Grey's great

 

 What a smile

Black marker and watercolour

on Arches watercolour paper

3 x 5 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

David Lobenberg is an artist whose work inspires
me again and again.  He's great with acrylic, fantastic
with watercolour, and can paint anything -- but is
especially captivating with portraits.  Lately he's
been doing spectacular work in watercolour -- dazzling
portraits.

David is a big believer in grey scale.  Working on value.
I have spent most of my life in value aversion therapy,
and find I do love thinking about value when it's attached
to a colour, but I want to free myself from all hold backs,
so why not plunge in I thought.

On the weekend I bought a tube of Payne's Grey, and
the other night did this small portrait of a friend, using
that colour exclusively (as David recommends) with
a black marker drawing underneath.  There will be more
of that.

In the late afternoon today we had real winter, and I drove
home from my long day at school clutching the steering
wheel.  We've been beyond lucky this winter -- I think
this is the first real snowfall yet, and only the second
day of freaky driving.  That's probably a bad sign for the
planet, but it has been a treat.


Have a working-on-your-values day.

Remember to notice the light

 

 The lane in winter

iPad drawing

8 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

In some ways it's been a somber day.  Friends and
family members having some hard times.  But outside
nature was putting on a spectacular show -- first of
all a snowfall that coated everything in that perfect
sugar candy coating of snow -- every branch, every
leaf still trying to grow in the garden.  Then the sun
came out and melted most of it.  And at the end of
the day wispy clouds against a azure sky.  Winter
you sure know how to shake things up.

I looked up a photo I took of a lane near my house
that I love, and decided to do a drawing on my iPad.
The colours are so glorious -- pure pleasure.  And
that matters.  So here it is.  Another little iPad drawing.
I'm heading back down to the studio now to mess
with some paint.  My sister-in-law Lina pointed
out that the light's returning to the land.  Now
that is joyous news.

Have a rollicking-in-the-light day.

Is happiness real?

 Dreaming of Maine

Acrylic on canvas

8 x 8 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

Once again I've had a great day.  Not much time
to paint, but I had fun thinking about Maine and
parts of New Brunswick with this one, where you
come upon buildings that run into one another, and
go on and on because some new addition was needed,
and unlike our tiny city lots the room was there,
so Bob's your uncle, ipso facto, lets add another
section on.  Some of them are my favorite white
clapboard, and that's what I was thinking about
in this little dreamscape.

I met a friend I hadn't seen for a long time today,
and we had the greatest talk.  I am such a firm
believer in happiness and always enjoy
good conversation in a lovely setting.  I walked
away with a rich feeling of delight colouring
my day.

But by contrast it seems that so many people
I've talked to recently are leary of the idea
of happiness. They ask -- is happiness real?
Substitute possible, achievable, valuable? 
Is this just winter acting on the collective
mood? Maybe it doesn't matter.  Apparently pessimists
are classically conservative, and optimists more liberal.
I have no idea whether or not this is true. I do
know that it feels infinitely better to think you're
happy, than to know that you're not.

Steven and I went out to Ikea, for our Thursday
night supper.  The people behind the counter
there recognize us because we've been following
this strange, predictable pattern for almost
two years.  We eat practically the same meals, and
sit where we can watch little children and families
playing.  Tonight a mother was spoon feeding supper
to her six year old girl, so that the child didn't have
to stop playing to eat.  Both the mother and child
were happy.  I think.  And we were happy watching
them.  I think.  We also seemed to be happy in
the car listening to a wildly funny radio show
and laughing our heads off.

Maybe it's those new vitamins Steven's been giving
me, because despite reasons for sorrow that are
always present, I have been feeling overwhelmingly
content.  Even happy.  Maybe you're the reason for
that, and you and you and you.  Thanks for that.
I think it's real. And if I'm living in some
Descartian/Augustinian duality for now I think
I'll chill, and say WooHoo! Today life is good.

Have a having-a-great-day day

What's up?

 Jesca (Work in progress)

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 24 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012 

Wednesday is another long day for me.  On my break
I went to a nearby mall and walked for an hour. Then
I downed a Starbucks coffee, wondering why it tastes
so good when a barista makes it, and not quite as punchy
when I make it at home.  But I was revved enough, that I
taught my class, drove home and worked on this
portrait of a little girl named Jesca.  She's an African girl
and an orphan who needs help to be able
to go to high school.  The orphanage where she now
lives is a school that can only help the children
until they reach high school age.  So for high school Jesca
needs sponsors to raise the $8,000 her high school
education will cost.

I'd meant to finish this painting for the show I had
in the fall with Gill Cameron, who is trying to raise
funds for Jesca, and another little girl, Mary,
but it was an insanely busy fall and I didn't have
time.  So now I'm going to get it done.

I wanted to wait until it was getting there before
I showed it to you.  For me a portrait is starting
to come together when I start to talk to the
person in the painting.  That may sound crazy,
but I'm willing to bet that other portrait painters
say the same thing.  Unless she feels present, she
has no chance of being lively.  So she's beginning
to feel present to me.  There are many things I'm
working on in the portrait, and I'll let you see my
changes as I go along. At this point I'm painting the
painting for me, so I have no idea whether it will
help contribute to the charity or not.

Meanwhile thank you to everyone who made this
day a great one.

Have a-getting-along-and-enjoying-your-life day.

For the love of houses

 

 Nova Scotia Dreamscape

Acrylic on canvas

8 x 8 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

When you drive out to the Maritimes from
a central industrial city like Toronto, the pleasures
of getting away are many.  It's a long, long drive,
but the air gets cleaner, and cleaner the whole
way -- until you reach Moncton, New Brunswick
where it smells like clover in the summer.  But another
one of the huge anticipated treats of getting back
"home" to the Maritimes is the sighting on the
horizon of a white clapboard house standing
at the top of a hill, or in a field.  When I come
upon a bunch of sweet buildings in the classic
child's drawing house shape, I feel like a kid in
a candy shop.

Today's painting is a very loose, abstract view
of a cluster of clapboard buildings.  Mmmm.

Have a loving-your-favorite-landscape day.

Just miss you in the mist

 Fog in the woods

iPad drawing

8 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

I am working on a sustained portrait and it's not
ready for a first viewing.  I will show it to you
when it's ready to be a work in progress.
Today is Monday, and it's been a crazy long work
day at school for me.  But driving to and from
school today was incredibly beautiful.  The
roads were shiny with rain, and closer to school
a thick fog blanketed the fields, and filled the
woods with gauzy grey.  I told Steven how
gorgeous it was and he asked ,"wouldn't a famous
artist like Georgia O'Keefe, or A.Y. Jackson
make a sketch?"  So I did -- on my
iPad.  Paintings will be here soon.  I just missed you
and thought I'd share the impression of "mist"
or in this case, very thick fog.

Have an  enjoying-the-warm-mist day.

Dreaming of Nova Scotia

 The Schoolhouse in the snow

Acrylic on wood panel

5 x 5 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

I got thinking about my little school house in
Nova Scotia today.  Normally because the
temperature is warmed by the waters of the
Northumberland Straight there is not a lot
of snow there.  But I think this winter they've
had some impressive snow storms.  So I
imagined my little school house right against
the highway surrounded my snow.  The wavy
piece is the highway that runs right by her
front door.  I showed the painting to Steven and
he loved it, so it must evoke our little home away
from home.  It is strictly a summer place, heated
by a woodstove, and no insulation.  On a bigger
canvas I'd put in the crows and the red squirrel
who inhabit our acre, but realistically I didn't have room.

This little painting is on a small wood panel,
self-framed in wood.  Many of my painter friends
in Europe paint amazing scenes on little boards
just 5.9 inches square.  This structure is 5 inches
square, and painting on it left me filled with
admiration for my friends.

Have a painting-your-dreams day.