Oil and Cold Wax with Paula Dunn

I’ve just had the great pleasure of taking a 4-day f2f class with English artist Paula Dunn at the Gibsons School for the Arts. It was such fun: innovative, experimental, and productive. Paula taught the group a whole host of techniques, but let us determine how we wanted to apply these to our own work—the best of both worlds!

Here are a couple of my final products. These pieces are a combination of pigment sticks, oil and cold wax mixtures, mark-making with a bunch of tools, newsprint masking, plus a bit of collage and applied pigment powders on Arches huile paper. I’m sure I’ll be exploring these techniques more in the coming months!

A small practice piece.

A bigger piece (full sheet of paper) divided into sixteen and developed into four ‘quadriptychs’ (one image across four sections).

Present Tense show at GPAG

As a member of the Gibsons Public Art Gallery, I have submitted one work to be shown in the upcoming Present Tense exhibition (June 26-July 20, 2025) in Gibsons, BC. It’s Poppy Eve (acrylic, 18 x 18, $550), one of the ‘splash’ paintings I was experimenting with recently. It takes a LOT of spatters to fill a space, but I like the textured surface that results. This work is also unique because after I completed it (on a thin canvas) I decided I wanted it to have more ‘heft’ so I glued on an additional, thicker canvas and made it a deep painting you can hang on your wall without a frame—a more contemporary approach that suits the technique, I think. Of course, I also ‘splashed’ my way around the edges for a finished look!

Note that this show is also a fundraiser for this public art gallery, a fabulous resource for our small rural region—hope you’ll attend and buy local!

Art Crawl 2024

It’s that time again! Join me in my studio Friday Oct 18-Sunday Oct 20, between 10-5, to see new works and/or pick up a copy of my latest book In Plain Sight. Many of this year’s paintings are collages that integrate photographs taken in the 1800s of the Blackfoot people—a series connected to the themes of In Plain Sight.

Also this year, for the first time, pet portraits! My son’s new golden retriever has inspired me to explore painting animals—and I’m loving it!

Hope to see you next weekend!

JUNO

MOLLY—my old companion. I still miss her, twelve years later…

PAC Show at Federation Gallery

I am pleased to be included in this year’s Pastel Artists Canada show at the Federation Gallery (Vancouver, BC). Here are the details of the show dates, and an image of my painting—hope some of you will get to the exhibit, which promises to be a wonderful showcase of the variety and quality of pastel!

Summer Wishes 11.5 x 11.5 image size. Framed.

Book Launch Saturday August 24th 10:30 am Gibsons Public Market

Join me for an hour of exploration into a pivotal time in Canada’s history, when the demise of the bison and the coming of settlers and the Northwest Mounted Police upended the traditional life of the Blackfoot. My new book, In Plain Sight, will be officially launched (presentation and reading) in tandem with a collection of mixed media works related to its themes. Hope to see you there!

For the Facepuller collage and acrylic on panel 16 x 20 $395