High heat, smog and I need a visual break

 

Macintosh Apples
Acrylic on canvas
8 x 8 inches
Barbara Muir © 

The news is rough, the air is bad. It's hot and people who wouldn't wear

a mask in the height of COVID are wearing masks today.  Fires are

burning all across this province, and people are plenty angry at 
politicians protecting big oil, ignoring climate change, and offering
nuclear energy (which is lethal for minimum 500 years) as a "clean"

option.

So what is positive?  I talked to some wonderful artist friends today
in the Netherlands, in Toronto and worked with a dear friend who
teaches me new things every time we get together.  Which is both
helpful and exciting.

I did some loose drawings today, but didn't have time to paint.
I love this painting and I hope you do.  It made me happy, so
that is good.

Stay safe and --

Have a loving your life day!

Suoer hot one -- here's a cool escape

 

Valentine's Day Blue
Acrylic on canvas
12 x 16 inches
Barbara Muir © 
SOLD ♥

It is an extremely hot day today, 44 Celsius with the Humidex,
which means 111 Fahrenheit. Naturally the heat is the main topic of
conversation. I feel especially lucky that we have air conditioning,
and that my studio is a comfortable temperature. This painting
is offered both as a brief escape from the heat, and a reminder.

In Toronto it won't be long until the cool returns. It may not
snow for 5 months, but it will be much cooler in 3.  The year
is rushing ahead, so today I am painting in the studio, and 
I'm happy to live in the moment.

Have a loving your life day!

Can you tell us where to buy nasturtiums?

Night Nasturtiums 

Watercolour on watercolour paper

5 7/8 x 9.5 inches

Barbara Muir © 

Two years ago, Steven and I, who tend to plant our garden late in the
season were looking for nasturtiums. They are one of my favourite
flowers, mainly because you have to pick them so that they can
continue to grow, which means for the whole season you have flowers
on the kitchen table fresh picked from the garden.

This year we’ve had trouble finding them. In fact, we haven’t been
able to find nasturtiums anywhere. I think we went to four different
flower shops on the weekend trying to get nasturtiums. No luck!

So if you happen to know somewhere where we can get the plants in Toronto,
please let us know. You’ll make us so happy! On top of everything else the
nasturtiums are really fun to paint.

Have a loving your life day!

Inspiired by friends and mentors

My portrait of Susan Carlin
quick sketch
charcoal on watercolour paper
12 x 9 inches

2009

(One of my early blog mentors

was the artist Susan Carlin.  The day she

asked me to sit for a Skype portrait and to
do her portrait via Skype long distance (she

was in Texas) was a big day. I had already
been interviewed by Howard Wolinsky for a
YouTube interview, and was contacted by my
friend Melinda  Esparza who did a portrait
drawing from Howard's first YouTube
interview with me.

Susan taught me a lot about drawing.
She taught me how to draw a curve.  Big lesson.  
She now can't remember that, but you did Susan
on one of your internet drawing classes!
 You are part of the reason I love
drawing coffee cups)

Tonight I'm posting words that mean the world to me from a
former post.  It's Sunday night, and TV time with my 
sweetheart.

"Leaving your parents' sheltered and safe home to
go out on your own at 17 can have its downsides.
It is lonely - even if you live with a friend, and
scary, even if it's in a safe area of town, and it's a lot
of work.  But what I was lucky enough to realize
early on -- if you read my earlier story about a family
in my neighbourhood who were kind to me as a seven
year old -- is that the world is full of mentors.

I was transformed from practically a stick figure
drawer at the end of high school, into a decent
life drawing artist in the 8 months of my first
school year at OCAD.

When I switched to English at a different university,
I was taught that contrary to the views expressed
by my family, I was smart!  What?  An A+ student
all of a sudden.  I could write a 40 page undergraduate
thesis on Iconography and Imagery in Edmund Spenser's
The Fairie Queene!

And so the story goes throughout my life.  Brilliant teachers,
wonderful artists, and magnificently inspiring friends and
mentors have given me the delightful life I live -- filled
with loving family, superb friends, exceptional books,
music, film, super walks and above all happiness.

Mentors in recent years other than family, have been all of
the artists on the blog, Instagram and Facebook world, plus
the artists I show with, and in the art clubs I belong to.  So
ultimately this is a thank you!  Thank you for teaching me so
much on a continuous basis, and for supporting me.  You are
all my mentors and you empower me."

Have a loving your life day.

 

The dream of escaping

 

The house on the hill

Acrylic on canvas

8 x 8 inches

Barbara Muir © 

It was a great run around Saturday.  We went to the market, then did 
other errands, got take out lunch, and sat looking at Casa Loma on a
very hot day.

We went to a few flower stores, and bought plants for the big blue pots

in the backyard.  We were just heading out to do some shopping
after an afternoon nap, when I got a message from our neighbour that
there had been a shooting at the Salsa on St. Clair festivities a couple
of blocks away, and that was horrific.  Shootings are not common in
Toronto, and I have never heard of a shooting in my neighbourhood

and we've lived here the entire time we've been together.

So yes, the people at the festival, who'd been dancing and singing were
told by police to go home. And this is too sad.

I do think of Nova Scotia at times like these.  Our little one room school
house in the middle of nowhere.  This is the house on the hill we see 
when we know we are not far from seeing our school house.  It always

makes us happy to see it.  I've painted it several times.

Have a loving your life day, and stay safe.

And the third piece in the Primary show

Joyous Sunflowers
Acrylic on canvas
20 x 24 inches

Barbara Muir © 2026

This is the final piece of my three pieces in the Primary show. I originally planned

to paint each painting over a primary colour background, and did start with yellow
on this one (the primary colours being red, blue and yellow), but sticking to the
primary colours, which are frequently part of my work anyway, became less 
important than the meaning of the works.

So I have family in the painting The Future Calls, because family and friends mean the
most to me, an ocean landscape with clouds because I love the ocean, and nature,

and some of my happiest moments are by water, and flowers.  I love flowers, and
usually have them in my kitchen year round.  I feel like they are one key expression of
happiness. This painting also features a beautiful crystal vase given to me by
my great Auntie Anna for a wedding present.  The more I use the vase, the 
more I think of her, and appreciate how kind she was.

We went to a wonderful pop up opening today for the artist Nick Rubi in the
Queen Street Type Books store. Nick's work is delightfully inventive and 
always unique. The exhibition was a treat.

Have a loving your life day!

Part of the Heliconian Primary show on now

The Future Calls

Acrylic on canvas
20 x 24 inches
Barbara Muir © Revised 2026

(I need to get a better photo!)

I came to the second opening of the Primary show yesterday at the Heliconian
Hall to see a yellow heart beside this painting called The Future Calls. Ironically

that means that the future really is calling, and the painting will go on to an exhibition
at the Propeller Gallery in the fall.

That is exciting and totally unexpected.  We were given infinite leeway in
interpreting the theme.  I started with colour -- obvious, red, yellow and blue

are the primary colours, but moved on to meaning.  What is primary in
my life? This painting is about family, and clearly family and friendship

are at the top of the list of what's primary in my life.

There will be more about this in future blogs, but for now -- I hope you see
that you are primary to me.

Have a loving your life day!