A new year, a new studio, a new excitement for the work to come. After a long 5 or 6 month hiatus of house selling, purchasing, renovating, celebrating and setting up, now is the time to settle back into my work – life – paint pattern. The time away from painting has been extremely stressful (which, for someone with an immune system disease is not such a good choice), and yet we come out of it with a stunning new life and art space. The studio is at least double the size of our old one in just the work space. It also has supplies and fresh work storage space and the house also has space to hide away all that old work we can’t seem to part with. In addition, the house acts as a gallery space to showcase work as it comes off the easel and to cherish our small collection of work of other artists.
We are lucky. We are incredibly grateful. Yet there is a tiny, persistent line of tenuous running through life. We need to stay steady to maintain the home, our jobs and to start working on our art again.
And so it begins. This weekend will be the return to plein air painting even if the weather is somewhat chilly. This past weekend was the return to studio painting. Turns out I’ve been gestating knowledge and inspiration as evidenced in 3 wide but small landscapes. The way that my husband, Andrew Bartley works with darks and lights has rubbed off as I try to capture the light in the forest. I’ve been watching plein air videos and gathering my favourite paintings of marvelous artists on Pinterest. That wealth of skill layers up inside of me to be inspired by, eventually.
We also challenged each other by painting the same creek scene (below). Oh no, we’re not competitive at all!
This year my goal is to stay away from major life changes and focus on appreciating and maintaining our new home and studio and to paint landscapes. To exhibit the best of those (or maybe to hold them back for a 2-person show… maybe). Here we go.