Blogging creates an actual community

Nectarines on a pressed glass cake plate
acrylic on canvas
8 x 8 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009
(new photo)

You read a lot of opinions on blogging and what
the blog world can and can't do. I am always
amazed at what it does do. The case of Julie who
wrote about Julia Child is only one example.
But real friendships are created through cyberspace.
I know it. I have met people blogging who I know
I would be delighted to meet in person, and who
would like to meet me, and many who I count as
real life friends.

This summer when we were at our schoolhouse
in Pugwash, Nova Scotia we were treated to a day of
fun with our friends Flora Doehler and Larry Knox who
moved to Bear River, Nova Scotia from Toronto, Ontario
a couple of years ago.

Flora loved a blog written by our friend, Greg
Smiley who owns The Chatterbox Café in
Pugwash with his wife, the phenomenal painter
and writer, Norene. And Greg followed Flora's
blog about how the work on the big 100 plus year-old
farmhouse she and Larry are renovating was going.
When we took Flora and Larry to the Chatterbox for
lunch, a heartwarming meeting of two bloggers took
place. Greg and Flora talked for about an hour, and
they had so much to talk about. Why? Because they
were already friends from the blog world.

Flora marvelled at Norene's art which graces
the walls of the café, and Greg met Larry, who he'd
seen frequently, whenever he had time to go to
Flora's blog, in both pictures and videos of the
progress on the house.

Me, Flora Doehler and Greg Smiley at
the Chatterbox Café in Pugwash, Nova Scotia in August

In a way blogging is a lot like having a penpal,
the difference being immediacy. Plus with Skype
and email, blogging opens the door to the
possibility of truly great friendships.

My painting tonight is of Ontario nectarines on
a pressed glass cake plate. Nectarines here are small,
and quite dark red like plums, but perfect juicy
peach coloured inside and absolutely delicious.

Have an enjoying-the-fruits-of-your-labour day.

Loved the movie

Cat on an office chair
acrylic on canvas
8 x 8 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009
(New photo taken in daylight.)




The original charcoal sketch on the canvas ground
done while Fiona, our Tortie-point Siamese
cat was sleeping. I used the large
charcoal sticks my friend Noreen Smiley
in Pugwash prefers. They were great
for indicating value.

I went to see Julie & Julia last night with Steven and our
friends and loved the movie. The movie chronicles
the real life story of a woman writing a blog about cooking
through Julia Child's first cookbook, Mastering the
Art of French Cooking. It felt a bit personal. True
the New York Times hasn't come knocking on my door,
but I have had the more than thrilling experience of
drawing Oprah in a live taping, and all of the media
interest since has been phenomenal. Let's face it,
all of that happened because of my blog. I've said this
before, but it's true.

I feel almost exactly the way the character in the movie
did -- grateful, surprised and delighted. In my case
I was encouraged to begin blogging by my dear friend
Flora Doehler in Bear River Nova Scotia, and launched
into the practice by my wonderful son, Christopher,
who is a technical wizard (I so am not). I don't think
I've ever had a melt down over the blog, but my husband
has suffered me typing the thing, and entering my
photos late at night when he's trying to sleep in the
bedroom which doubles as my office.

Like the character in the movie, I have the most
wonderful and supportive husband, and friends.
And like that character I am making new friends
through the blog world all the time. Unlike her,
I have no intention of stopping, because I am
committed to the daily blog, and trying to produce
art daily too -- which I admit gets to be a smoother
exercise as time goes on.

Toronto is being swarmed by
wasps. This is normal at this time of
year, but a bit worse because of the
garbage strike. If you put out dishes
of sugar in water, they go to the sugar water
and leave you alone. Be warned they
drink that sugar water like it's
champagne at a wedding, so you need
to replace it frequently if you want to sit outside.
Yes that's our back porch, and yes it needs
sanding and painting. We have not had time.
I hope we do before the snow flies.

Reviews from friends and family on the movie are
mixed. Check out the Vanity Fair piece on Julia
Child too, because her love story with her husband
is the stuff that movies are made of.

Have a loving-the-blog-world day.

Yes you can!

Neighbours
acrylic on canvas
8 x 8 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009
(I photographed this last night
inside and it didn't work.
I woke up in the middle
of the night telling myself
to go outside this morning
and do it again. This is much,
much better. Hope you like it.)

Part of the brilliance of Obama's slogan "Yes We
Can" is that it played on the hearts and minds of
the millions of people in America, and around the
world who are part of the positive thinking
movement. You might have guessed, or read that
I have been part of that ideology for a long time.
And it's stood me in good stead, as we Scots like
to say. I've been "open and receptive to the
bounty of the universe" since Louise Hay used
that as part of her meditations, and I have
received that bounty big time.

What's hard about all this is that if your friends
believe in the same positive outlook you don't
get to whine. That's all good, but sometimes
you might want to. I was complaining today
to a friend about all I had to do, and she
demanded that I change my tune. It made me
realize, artists are lucky. The truth is that unless
they can't earn enough to eat and have shelter, they
are a privileged lot, because they have the nerve
to do, what the rest of the world would like to do.
Scratch any art buyer and just beneath the surface
is someone who would like to paint or draw "but
I can't draw a straight line." Explaining that art
isn't (for the most part) about drawing straight
lines, helps. But even better, you create something
beautiful that they feel they need, and splash your wonder
on their walls with the work you are so lucky to
create.

Alyson Stanfield emphasizes the importance
of not whining. Most buyers want to buy
beautiful and joyous art from happy people.
So staying happy is about as important as
painting. Okay I'm working on it. It has
been a great day. Here's a little plein air
painting of my neighbours' front doors
across the street. I had fun painting it, and
like the results.

Have a feeling-just-terrific day.

The myth of upside down

Summer day
acrylic on canvas
8 x 8 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009

You know the idea. You can't figure out the angle,
the details, the way things work together? Turn the
painting upside down. One problem. It has to work
right side up again, if that's what you want. I was
painting this small portrait, and I love the mood,
colour and the small reference face I'm using, but
the final image has some problems.

But hey it's Friday night, and I've been working solid on
commissions. If I fix it after I show it to you, I promise
to show you what I did. Meanwhile I like the quirky
not-quite-rightness of the face.

Have an enjoying-distorted-reality day

Going large

Step 3 -- a rough drawing in charcoal
charcoal on acrylic on canvas
36 x 48 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009
(this series of photos shows the very
beginnings of the work on canvas
for a large double portrait.)

Step 2
spreading the paint to make the ground

Step 1
Colour is squeezed right on the canvas
to start creating the orange ground I prefer.

I've started a big painting that I've been doing studies for
for awhile. It's a 4' x 3' painting on the vertical. Tonight
I had models in the studio playing the characters. Luckily
I have a beautiful vintage dress that is perfect for the woman,
and the man wore a jacket and tie. Few men are as formal as the
husband in this painting would have been going out on a date
a few decades ago.

The models looked great and were completely inspiring.
I did a quick sketch, so you could see how the couple
are going to be placed on the canvas. Then I'll be working
from the photos I have of the actual couple and the photos I have
of my models posing as the couple. These two had the
right attitude -- they seem pretty crazy about each
other, and the couple I'm painting were deeply in love.

I really enjoy painting love, and people in formal dress, so this
is a delightful assignment. Plus I love painting big.

Have a getting-ready-to-go-somewhere-special day.

The Cherryhood

Late afternoon Cherrywood
acrylic on canvas
8 x 8 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009

Davide Tonizzo who lives across the street from me
is a designer, who designed an environmentally
friendly van, that was featured in a photo op with
Obama recently. Davide calls our street the "Cherryhood"
and we trade stories about what's up in our
creative lives, and cheer one another on in emails
when something great happens.

I sat on my front porch waiting for a friend to visit,
and drew my neighbour's house (not Davide's) onto
a canvas. The rest is partially memory, and partially
fantasy. Only the shapes are more or less real. I love
painting houses from time to time. This one has been
attacked by horrible renovators, but salvaged by my
neighbour's lush and well tended garden, with its
masses of flowers, and lovely bushes and trees, which
pretty much cover up past owners' (4 or five owners back)
less attractive decisions.

Have a loving-what-flowers-can-do day.

Ten things I learned on vacation

Port Howe Bakery Cranberry/Orange Loaf
acrylic on canvas
8 x 8 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009
(This loaf, really a very heavy cake
is worth gaining 100, even
200 pounds. It's that good. I
painted it, so I wouldn't eat it,
and gave this very plate with the two
scrumptious pieces to my son to eat. He
was suitably grateful. This little painting illustrates
lesson #7.)

1. Two weeks is too short for a vacation (especially
it it's been two years since your last one.)

2. It's hard to beat the feeling of warm sand, and
the sound of ocean waves.

3. Eat locally, especially if locally means seafood,
seafood, seafood.

4. Don't sleep on the third floor of a hotel beside
a highway (higher is quieter.)

5. If you aren't in a hurry take time to enjoy some of the
cultural highlights of the towns where you stop for
the night. (The Beaverbrook Art Gallery
in Frederiction, New Brunswick has an amazing
collection -- and the Beaverbrooks in England are
claiming that Lord Beaverbrook didn't mean to donate
his collection in perpetuity (forever). Fredericton is a small
and lovely town, with great art, and an art scandal
locals are delighted to discuss. (Seems the current
Beaverbrook heirs need money, and casting their
eyes on a great art collection seems like a superb
solution. This means half the paintings in the
gallery have the words "under dispute" on their
labels.)

6. Collecting sea glass is a delightful way to spend your
time on the beach. Steven and I walk along like strange
birds looking, peering in the small
pebbles that wash up in a line above the sand looking
for sea glass. The most coveted is the elusive blue,
which used to be much easier to find.

I need my glasses to search for sea glass in
the Gulf Shore pebbles and rocks. It's a
thoroughly absorbing and delightful task.

7. The Port Howe Bakery outside of Pugwash,
Nova Scotia makes baked goods so unfathomably delectable that it's worth any amount of weight you pack on eating their goodies. (Look for the
bakery across from the large farmhouse with a red
roof that's been for sale for more than a year).

8. It's hard having good friends half way across
the country when you only get to see them once a year.
(I love my Nova Scotia friends, but we can't spend
the time together that I would certainly love to have!)

9. A good holiday is like a party -- good food,
good friends, good ice cream, good wine, long sleeps,
and more of the same all over again, then back home
exhausted to start work.

10. You can paint on vacation, enjoy yourself, and
feel superb, even though you're working on art.
You can also have great conversations about art while your
mate eats lunch, or checks his email.

I might have to continue this because I learned so many
other lessons. But that's enough for now. I'm super
tired. Sam has caught a horrible cold, and Steven and
I are trying our hardest not to get it. More TV cameras
tomorrow, so I need to sleep and be cheery.