A new project

May 16, 2026

I turned 70 years old this week, and, just as I did when I turned 60, I am embarking on a painting skill-building project for the year. I want to improve my portrait drawing and painting skills, so, over the year, I plan to create 70 small (8x8 or 10x10) portraits inspired by the method presented by American painter Steve Forster in his 2025 book Painting Luminous Portraits for Artists (Quarto Publishing Group). Forster’s approach is the French ebauche (meaning ‘rough draft’ or ‘first pass’) in which a full value charcoal drawing is sealed and then painted over with layers of oil paint.

But where to find 70 models willing to sit for portraits or photo sessions? In this age of artificial intelligence, the answer to this dilemma was easy. I used an AI software program called Midjourney to generate over 200 possible portrait images by prompting it with specifics about gender, age, ethnicity, expression, and lighting.

So here we go! One to two paintings a week should keep me moving toward my goal. Here’s #1, a handsome young Maasai man that Midjourney conjured up for me. It was a great exercise in mixing the right colours to capture his glowing dark skin. A good first attempt, I think!

I drew the image by using the grid method, then completed it as a full-value charcoal drawing

And the final image (#1, oil on paper, 8x8)

Those Who Wander now available in audiobook

April 15, 2026

After more than a year of effort by not only me, but my daughter, graphic artist Ellie Syracopoulos (who formatted and uploaded the files), and my sound engineer Todd Le Blanc, the audio version of my first book, Those Who Wander, is finally live on Audible and Amazon.ca. It came out at just over 13 hours of recording! Hard to believe. It was a lot of work by all of us, but I'm proud of the result and hope it will capture a different market than my print and digital books.

Here’s a link to hear a sample:

https://www.amazon.ca/arya/webplayer?asin=B0GWNQ5QR7&marketplaceId=A2EUQ1WTGCTBG2&amazonAsin=B0GWNGY135&useRelativeUrl=true&initialCPLaunch=true&isSample=true&isHomesteadCaller=true&isMobile=false&ref_=adbl_dp_dt_cloudplayer_login_preview

Thanks for a GREAT Art Crawl!

October 21, 2025

I am so appreciative of the many art lovers who came by this past weekend to take so many of my well-loved older works to new homes. I hope you’ll love them too! The sale continues on existing inventory until it’s all gone, including works displayed in various businesses in Sechelt. Contact me at rodgers.ruth@gmail.com to claim your 1/2 price treasure.

Thanks also to artist Serena Trinder who included the ‘spine’ of my book In Plain Sight on the new Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors book cart!

SALE at ART CRAWL this year!

September 12, 2025

Time to reduce some painting inventory to make space for new explorations…so on all three days of this year’s Art Crawl (Oct 17, 18, 19; 10-5 each day), ALL PAINTINGS IN MY STUDIO INVENTORY will be priced at 50% off. Come early for best selection!

And also come and see the framed results of my new oil/cold wax work with English artist Paula Dunn.

The first four quadriptychs framed—four more to come plus many smaller pieces—also sale priced (the quadtriptychs will be $275 per frame).

Oil and Cold Wax with Paula Dunn

July 12, 2025

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!