Painting peppers

I have been painting fruit, especially pears and sometimes apples for a long, long time, and tend to return to them when I am stuck. This has been a year of clay feet for me, but I think I'm finally getting back into the groove. Lots of ideas, an embarrassing number of partially finished projects, but little completed work. Painting some new pieces for a group show at the Botanical Gardens has helped.

Since I haven't posted ANYTHING in a while, and I generally take photos of paintings in several stages, I thought a series of images of the sweet peppers I finished painting yesterday would make a nice post. They were on a white plate sitting on a red chair (one of my favorite backdrops).

The canvas is 12" x 12" and as you can see, I wipe my brushes off on the wall. I don't sketch, but just start painting from the objects. I take photos of the still-life for reference, because the produce often shrivels (or worse) before the painting is completed. This painting was finished from the photos...

And now on to the studio!

Book projects- two into one

I seem to be genetically incapable of working on one thing at a time, so I am researching and pondering 2 book projects and stretching canvases for new paintings, as other ideas dance like sugar plums in the back of my mind.

My commitment (last year) to make a book for Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here has been an exercise in what I don't want it to be, and I have spent a year thinking, reading, looking at other books, and being stymied. It wasn't until I signed up for another group project, Book-Art-Object, that a concept arose that seemed to fit, and, I hope, will merge the two commitments into one book.

The title I chose for BAO is Making Bread. I started thinking about Mesopotamia, the Cradle of Civilization, the Fertile Crescent as the breadbasket, all information stuck in my head in 7th grade Geography class. And then, Baghdad as a focus of high culture and the irony of moving from heights of intellectual creativity to fear and fundamentalist intolerance. Now I am reading histories of bread and writing in my journal about having grown up in an intellectually curious extended family amid fear-instilling radio and television news reports of the Cold War, Viet Nam, and myriad civil wars, genocides, famines around the world. Man's unimaginable inhumanity to fellow man, but not in my neighborhood.

I started making bread in High School, as my Sunday morning meditative replacement for going to church, and as a way to connect with the millions of people who make bread around the planet (yes, I was an aspiring Hippy). I have added the subtitle (Not Bombs) to Making Bread to merge these ideas, and am trying different structures in sketches- soon to be working models. Hedi Kyle's flag book, with its interleaving fragments, seems most satisfying at this point, but everything could change before the book is actually editioned!

My creative process tends to develop through a sometimes painfully slow germination process, making lists, trying out and rejecting possibilities, and eventually having a sudden "Eureka!" moment when a path is revealed to me. And so, progress is being made, however slowly.

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...