Painting Adventures Past Sooke in BC — Terrill Welch by herself #55
I packed up our essentials and loaded the car last Friday morning to head out on a six night stay at Otter Point Place just past Sooke in BC. We know this area well as it is a favourite playground of beaches and nooks and crannies. However, with David’s mobility making most of those beaches now inaccessible, we chose an opulent grand view in an open, level suite constructed out of a double garage on six manicured acres with some amazing hosts.
Do you see the rabbit near the thicket? There is lots of wildlife including stellar jays, Canadian geese, deer and even black bear though we are yet to see one. Like at home, this south facing view catches great morning light
and sunsets come through the trees to the west.
Or if you are up early enough, you can see the moon setting as well.
We even had a three hour power outage just as we arrived to make sure we really felt at home. Thankfully, we had picked up ham and cheese sandwiches and lemon slices from the Fickle Fig near the Victoria airport for supper.
That made it easy and the outage was just another part of our adventure.
On Saturday, I painted before my family arrived from Duncan with treats to visit us for a couple of hours. They were not going to miss a chance to spend time with us where they didn’t have to catch a ferry.
The painting session was a bit of a flop.
My parameters were to paint in a way I didn’t know and surprise myself. Well, I definitely surprised myself!
In its own right, the work is rather bad and not a keeper. I cringe every time I look at it. I will paint over it and use the board for something else eventually. The next task I set for myself was to see if there was anything in this bad painting that I could use as I went forward to paint the next work. I looked long and hard and… nothing! So I set it aside and left it at the suite when packing up my gear the next morning.
We headed for Jordan River in the late morning on Sunday. It is only about a 22 minute easy drive away. We chose this spot because I could pull the car right up to the beach and David could see me as I worked while he stayed tucked into his seat in the car just like we do so often at Reef Bay. The day was amazing and I felt fortunate that there was room to park exactly where I wanted.
I set up on the smooth flat rounded rocks and began.
Forty-five minutes later, I was done.
Here is the finished painting by itself.
Artist notes: With a warm sun and underlying cool breeze the temperature reached 19 degrees Celsius as I stood on the round flat rocks at the easel. In 45 minutes, I gathered the main sensations and shapes and chose to leave it rough and fully of sensory information. This is the last day of full sun for the week as cooler more unsettled weather moves it.
The painting will be released and inquires are always welcomed while I get the admin work completed.
That evening we went out for dinner and I caught the sunset on the way home at Muir Creek Beach. It was the perfect end to a great day.
Many more adventures were had over the following days during our time away but they will have to wait to be told another time.
MA FINE ART DEGREE
It is official! ❤️ I received my marks for my final unit the day before we left. I now have a MA Fine Art degree from the Open College of the Arts in the U.K. - Ta-da! 🥳🥂🍾 The diploma will come in the mail soon but overall, I did really well (-A minus average when translated to North American grading system) and I am both a little sad and also glad to see it behind me. It was tough and a lot of work with everything I have going on but I am still glad that I took the risk and did it. The past few weeks, I have been working hard to uncurl and stretch my body from all the hours of sitting, reading and writing. This was actually the most difficult part of doing this degree later in life. It was the thinking or learning but the sitting that is required. I had all sorts of strategies but none of them were quite enough. However, I am getting better already so it should be good in the end. I just don’t think my body I was designed to sit for very long in one day.
UNTIL NEXT TIME
The fog horn was going this morning as I woke up and made coffee. Dew is heavy and thick or it could have even rained in the night. I hear the geese lift off the large open lawn and catch a glimpse of them as they circle out towards the ocean. It is only Monday morning as I write this for you to read this Friday.
I am anticipating many other ordinary everyday jewel-like moments that I might have wanted to share. But I am also on vacation and so decided to keep things simple. If there is anything particularly interesting, I will let you know next week.
All the best as always,
Terrill 👩🎨❤️🎨
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