Fernhill Art Studio

Spring Bird on Arbutus Stump

2008-05-22T04:02:37Z

Spring Bird on Arbutus Stump
Mixed media collage on paper
8" x 10" (matted)
$50

This small mixed media collage started out as a larger painting titled Arbutus Trees in Spring (see photo below).

Although I liked the painting well enough, I thought I could strengthen it by taking it further. So I cut it up and rearranged it. I'm glad I did because I think the new collage is more interesting than the original one.

Spring Bird on Arbutus Stump is collage with acrylic paint and oil pastel. The actual artwork is 5" x 7", but with the mat the size is 8" x 10". Slip it into a standard 8 x 10 frame and you'll have yourself a nice little original artwork for a great price.

Black Vase on Windowsill

2008-03-01T01:54:06Z

Black Vase on Windowsill
Encaustic, collage and oil pastel on canvas
12" x 12"
~~$250~~ SOLD

It's been so long since I posted any new paintings! But I'm pleased with this one. It is highly textured with many layers of collage (mostly hidden now) and encaustic, followed by oil pastel.

Encaustic is a painting technique that combines color pigment with hot wax. The semi-liquid mixture of materials painted on to a wooden panel or other support and then fused to the surface with heat.

I use an old household iron to melt and fuse my pigment and wax. I also have a small "quilter's iron" for finer details. The red flowers were made by simply holding a red wax crayon against the iron and letting it drip onto the painting. The white details are oil pastel applied after the encaustic had cooled and hardened.

Watching Her Heart

2007-12-01T01:48:54Z

Watching Her Heart
mixed media on canvas
6" x 8" x 1.5"
$50

I'm very pleased with this piece. Look closely behind the heart and you can see the eyes of a woman "watching her heart".

I started out with a deep stretched canvas, building up the green and blue surface with beeswax, crayon and flecks of gold leaf. Once that was dry, I made the cut-out in the centre so I could recess the 3-D heart. The final step was to affix the woman's face from the back. The woman's face is actually cut out from a famous poster by Rossetti. I had the poster in my living room for years - it was dry mounted on foamcore board, so it worked perfectly in this project (gave a nice clean finish for the back of the painting).

This painting is flexible in that it can stand up on its own (on a mantel or bookcase, for example) or be hung on the wall.

Green Pottery Vase

2007-11-26T06:16:13Z

This was a fun little painting to do on a rainy Sunday. I started out with a loose watercolour painting. Before long I realized that it was getting too dark in value so I added the gestural marks with white pastel.

My biggest challenge in painting is going too dark. But the silver lining is that I am forced to think of ways to lighten the painting, which usually ends up making it more interesting in the end.

This sketch is not for sale, because I think there are problems with the composition. But it will serve as a useful study for a new painting.

3 Reasons

2007-11-18T03:42:23Z

3 Reasons

collage
9" x 15"
$50

I started this collage in a workshop several years ago. Today I pulled it out and completed it.
To me this collage conveys a long, full and useful life.

The patchwork quilt is a metaphor for making the most of what life presents. The title comes from the small collage element in the lower right corner, which says "3 Reasons to Use It". The large black area is acrylic paint and the handwriting is in silver ink.

Nanoose Bay Sunset

2007-11-11T02:23:37Z

Nanoose Bay Sunset
oil pastel on paper
8" x 10"
NFS

This drawing in oil pastel is the view I see everytime I drive home from town. From the highway you look out over Nanoose Bay to Canadian Forces Base on the peninsula beyond.

In the 1970s I would sometimes see ominous looking USA nuclear submarines emerge in this bucolic bay. The Canadian government had given the USA military permission to test their nuclear submarines in our waters. During the 1970s and 80s there was a year-round protest (peace camp) set up at the rest stop across from here.

I was thinking about the peace camp and about soldiers as I worked on this drawing. On the radio they were talking about the ceremonies planned for Remembrance Day tomorrow.

My use of intense colour in this drawing is influenced by my favourite contemporary artist - Wolf Kahn.

Goddess of Abundance

2007-10-31T17:39:22Z

Goddess of Abundance
mixed media on board
11" x 7"
~~$50~~ sold

This is the first of my daily paintings. I used collage, acrylics, and oil pastel. It was fun to make and I'm delighted with it!

The central image of the mature woman in all her glory comes from an IKEA print ad. She looks so happy and comfortable with herself. There is something subversive about a naked older woman, and that appealed to me a great deal :)

I perched her on a throne of weathered stone to reflect her experience and "solidness".

The other main element is the gigantic corn stalk. I must admit that I wasn't thinking about the symbolic meaning of corn when I choose it. I just liked the masculine, shall we say..."upthrusting" of it.

Seriously now, the juxtaposition of the feminine and masculine in that weathered setting worked for me.

Later, it occured to me that corn is probably symbolic of something. I looked it up and found out that corn symbolizes plenty. According to PhoenixMasonry:

An ear of grain has been an emblem of plenty since the mists of antiquity which shroud the beginnings of mythology. Ceres, goddess of abundance, survives today in our cereals. The Greeks called her Demeter, a corruption of Gemeter, our mother earth. She wore a garland of grain and carried ears of grain in her hand...The Hebrew Shibboleth means both an ear of corn and a flood of water. Both are symbols of abundance, plenty, wealth.

My First Art Studio

2007-10-26T05:00:14Z

I had my first studio built in 1997 as a 40th birthday present to myself.

I had always wanted a permanent studio designed exactly to my specifications, but thought that the expense was not justified.

However, as I approached my 40th birthday, I realized "if not now, when?" I took the plunge and called a builder, and never looked back.

The studio exterior of grey cedar siding, naturally faded cedar shakes, french doors, and big window boxes fit in with the garden setting. In spring, the window boxes sprout fuchsia tulips and pale yellow narcissus; while all summer a wildly coloured mix of petunias, lobelia, cherry tomatoes and other annuals trail almost to the ground.

Inside, the studio had lovely views into the garden on two sides, as well as four skylights on the north side. The absence of telephone and household demands made the studio a wonderful retreat, and I always had at least one of my cats for company.

In 2003 my husband and I sold the house where my first studio was located. People asked "how can you bear to leave your beautiful studio behind?" My reply was that if I could lift it up by helicopter and plunk it down on the new site, I would!

But I did the next best thing: I built a replica on my new property :)

Grrrl Power

2007-10-21T00:53:39Z

Grrrl Power
Mixed media on canvas
24" x 16"
$450

This was the second painting I did using photos and transparencies.

Whereas in Being 13 I used only dry media (paper, photos, transparencies, oil stick), in Grrrl Power I branched out into using a combination of dry media (paper, vintage wallpaper, photocopies, transparencies) and wet media (acrylic paint).

Grrrl Power began with a photograph that I had taken of my ten-year-old niece Leonie and her friend Annie.

In the photo, Leonie is impatient with posing and wanting to leave, while Annie is clowning around pulling her tiger t-shirt over her face.

I enlarged the photo to 11x17 and then used a photocopier to make lots of copies in various sizes. I used a stretched canvas as the support, and prepared it by "building" a surface of texture using old wallpaper and fabric. I then played around with various configurations of the photocopied images until something surfaced.

What I discovered is that the most evocative part of the image was Leonie’s posture* - her outstretched leg and beautifully curving outer arm. I decided to feature the shape of her arm by repeating it in diminishing sizes.

While I was working on the painting, I was thinking about what it means to be a girl in our society. To represent my hope that Annie and Leonie’s apparent joy and confidence would continue, I added the angel holding a candle. After adhering all the collage elements, I painted around and over the collage elements with acrylic paints.

*After reading this analysis, Leonie said "Aunty, I disagree. The most evocative part of the image is the relationship between Annie and me." Smart kid.

Being 13

2007-10-21T00:38:14Z

Being 13
Mixed media on matboard
$200

This is one of my all-time favourite pieces. It was the first piece I did using photos combined with transparencies.

The girl in the photo is my niece Karla. She was thirteen at the time, hence the title Being 13. I took the photo of Karla as part of an assignment for my photography class and liked it so much that I turned it into this painting.

I've had this in my "can't part with it drawer" for quite some time but have recently decided I have to start parting with more things!