First pansies and chilly nights

 First pansies

Acrylic on canvas

6 x 6 inches

Barbara Muir © 2013

The weather is beautiful out today, but tonight
 the temperature in Toronto is expected to fall
to zero degrees Celsius or 32 Fahrenheit and it
could go lower, because we have frost warnings!

I have some pansies in pots, (not planted yet), and
 I have to bring them inside.  Cold springs happen,
but this is really cold.  Imagine searching for
your winter gloves in May. And yesterday as Steven
and I were coming home from shopping it was
snowing!  Snowing!  On May 12th in Toronto.

I finished my little painting of pansies today, and
I hope we don't get frost tonight because I've been
dreaming of those peach trees we saw Saturday
and the peaches in August.  Such a treat.

Have a keeping-warm-and-creative day. 

Happy Mother's Day -- My art and family life

The baby's sleeping

(work in progress)

Acrylic on canvas

8 x 8 inches

Barbara Muir © 2010

(This painting captures my feelings about

motherhood perfectly.  No matter how

much your children grow up, this early

beautiful time, and the powerful

feelings of new motherhood last for mothers

throughout their children's lives.

That's why we are so protective, so

crazy, so fiercely proud and so loving.

A heady mixture.  Enjoy kids!)

I hope you had a Happy Mother's Day.  I started the day
talking to my Mom, so sorry I couldn't be with her.  Then
as I drank my coffee and read my novel first Steven brought
me coffee, then Sam brought me enough roses to fill the
house!  Amazing.

Spring Break Shoreline

Acrylic on Canvas

30 x 30 inches 

Barbara Muir © 2007

Then tonight Christopher, Sam and Steven took me to dinner
at my favorite restaurant The Golden Thai.  The waiter Wilson
was very kind, and knew Wing, whose portrait I finished in
March.  He gave us special extra treats.  What an evening.
We laughed and joked and reminisced the evening away.
So it was a perfect day.

 Sunset at the Lake

Acrylic on canvas

36 x 48 inches

Barbara Muir © 2008

(This painting is of my daughter-in-law Megan.

It's a powerful painting in person. I am crazy

about Megan, she's added so much fun and 

laughter to our family.)

Christopher and Sam in the restaurant tonight.

My grown up children

Thank you guys for a great evening,

and wonderful time being your mother.

Happy Mother's Day to all, and thank you to everyone who
gives me moral support, kindness and friendship -- women
and men, you are all like mothers to me.

Have a loving-the-mothers-and-fathers-and-
loving-people-in-your-world day

Visiting Kim Rempel at the HandMade Market

 Kim and her gorgeous paintings 

(Head out tomorrow and grab some for your Mom

or yourself)

Steven and I took a beautiful drive today to
St. David's near Niagara-On-The-Lake
where Kim Rempel was selling
her beautiful paintings in the St. David's
HandMade Market at the Ravine Winery.

Kim with me at her booth 

(those baskets are full of superb paintings)

The location was superb, and the weather just
right -- cool and sunny, although the wind must
have been a challenge for some of the outside
stalls.  I've admired Kim's work since I first
saw it on line, and her posts too.  She is a
pro through and through, and the most
generous of bloggers, taking us on holiday
with her to France a while ago and on her ski trip to
 Vermont in the winter.  Plus she is always painting.

Kim and her sister Sheri who was 

helping her at the market.  What

fun they are!

Here's to another great day on Mother's Day
tomorrow Kim. 

Our other reason for the trip.  We've been hunting

for views of fruit blossoms.  Kim tipped me off

to where they were (right near the Vineyard), and

so after visiting her we drove through miles and

miles of paradise.  Thank you Kim!!!

Have a very happy Mother's Day

Sewing backwards and forward -- it's like painting

Mary at the ocean

Work in progress (stages 3, 4, 5, 6)

Acrylic on canvas

12 x 12 inches

Barbara Muir © 2013

For the past couple of days I've spent part of
the day working on a cover for my dog Zoey's
crate.  The old cover was a navy blue tablecloth
from Winners.  It had had its day.  I hauled out
my ancient sewing machine and used yards
of canvas I had to make a kind of rudimentary
box that covers the crate.

Sewing so that something won't fall apart
involves sewing backwards and forwards over
the same seam at both ends to strengthen it.
And this made me think of painting. It ws
liberating to learn that the artist Lucian Freud,
the painter had stacks of unfinished work
leaning against the walls of his studios,
and would often pull a painting out at random
to finish.

I saw this girl today and thought yes! She  is
an orphan girl in Tanzania who my friend Gill
taught when she was there in 2011. I started
this portrait a couple of summers ago, and felt
like working on it today.  There is a lot more to
do, but it's on its way.  I painted her friend  Jesca and
she and Mary were living at a school and orphanage called Peace
Matunda.  My other painting  is larger.

 

Mary at the ocean

Work in progress (Stages one and two)

Acrylic on canvas

12 x 12 inches

Barbara Muir © 2013

That's why I am going backwards and then forwards
just like in sewing, and I hope it makes for a
strong portrait.  It does make for a happy art
experience.  More to come.

The crate cover is admired by Zoey's fan club -- Fiona.

Zoey is inside ready for bed. By the way if
you don't have a dog, the crate is a refuge,
a private room.  Our dog loves hers, and
goes there whenever she needs to get away,
or in thunder storms.

How it looks with the front piece down

Have a going backwards and forwards for strength day.

The power of action

Pansies center stage (work in progress)

Acrylic on canvas

6 x 6 inches

Barbara Muir © 2013

I have a friend who recently said, "you always do exactly
what you want."  Not really true for a variety of
reasons although I do love my life. This is a common
misconception people have about artists.  But many
artists are terribly constrained by the voices in their
heads that criticize their ideas, and hobble their creations
before they begin.  A few years ago I found the antidote
 to this one. Action.  As Neil Gaiman says, "Make good
art"

That instruction to make good art, could send some
artists (including me) squirreling back to the newspaper to
look for any other job.  So I say, just make some art.
Be gentle on yourself.  You don't have to be Michelangelo
or Mary Cassatt, or Andy Warhol, or anyone else.
You just need to indulge that preternatural urge you
won't escape by not doing, to make art, and make some
today. 

Here's a little bit of art I'm working on making, following
my own dictum.

Have a making some art day.

Flower watercolours for Mother's Day

Small is beautiful

Watercolour and marker on

Arches watercolour paper

6 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

Yesterday The Globe and Mail newspaper Style section
ran a column on what to give your mother for Mother's Day
(next Sunday) that wasn't the standard chocolates and flowers.
Their suggestions ran from shoes and purses, to floral pillows
to Espresso machines.  But what about art?

By the way this is also a great present for your wife, if
you give her Mother's Day presents, as I know my husband
does. (I do the same on Father's Day). Some people give their
aunts or a favorite person who has acted in lieu of a mother
a present too.  What a lovely gesture.

I have a great idea.  How about giving your mother art --
and more specifically one of the floral watercolour paintings
I am including here.  If she's allergic to flowers, but really
loves them -- one of these little paintings is the perfect
gift.  Email me at barbara.muir@sympatico.ca if you're
interested.  They are all $200 Canadian unframed, and
shipping is included.  What's more I will personally deliver
them -- gift wrapped in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area).
They are all 10 x 6 inches and will cheer up any wall,
guaranteed.

Bright bouquet in a milk jug

Watercolour and black marker

on Arches watercolour paper

6 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

 

My brilliant Nasturtiums

Watercolour and black marker

on Arches watercolour paper

6 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

Be here now

Watercolour and marker on

 Arches Watercolour paper

6 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

If you are interested in purchasing one of these paintings please

email me at barbara.muir@sympatico.ca  You can pay by PayPal.

Have a getting-ready-for-Mother's- Day day. 

A delight in strangers

Cutie the bunny goes shopping

Black marker on Fabriano note paper

6 1/4 x 8 1/2

Barbara Muir © 2013

Artists see the whole world as their subjects.
Right or wrong it's true.  So naturally I was
intrigued when I happened upon this lady in one
of my favorite furniture stores walking beside her
husband and a cart with their purchases.  She was
calmly carrying a live rabbit (their pet) in a plastic
box you'd normally use for storing office supplies.
I had my phone with me, asked if I could take her
picture. She happily agreed.

Today I am pretty busy, but I always need to make
time for some art, and I decided to do this sketch.
I might do it again in a series I'll call the kindness
of strangers, paintings of people who've agreed
to pose for photographs for art over the years.  But
I've just come up with that idea, so it may be
a while.  You know from my Easter painting that
I once owned a rabbit named Harold, and that
I love New York -- so oddly enough this woman
and I had an instant bonding experience.

Have a delighting-in-strangers day.