My plans got snowed upon

I’ve been very active in the studio these past few weeks and I wanted to share some of my new creations with you, so I had planned to do some photographing today. For various reasons I’ve decided in the past to do my photography outside, where I have natural, even lighting. So when I opened the blinds this morning and saw all that beautiful white fluff fall from the sky, my plans for the day obviously weren’t going to work. A little bit more patience will be required, hopefully the weather will work with me tomorrow :) In the mean time, if you are really curious about my newest pieces, you van ‘like’ my Facebook page, I’ve been posting regular updates from my studio with little sneak peeks at some of the new pieces. 

On Wednesday I’m attending an exciting networking event that is organized by Yes Montreal, they invited a select group of their artist clients and we will be paired with 3 businesses for some one on one networking. I’m super excited! It’s a great group of people so even if I would just get to hang out with them that would be great but I’m also paired up with three awesome businesses! 

Next week, on top of a regular blog post, I will release the second episode of my ‘Creative Ramblings Vlog’, it will include a demo of the pouring medium. If you want to make sure you don’t miss it you can subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Now it’s time to do some other things that I didn’t plan :) See you next week!

Steady progress...

Today the first episode of my ‘Creative Ramblings Vlog’ is online! You can watch it right here on this page or you can visit my YouTube channel. I initially thought I would do one episode per month but I have decided that one episode every two weeks would be better. I will still be writing blogposts every week, the vlog will just be added to these posts every other week. 

I’ve been making steady progress in my studio this past week. I’ve got a good number of pieces that I am working on, things are definitely evolving. I’m having a great time with my experiments! Even the abstract, which really scared me before, is taking shape. I am posting regular updates of my recent painting adventures on my Facebook page. 

It’s been kind of odd not having a ‘plan’ while working in the studio. When I started most of my pieces were part of the ‘Traveling the World’ series and then I had ‘Discoveries: Montreal’ which was a really focused project. Of course I did little experimental pieces in between but now the experiment is my main focus, there is no though out plan to follow, but I think that is a good thing. 

As an artist you need to keep growing and evolving and you can’t do that by doing the same thing over and over again. It’s scary as hell but it’s also very freeing. I think I’ve reached a point in my career where I need to reinvent myself and, like I’ve said before, the fact that I’m stepping away from the cityscapes for a while doesn’t mean I’ll never do them again. 

For now I’m really enjoying not having a plan, even though I still have those “where the hell am I going” freakout moments. I want to give myself a good couple of months of development and see where that is going to take me. At this moment my studio is filled with half finished pieces so I’m very eager to get back to work. Keep an eye on my website because soon I will be uploading some newly finished pieces!

Much needed studio time!

This past week I’ve finally been able to get some much needed studio time and I’ve been loving every minute. All those experiments that I’ve been talking about are finally getting done! I had a blast playing around with the Liquitex pouring medium, making vibrant and colourful skies for a potential new series. I also finished some of the vignettes I had been working on during several demo’s I did late last year. 

One of the most interesting and challenging things I had planned was my first venture into the abstract. I’ve always loved abstract art as a viewer but as an artist it has been a challenging style. I’ve always had a hard time with it, never quite knowing how to go about creating an abstract piece but always looking for a way in. Now that my previous series has been finished and I promised myself a couple of month in the studio just to experiment I thought I’d give the abstract thing another go.

I love texture in artwork, I especially enjoy working with different shades of colour using the texture to create natural highlights. So I bought a bunch of different  textured acrylic mediums and I’ve been playing around with them a little bit. So far I’m really liking where it is taking me although I’ll have to see how the pieces will evolve. 

For now the most important part for me is just to take some time to let things happen in the studio, I am loving the process of not quite knowing where I’m going yet. It’s still scary not to have a plan but it is mighty fun to figure it out!