The Graphic Novel

 Chris the printer

Black marker on moleskin paper

5 x 9 inches

Barbara Muir © 2011

(This is a very, very fast sketch of Chris -- who noticed

on Friday that I was not looking well, although I thought

I was in fine health -- then Saturday -- whammo -- sick as

a dog.  From this I've concluded that Chris (not fairly

represented here) is psychic, or sickic.  Anyway he can

see an illness coming -- second career for Chris?  If you

read this don't get angry Chris)

My problem with the graphic novel (if I have one) is that I
like words too much.  My friend Marcia suggested that I
write one while I was stuck in bed sick anyway.
 I can appreciate the beauty of graphic
novels, and recognize them as a literary art/art form, but
I want all words, and lots of them in my novels.  I make
an exception for the novels of Alexander McCall Smith,
all of which I have almost finished reading (I think there
are two I haven't finished -- one I'm reading
now, and one more.)  Some of his novels have illustrations for each
chapter, and they are a delight of course.

Pansies make me happy 

Black marker on moleskin paper

5 x 9 inches

Barbara Muir © 2011

Apologies to Marcia.  Plus my life is fairly mundane as a
an artist adviser guru once pointed out to me.  So when Kim
Rempel asked us to submit paintings of the mundane in our
lives, I was hard pressed to choose, because what might be considered
mundane by others, I might think is sublime.  And I did think
that was true of all of the paintings of the mundane that she posted on her
site. I have made it down to the kitchen table today.  And I'm heading
back to my comfortable bed (still not better), but the kitchen table is
jam packed with small china cream pitchers -- some antique, crammed
with generous offerings of purple, yellow, and variegated plum and
white pansies.  I feel like I'm in Nirvana looking at them.

Night time in New York (unfinished sketch)

Black marker on moleskin paper

5 x 9 inches

Barbara Muir © 2011

(Plus if I were going to do a Graphic novel, I might

set it in New York.  Too obvious?  Apologies.)

Back upstairs the sight of my sweet cat Fiona, curled up like
a feline sentry on my aunt's beautiful, fine, white, cotton, crocheted
blanket folded for a decoration at the end of my bed, gives
me a sublime feeling.  Okay it could be the antibiotics, but I
know they're what's making me feel wretched too. Anyway I
do know this.  After a frightening bout of illness starts to recede
the world looks pretty magical.  Thank you for your kind
thoughts and for being major contributors to the magic in my
life.

Have curing-what-ails-you day

Sick transit paintia

 Sick self-portrait

Marker, coloured pencil, 

and watercolour crayon on notebook paper

6 x 9 inches

Barbara Muir © 2011

It should read sic transit gloria -- Latin for "so passes
the glory of the world," but in this case it means sickness
stops painting.  I woke up with the room twirling violently
yesterday, and was very sick.  Steven called Medvisit
and a sweet Dutch doctor came, tested me thoroughly and
concluded that I had an inner ear infection which causes
Vertigo.  May I just say that Vertigo is bad.  Not something
you ever want. Twirling rooms, horrible nausea, and I had
not had anything to drink, or any obvious cause.  The doctor
put me on antibiotics.  The room stopped whirling.  But I
am still feeling punky -- so here's today's offering, a quick
self portrait before I go back to sleep.

Be well.

Have an I'm-not-getting-sick day.

More friends' art

  

Untitled

Acrylic on canvas

5 x 5 inches

©Flora Doehler

Untitled

Acrylic on canvas

4 x 5 inches

© Valda Zobens

 

Autumn #1

Oil on board

6 x 8 inches

© Douglas Hughes 

I just finished writing this and realized that it
doesn't still doesn't cover the art I own by
friends.  So this list will have to continue another
day.  But here goes for now: I own a painting
by my friend  Flora Doehler, who has been an
inspiration in both my painting and blogging life,
and have sneakily given my husband paintings by
my friend, Valda Zobens who does spectacular
abstract work, and Doug Hughes an excellent landscape
painter.  (My image here doesn't do justice to Doug's work,
because it is matted and framed and the mat shadow shows.)
Of course that means I get to see these gifts every day. 
We own lots of folk art by our good friend, Nova Scotia artist
Ian Fancey, and I love a small painting I bought from Toronto
artist Carolyn Megill, another magically creative Toronto artist
and friend.  I have a super portrait of me done by famous
Texas portrait painter, Susan Carlin.  Each piece I own by other
artists (and yes there are a few more) brings back
the story of when I first saw the piece, makes me
happy on a daily basis, and adds to my understanding
of what making art is all about. So Thanks to everyone for that.

A Fish

Acrylic on carved wood

 17 x10

© Ian Fancey

 

 Untitled

Acrylic on canvas
5 x 5 inches

© Carolyn Megill

 

 Barbara Muir

Oil on board

9 x12

© Susan Carlin

By the way I've been planning for months to show
you this amazing work from a friend in California.
I don't own it -- it's huge, and when we spoke she
wasn't sure it was finished.  But isn't it lovely just
as it was when we spoke.  Pam Brown doesn't have
a blog, or website so I can't link to her.  And Pam
Brown is a superb artist I met when I took a course in California
with Skip Lawrence and Toph Schink.  That
was a pivotal time for me because I'd just crossed over from
watercolour to acrylics.  Now of course I know I
can work in any medium I feel like using.  But
acrylics changed my artist's life for the better,
and so did meeting Pam -- a deeply intellectual,
constantly probing, always experimenting and
sweet natured artist. In fact I think that in some
ways that course, and becoming friends with Pam
set me on my current course of artistic passion.

Untitled (work in progress)

Acrylic on canvas

Very large (I don't know the measurements

© Pam Brown

Have a friends-in-art-are-friends-indeed day

Painting, gardening and cleaning

 To please the bees (work in progress)

Acrylic on canvas

8 x 8 inches

Barbara Muir © 2011

(I'm working on a large work and for relief I sat on my back

porch to paint our glorious apple tree.  Inside as I worked

I was listening to this, and this on TED TV.  Outside I was

rejoicing that the apple tree was in full bloom and also

filled with honey bees.) 

Three weeks ago it snowed here.  Maybe it's four,
but my point is that not even a month ago a day
like today and yesterday would have been any Torontonian's
dream come true.  All of the major Home Decor magazines
are telling us we should have outdoor rooms.  I think
I have such a thing -- it's called a back porch.  Just a
bit of a concrete deck with a roof over it.  We clean
it up, stick some chairs and pillows out, candles,
maybe a container with some of the flowers from the
garden -- presto.  But the truth is an outdoor room,
a flourishing garden -- these add to the tasks we have
to manage.

I say try this.  (This is especially helpful if you work at
home.) Start painting, keep going.  Good -- now get
to a place that feels really awkward.  Stop.  There is
no one watching you to make sure you keep going.  So
go outside.  Sit in your outdoor room.  Then see the
garden.  You'll think, 'maybe I could just weed for a couple of
minutes' (It's true. You can.)  Weed until you want to
quit (five -- maybe ten minutes at the most), then get
restless and go inside.  Inside put on a load of wash,
sweep the floor.  (Only five more minutes have passed).
Get restless, and guess what? You're back at the painting.

To change it up.  Unload the dishwasher in your next break.
Go outside with a cup of tea, weed, load the dishwasher
and back to the painting.  No one  tells you that this is
how Georgia O'Keefe painted those bones, or how Michelangelo
painted the Sistine chapel.  But rumour has it that their
respective places were spotless, the dishes done, the beds
made when they were at the height of their creativity. 

Is my place spotless?  No not at all.  But it's a lot tidier than
it would be if I weren't painting.

Have a balancing-it-all-with-pleasure day.

My friends' art

 

River Fire

Acrylic on watercolour paper

5 x 5 inches

Nicki Ault © 2010

Right off the top here I want you to know that I love

my friends' art.  So if I don't mention you in this
piece, it just means I mentioned you somewhere else,
or you're on my blog list, or I will mention you.
Okay?  I've been excited for a few weeks now by
a beautiful Nicki Ault painting that hangs in my
studio.  Right now my studio is looking a bit bare
because 31 of my paintings are out at galleries!
Wow.  I have to pinch myself about that.  Yes it's true.
So the painting by Nicki is almost alone in there.  I
hope it doesn't feel lonely.  It makes me happy
every time I look at it. Nicki is in a class all by herself
when it comes to painting water -- it is one of her
passions and a specialty. I own paintings by quite a
few other painters too and I'll feature them another day.
Each one means so much to me.

Thanks for being a great painter Nicki and thanks
to all of you -- please keep painting.  You dazzle me.

Have a loving-and-being-inspired-by-friends'-art day.

What it's all about

The painting in the corner of this cheery kitchen 

scene is mine.  Sadly I've lost the original

photo image of the work, so I'll have to go

back and ask my hosts for permission to 

photograph it again. But see a small image

I retrieved below to get the sense of it.

Morning at the artist's table

36 x 12 inches

Acrylic on canvas

Barbara Muir © 2008

We have had rain for more than a week, and
I have been working hard painting.  Today
a friend invited me out for a walk with the dogs,
and I was so inspired by the landscape on our
walk.  In fact it was a cityscape of houses,
green grass, flower gardens and happy people
basking in the first warm sunny day in a week.

Sam and I were invited to dinner (dogs included)
and we visited with friends who are also collectors
of my work.  What a pleasure to see my paintings
in place -- doing what they should do, being part
of a room, a house, a family -- cheering up
a corner, or adding to the good feeling already
present.  And at the root of this peculiar profession
we are in, that is certainly what it's all about.

Have a going-back-to-the-pleasure-of-painting day

Gallery at the Porch Door -- so much fun

 Home grown beauty (work in progress)

Acrylic on wood panel

5 x 5 inches

Barbara Muir © 2011
(This year my husband Steven planted
tulips and daffodils in abundance in
our small front porch garden.  The
other day I cut a few to paint -- but the
difference between tulips from the
garden and the ones grown in greenhouses,
is that one bloom could fill my entire painting.  So
gorgeous!)

Here's a little painting I started working on a couple
of days ago.  It's not quite finished because there
are one or two other things going on.  Isn't that
the way it should be?  Today I went on a day
trip with my friend Josephine to visit Sally Chupick
at her new gallery -- the Gallery at the Porch Door.
Check it out on her blog. (By the way while
I was writing here, Sally had already installed my work!)

The Gallery at the Porch Door

Watching Sally choose my work was fun.

She laid it all out on the floor, and kept adding

pieces as the arrangement formed in her

mind. 

It's quite exciting when blog friends meet.  I
think we're especially lucky because we get to
know one another in the first place because we
like each other's work.  But then we talk to one
another through our comments, sometimes for
years at a time before we meet, and we are
purely positive.  So before we ever see one another
we have a unique, and quite wonderful relationship.
At the International Women Celebrate show I met
three blog friends I'd never seen in person, and we had a
great connection.  Then today I got to meet Sally,
and it was just so over the top delightful.
She is every bit as fantastic as she seems on her blog.
Her gallery is charming and elegant, her house
beautiful, and her work is so magnificent -- photos
do not do it justice.  Still I'll try.

Painting by Sally Chupick on the gallery wall.

A quick snap at an example of one of 

Sally's lush seaside townscapes.

It was quite a long journey, and we even managed
to get lost, so Josephine and I were tired when
we arrived. I was so in the moment that I forgot
to get a photo of me with Josephine and Sally,
or of Sally and me, or of Sally with her husband
Dave, who did all the fabulous construction and
design work to make her gallery happen. Still I will
get more photos of all of us the next time. 

Sally really liked my work, and will showcase quite
a bit of it in her gallery.  Hurray!  Three cheers
for Sally.  Three cheers for Josephine.  (Thank
you Josephine for getting us home safely through
that unrelenting rain).

Have a-showing-in-a-new-venue day.