghosts of icebergs past.

(work installed at The Rooms Provincial Gallery, photos Ellie Yonova, http://www.ellieyonova.com/)

One show opened, and I was back in the studio finishing work for another exhibition, this time at Christina Parker Gallery, http://www.christinaparkergallery.com/, opening May 15th. When I am painting, my verbal ability seems to go on holiday, so it's hard to paint and write about what I'm doing. I'll stick to the installation at The Rooms Art Gallery for now and add some of the new work over the next week.

another update...

I am still working away on the paintings for April, while my studio angel, Kitty, works on the 3-D iceberg. These two paintings are almost finished (they're both 4' x 6') and this week I will attack the 8' x 13' painting of the St. John's Harbour. I hope to start painting the 3-D piece next week, and I'm counting my minutes, since I can only work when the building is open.

Here is the current state of the sculpture...

Progress

All the pieces are slowly taking shape. Kitty Drake has been helping; the sculpture now has paper on it and the Narrows has most of its underpainting.

The mulberry paper, adhered with cooked wheat paste, drew up when it dried, pulling away from the indentations in the armature. It's like a drum-- tapping different spots produces a variety of sounds. Now we are experimenting with small areas to re-form the paper to the original shape.

It's all a learning experience!

Where has the time gone? I'm working at the Rooms these days, being artist-in-residence. Working around bad weather and a bad shoulder, but working, nevertheless. These pieces will be exhibited in the 4th floor gallery with a view of the Harbour in April.

The wonderful thing about working there is having the fabulous tech staff to help with, well, technical stuff, like building stretchers and armature. I'm working on a large painting, 8' x 13', that will hang on the wall beside the big window, several smaller paintings and a 3-D piece.

From my little plaster carving, the shape was scaled up and the armature base cut from a sheet of plywood. It's seen below with the somewhat photographically skewed sketch of what will be the 8' x 13' painting of the narrows.

The painting is no longer all white, and the armature is covered with 2 layers of paper.

Here's the current state of one of the 4' x 6' pieces. More to come!

Jumping in...

I set up this account in July, thinking summer would be the perfect time to ease myself into the world of blogging. I didn't anticipate the anxiety making the first post would create. I am seldom daunted by the presence of a blank canvas, but this blank rectangle on the computer screen had me stymied.

I have procrastinated very well for these past four months, and, now that November is here, I realize that if I don't just post SOMETHING I will NEVER start. So here I am!

I have been painting icebergs this year. They come from far away and no one is driving them. They are huge clumps of ice whose final transformation we sometimes get to see from shore, after they have travelled thousands of miles. Sometimes they appear in herds and float south along the shore like a parade of animals; sometimes I strain my eyes toward a tiny reflective speck on the distant horizon only to realize that it's just a transport ship.

Like the fog in Newfoundland, icebergs are an unpredictable and mysterious presence. Here are some of my efforts to date. I feel a bit adrift, as if I were sending a message in a bottle out into the ether. Anyone out there?