Terrill Welch by herself - issue #28 Paintbrush In Hand and Elbows Up
What a crazy time we have all been having! Whoa! Or as Canadians say - elbows up! Enough said about THAT for now. I am in the final weeks of my first of three units in the MA in Fine Art online programme with the Open College of Arts in England. Thursday, 24 October 2024 and our first introductory online class (which begins at 4:00 am here on the Pacific west coast of Canada) seems so long ago. Since then, I broke my trifocal glasses in half which required getting to the city for temporary frames and ordering new glasses. I kept going with my programme. As you will remember, my husband, who already requires my care, fell and broke his hip in late November. I missed one class and kept going with the additional demands. I used the December holidays to catch up on my school work. Then, starting in mid January, my country, Canada, has been under serious threats of annexation by our closest neighbour, the United States of America, that is further exacerbated by an ongoing trade war between the two countries. This means my art business is in a holding pattern as art collectors limit discretionary spending due to our national and global economic uncertainty. My schooling is financed through the sales of my artwork. The good news, as I mentioned in our last issue, is that these sales mostly came in advance of starting the programme. Though there is risk of impacts from the devaluation of the Canadian dollar, payments for the second and third units are already in savings. I share all this as reflection and context for how I have been working and learning since the beginning of this first unit. It has been a lot. I have done it! If I successfully complete this first unit, I can keep going! Pheewwwf!
In this issue, I am going to share the process of three new small acrylic painting studies because I think you will find it interesting and will keep you current on the shifts in my painting practice as I keep exploring the seafloor.
INVESTIGATING SHAPE IN LANDSCAPES OF THE SMALL
Friday, 14 March 2025
Back on Saturday, 22 February 2025, I completed the first of three explorative investigations of portrait oriented acrylic studies with shells in the foreground and land, sea and sky in the background. I had left this first study unfinished on Monday, 10 February 2025 for a few days while I thought about what I was wanting to accomplish with these acrylic studies as a method for propelling my work forward. In the previous three oil paintings, I had already decided to work in a portrait orientation with more context around my subject of the shells. Now I wanted to be able to change what I was doing easily on the surface to be able to test the usefulness of this approach without waiting for oil paint to dry or having to scrape an area it down to start again. Hence, the switch to acrylic and small 10 x 8 inch size.
Each painting process, from observation to reference gathering it painting, use both the approach of seeing with the whole body and mind presented (Loori, 2005) and considered the limitation of our sensory information present (Plato and Jewett, 2994, Rudd 2022). The differences and tension between these two theories about art and painting seem to offer maximum freedom for me to work. I can observe with all of my senses as closely as possible while knowing that I will still fall short of everything that is available from the subject. This seems to offer greater room for exploration because I understand that the information I can discern is flawed from the beginning creating less need to get it right and more room to explore my interpretation of the essence or make the essential essence of my subject present.
I had intended to take more images of this final stage of painting for ‘Shells on Sandstone Study’ but it didn’t happen. Instead I will share the process of the work up to this point as a reminder to how it came about starting with the actual shells I had borrow from the beach (and will return) for a touch drawing exercise.
I settled in to paint and even after I reminded myself to take photos as I worked. I just kept painting! I didn’t even think of it again and then the painting was done.
The good news is that I get to try again.
Monday, 24 February 2025
I started with a handful of references I had gathered midday in the rain a few days earlier on Friday, 21 February 2025.
I set a 10 x 8 inch gessobord on the easel and drew in some basic lines to get started.
I could have stopped here.
Or even here.
Of course, I didn’t. The final acrylic study ended here instead…
I did manage to gather a few more points in the painting process this time. I am not sure how useful it has been but they are there for future consideration. The simplicity of the shapes and palette still seem substantial to me, worthy of my attention. Visible brushstrokes offer a soft liveliness with their directional movement. However, could something still be missing? I leave it for now and start the next painting.
Saturday, 1 March 2025
I again selected from photographic sketch references that I had taken the day before. This time there were fewer than usual.
I had already determined that I was going to make up the landscape by drawing on information from all three images using a spontaneous decision making process.
Then I begin with acrylic paint, more determined than ever to capture my decision making process while I worked.
It is not easy but I keep stopping to take photographs.
A then another pause.
I am now ready to start building up the paint until I get to the point where nothing is working and everything element in the composition seems to be singing from a different song sheet.
What to do? I decide to start painting things out until it comes back together. There!
I move forward again only adding what feels absolutely necessary with each brushstroke. I got it!
This third acrylic study is what I have been searching for in my exploration of the seafloor. Not just in the composition and colour palette. Those can change. It is the energy and closeness to my conversation with the seafloor on this particular day that I feel an affinity with when viewing this work.
All three of these sketches are notably to me a new direction in studying what is still a brand new subject. These small studies have the potential to be worked up into larger paintings and still work both as objects in the physicality of paint, colour and composition and as expressive subjects depicting my conversation with nature’s seafloor. I will keep going and experimenting with the idea of landscapes of the small paintings where I am getting seriously low and close to the subject while looking out and placing it within the context of its environment.
Here are all three together in a room view with imagined floating frames.
Reference list:
Plato and Jowett, B. (1994). The Republic. [online] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/150/150.txt. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/150/pg150-images.html [Accessed 5 Jan. 2025].
Rudd, A. (2022). Painting and Presence: Why Paintings Matter. [online] Oxford University Press eBooks. Oxford University Press. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192856289.001.0001.
NEW RELEASES
Since late October I have completed and released twelve new paintings. All but one which was a commission are in my Seafloor and Seashell series. So rather than sharing separate links to these latest three small acrylic studies, I am going to provide a link to the whole collection instead.
UNTIL NEXT TIME!
Like most of you, any spare time I have had during the past month has been taken up with following national and international circumstances. I want this newsletter space to be mostly a reprieve from these concerns while still acknowledging that these events and concerns are having deep impacts on all of our lives. I hope I have succeeded in that balance with this issue. But just in case I haven’t been abundantly clear, for Canadians it is elbows up! We have had enough of this 51st state talk from the new U.S. administration and, wherever possible, citizens and government alike, are in full boycott of U.S. products and services wherever possible due to unwarranted tariffs. We still love our American family friends deeply and we know that you too are having a horrible time right now. However, we do not appreciate the behaviour of the U.S. government in the least. Expect a continued strong Canadian response on all U.S. tariff and other measures by both individual and government actions. Within this frame of reference and reality, the Terrill Welch Gallery will continue to restrict shipment of original paintings to the United States for the foreseeable future. Enough said.
I am done, done, done all the hard bits and my assessment materials are completed and waiting in folders for when the portal to upload them opened yesterday for my Unit 1 of 3 towards my Master’s in Fine Art that won’t be completed until July of 2026. Even so, today is a personal day of celebration as I share a tiny part of a most fascinating study adventure between October 2024 and today. I put together a short 2 minute summary of video to mark the occasion and to reflect on my practical research during this time. I hope you enjoy this glimpse into my world.
Even though my assignments for assessment are completed, I still have one more week of school left and then, once I get the yearend and income tax filed, I hope to be able to let up for a few weeks before starting the next Unit in mid June. This will mean getting the garden in and maybe finding a moment to take a few things to the thrift store and generally tackling the home things that have been set aside for the past few months. I hope to connect again with my island artist colleagues and see if I can coax them out to plein air paint with me a couple of times and visit with family and friends.
All in all, it will be a time to stop and smell the flowers, no matter what else is going on in the world.
Warm regards and I send a wish that you can find moments of inner peace and wellbeing in your own lives. It is not going to be easy but we will get through this no matter what country we call our home. We will get through it by being kind, helping each other out, being firm about our values and stepping up bravely in ways we didn’t even know were possible.
Take good care,
Terrill 👩🎨🎨❤️
Please Note: I am still planning on doing a special savings opportunity for you. However, rather than doing it in April, I am going to hold off until May. So please keep this in mind if you are considering another Terrill Welch painting. I will share more in the April issue.
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