Great show next Friday -- and how to calm down

I am lucky to be showing next weekend with my friend Gill
Cameron, who is an amazing watercolour landscape painter.
Gill and I put on beautiful shows, and with the help of our
families, friends and collectors, throw a super party on
opening night. We've been showing together for at least 10
years -- in the past few years in the beautiful gallery at the
Wychwood Barns near Christie and St. Clair in Toronto.
The gallery is on the far side of the barns, at the corner of Benson
and Wychwood Avenue.  Please come out and join us for
a glass of wine, and some wonderful art next Friday,
April 22.

One of the ways I try to stay on track when faced with
a truly busy week like this one, the last week in a 7 week
course I've been teaching, prepping for the show with
Gill,  another one at the end of the month, and planning
travel to New York in May, is by meditating.

I am so lucky that another artist friend, and wonderful
painter,  Janet Vanderhoof, encourages me to do meditation
on a daily basis.  That suggestion has contributed a lot
to my well being in the past few months.  So if you're
interested here are some of the short meditations I've
tried out that help.

After a lot of experimentation I know what I like in
meditation.  I need a voice with kind messages telling
me to breathe, and encouraging positive thoughts.  These
video guided meditations do the trick.  All of them emphasize
breathing.  I was truly skeptical about meditating until
I discovered the right guided meditations for me.  There
are thousands, so if my suggestions don't appeal to
you, try others until you find the right ones for you.
For me voice and cadence combined with the overall
message are all critical.

In fact they can transform a day so the positive triumphs.
I'm all for that.

Have a taking-care-of-yourself day.
When I wrote this last night, I forgot to link.  Here
are the links.  Enjoy!

This is a good one to listen to at the start of the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nLJOeZ4uaI

This meditation is good for positive energy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZQ9GfmzR14

This is a good meditation to improve your mood,
and it's delightfully short:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RESIxDLae7M

Missed blogging Anniversary and passed the 250,000 hits point!

At the dance

Acrylic on canvas

36 x 48 inches

Barbara Muir © 2008

(Part of my Dance series.)  I used

the Dance as a metaphor, and most

of the paintings were of young women

and men dressed for Prom -- called

"Before the dance"  because they were

on the edge of a new life beginning.

This portrait of my husband, Steven

was called "At the dance" because he

was and is, right in the thick of things.

That's why he was a reluctant sitter.
You can see he has lots on his mind
and has to get going!

My dear friends,  every year I think -- this is for sure the
busiest year ever.  But this past year takes the cake!
I've been in 6 shows since October, and one of those
was the Florence Biennale in Florence, Italy.  I have
3 shows coming up at the end of the month and am
painting like crazy.  And whew I missed
my blogging anniversary again.  Sorry.

I'd been blogging for 8 years on February 18.  That
date is so close to Valentine's Day, that I am frequently
in a swirl of hearts, cards, and flowers for about
a week afterwards, and this year we had a little
family party the weekend after Valentine's Day.

Plus I have crossed the 250, 000 hits mark on my
blog, and that makes me happy too.  Thanks to
everyone of you, who come to my shows, buy
my work, and support me with your kind
comments on my blog.  You mean the world
to me, and you keep me going in this strange,
 fascinating, and miraculous job of being an
artist.

 More work from 2008

Much love to all of you.  You know I am your
biggest fan.

Have a happy-in-your-life day.

You do have time!

Wonder Water series -- just back from

the Florence Biennale, 

heading out to New York City.

I hover on the edge of never wanting to post anything but
my best work, and wanting to keep in touch with
my blog friends while I'm creating something new.
This is a wildly busy month with two shows at the end of
the month, and one coming up in May.  I am painting like crazy,
but don't want to show you unfinished work.  Plus I'm
teaching. But I'm also listening to Mike Dooley, who writes
the Notes from the Universe, to help myself calm down in my
travels around town.  One of Mike's affirmations is,
"You do have time!"  I am well aware that we program
ourselves constantly, and I hit on that one today.  That's
why I'm here tonight writing you.

Today I'm showing you the combo of paintings called
the Wonder Water Series that went to Florence, Italy,
via Vienna, and returned recently in perfect condition.
That is always a worry when work travels.

These paintings have just come home for a brief visit, and the
portraits will go in a show I'm in Painting Passions,
with Gill Cameron, opening at the Wychwood Barns,
on April 22, and running to April 24.  Then those two
portraits will combo up again with the landscape and head off to
New York City, where they'll show for a month at
the Amsterdam Whitney Gallery in Chelsea, NYC,
opening on May 14th.  More about both shows next
week.

Meanwhile I wanted to tell you about a wonderful
thing my late night self ordered -- the Sketchbox.
What a treat in a high pressure month, to get this
present (from myself) in the mail.  I sat down
immediately and did a fast drawing of some
pansies.  Following the lead of Danny Gregory
who sketches everything.

 

Pansies in April

Sketch

Ink, marker, watercolour, watercolour crayons

8 x 8 inches

Barbara Muir © 2016 

It's a quick sketch, but I used the bright red ink,
the green marker, the black line drawing markers,
the white resist paint, plus my own watercolours
and watercolour crayons, oh and the lovely little
brush in the box just to try them out.   I was inspired
to try Sketchbox by Kim Van Der Hoek, a
wonderful painter, who posted a little video
on Facebook about it.  And I thought I'd show you
what came in mine this month. No I am not being
sponsored by Sketchbox -- right now it's snowing like
crazy in April, I think we could all use some fun!

Have an "you do have time" day.

Happy International Women's Day, and come out to our show!

  

Hi everyone,

Today is a day to celebrate women, and I worked today
on handing out invitations to a show I am in with
two other women artists -- Joyce Fournier, who curated this
show, and Seonaid Ross.

If you are in Toronto on Thursday, please come out and
see our show All Over The Map, have a glass of wine, and enjoy
our art. I will be showing landscapes that are all part of my
cloudscapes series, that focus on how amazing clouds are,
and the powerful effect they have on the landscapes below.

I want to give a shout out today, to my friend, and curator
at the Super Wonder Gallery, Daniel Anaka, who spent about
5 hours with me today handing out invitations in the area of
the city near the Art Gallery of Ontario. Art Square Gallery,
the lovely gallery hosting our current exhibition is just across
the street from the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.

Here is one of my paintings in the show.

At the boat launch -- Port Philip

Acrylic on canvas

30 x 30 inches

Barbara Muir © 2016

Have a going-to-an-art-event-day.

Daddy would have liked this

Untitled (work in progress)

Acrylic on canvas

 24 x 24 inches

Barbara Muir © 2016

As a matter of fact my father would have loved
Pugwash, Nova Scotia, where we have our school
house.  That part of Canada has so many things he
liked -- relatively untamed nature, people who
love art, ocean scenes and delicious food.

 

Flowers at Mazinaw

Oil on board

24 x 36 inches

© W.W. Muir (date unknown)

I'm thinking about my father today as I work
on finishing this painting set in Nova Scotia.  
Not quite there.  It's his birthday today, and on
February 28, every year I think of my father
-- of his art, his incredible photography,
his voice, his humour, his hugs, his laughter,
and the sure understanding I had as I grew older
that he loved me.

Have a remembering-people-you-love day.

How and why?

 
What I've shown so far, in the Facebook, 5 paintings in 5 days challenge.
It's Day 3.

From left to right:
Summer clouds Wallace Bridge   Now that looks good! Wonder Water Image #6
Acrylic on canvas                           Acrylic on canvas          Acrylic on canvas
40 x 40 inches                                 24 x 24 inches               30 x 30 inches
Barbara Muir © 2014                  Barbara Muir © 2015     Barbara Muir © 2015

I was thinking about how people see the other day.
I was at a family member's house and we were
debating the colour of a chair I've always
loved.  It is a true vermillion -- to the red side
of that colour.

The next day I thought that what separates
visual artists from other people is the idea of "how?"
When we look at anything, our mate, our breakfast,
our backyard, our car, our cat -- we're thinking, 'how?'
How would I paint that, or draw that?  We take
vision beyond the visual, into the realm of what
we make from what we see.  It's a delicious,
frustrating and wildly exciting way to look at the
world, and I'm enormously grateful to be captivated
by art's spell.

Right now I'm doing the 5 paintings in 5 days project
on Facebook, and it's reminding me of the many
ways I've tried to figure out the how.  I am a bit
braver now than I was a few years back.  I want to
try taking my favorite visions beyond memory
and into either a painting or drawing.

But why?  The why in my case is all about
emotion.  The look of a place, a meal, a face --
moves me to want to try a painting. At first
I might feel out of my depth, but if I keep on
going, sometimes the magic Elizabeth Gilbert talks
about in her book Big Magic takes over, and I feel
so happy to have made something new.

Have a living-for-how-and-why day.

Making magic happen -- takes time.

 Untitled (work in progress)

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 24 inches

Barbara Muir © 2016

(The colour is not quite right.

I'll try and get a better picture tomorrow).

I wrote this post without this first thought attached,
read it and thought what?  For Valentine's Day
I bought my husband a cushion that says,
"Today I will make magic happen."  I got it
to let him know how special he is to me, and
to remind me of how magical it feels to live
with someone you love, and to get to experience
what Elizabeth Gilbert calls "Big Magic" --
the creative experience.  For me that's making art.
And teaching.

Occasionally people who don't make art want
to harness the process.  How does it work?
I would not like to be tracked all day as I paint,
then have a tea, read, then paint again, then sit
wondering about what I'm doing.  A non-painter
might go mad watching me.

But one of the questions artists get frequently is
"so how long does it take you to do a
painting?"  I don't know how this question
applies to our bizarre craft exactly, but one of
my artist friends answers, "50 years -- that's how
long I've been alive and working on becoming the
artist you see now."  That answer makes me laugh,
but in practical time-spent-on-the-work terms,
each painting is different.

Artists have to decide how much to charge for
their work based on something -- my rate sheet
is based essentially on size. But some work takes
what feels like a long, long time to look
like you just got excited and made it in an afternoon,
and other work happens joyfully quickly and looks
like it was painstakingly produced.  See? Hard to
answer.  So here's what I'm working on now --
a work in progress. Not quite done.  But it will be.

And the reason you haven't seen any work here
for awhile?  This painting falls into the first category.  It's
a painting of the schoolyard in my neighbourhood,
just across the street and up the hill.   As tempted
as I am to paint the bridge leading to the Grand
Palais in Paris -- which I dream of every night
since my last visit to that beautiful city in October --

for my upcoming landscape show I'm taking the best
advice to artists of every type, and starting with what I know,
and going from there.

Have a loving-your-own-neighbourhood day!