New Year... New Goals

Happy New Year!!!

May 2010 be a peaceful and enlightening year for all who inhabit this glorious earth of ours. May we find a way to share it and save it so that our children can enjoy it's wonders.

Today's post is one of my two ever attempts to use chalk pastels to convey the figure. This is a slightly cropped image of a piece I did many years ago in a night class I took. It was quite intimidating to create a flesh tone with no actual flesh toned chalk! At least with paint you can mix to get the colour you need. With chalk pastels it is all about the layering. It was fun, however, and after about two hours or so I guess I ended up with this.

I'm not huge on resolutions... they never seem to stick. Unfortunately the pounds I've always resolved to lose sure do! As a result, this year I will not make any resolutions, but I am okay with making goals for myself. I think that in this coming year I would like to experiment with new subject matter. I've made mention of this in the past and I would like to explore the beautiful river and river bank that runs through Saskatoon. I also found a beautiful area of town while accompanying Sammy's class on a field trip this past fall. Right in our city is a protected area of grasslands and while there with his class I took many lovely photos which have the potential to make exciting paintings. Those landscapes are on my to-do list. As well, I have long admired artists that paint the figure and portraits. I always enjoy seeing what Rahina is up to in Glasgow... I have really been inspired by her and over the last year that I have been visiting her blog, I have seen her skills and talent grow. As well, I am a huge fan of Berlin artist, Edward B.Gordon, and have found that my favorite paintings of his always seem to involve a figure. And then there is Barbara Muir in Toronto who paints her figures with such joy and vibrancy you can't help but want to try it yourself. She has just had the most incredible life experience in Florence, Italy and she has even sketched Oprah via Skype! So in effort to learn something new and expand my horizons, I would like to delve into the figure as a subject this year and I will look to these bloggers for inspiration. Aside from all of that I have wanted to experiment with collage and more abstract ideas that are stuck in my head. Ah, so many ideas and so little time.

As for any other art related goals I might have, well, I am excited to see what paintings I might find for my fledgling art collection. I definitely hope to add to it over the next twelve months. I have purchased four amazing pieces from other bloggers over the last year and a half. Two paintings you know about from previous posts (Orange Flower by Duane Keiser and Tattooed Bridge by Pierre Raby), but the other two I have not talked about. One I bought way before I began my blog and it was through discovering this artist on Etsy that I, in fact, found out about art blogs. Like Edward B. Gordon, she was also inspired to paint daily by Mr. Keiser. Who is it, you ask??? And which painting did I buy??? Well, my first ever online purchase was the spectacular little painting called "Stand Oil And Brushes on a Sill" by Philadelphia artist, Abbey Ryan. This painting actually ended up being chosen as a finalist for a competition she entered! She is extremely gifted and if you have never seen her work please make sure you check out the highlighted link. The second ever painting I bought online was soon after I began my blog and I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. It is quirky and different and simple and complex all at the same time. I'm talking about Aaron Lifferth's "Tomato Distortion". It's so good. There you have it... four fantastic paintings by four fantastic artists. Maybe by the end of 2010 I will actually own a prized Edward B. Gordon.... or one of yours....!

I'm actually excited to be starting a new year. Hopefully a new year and a new slate. I'm fine with closing the door on 2009... it was a rough year... and I want to get off the roller coaster for awhile! There were some rocky times in a couple of very important relationships to me, the economy, so much illness this past fall and then our traumatic car accident. All of those things really let the wind out of my sails so-to-speak. But at the same time there were some true highs... like our first big family trip (Disney World), a visit to see my sister in Guelph and my first gallery show. Yup, 2009 was about peaks and valleys... I hope 2010 is about those flat grasslands I was talking about!