Terrill Welch by herself - issue #19 Interconnectedness
I reach across with a big brush curving it under firm pressure while apply creamy oil paint in loose thick strokes. A macro landscape painting of shells on the sea floor exposed during a low tide is taking shape on the large canvas. It is different than the recent smaller paintings of the same subject. There is more colour and the shapes are noticeably more abstract in places. Plus, a crab crawled into the spotlight and refuses to leave. The large canvas allows for full body arm painting that propels me physically into the curving shapes. I can feel the earth’s surface within me as I work.
The next day, I leave the art studio for an early morning plein air painting session at Oyster Bay at the request of part-time islanders who wanted to paint together. The morning light is exquisite and the company cheerful and engaging. I relax into the changing of sea, sky and light. I recognize that I am at home deep in the core of my being in this place as no other place I have ever lived.
Later that afternoon I start on a still life painting featuring peonies from a bouquet that had arrived from Amber, a local farmer, the evening before. The bunches of flowers are subjects for a new series - Summer of Flowers. Twelve times, every two weeks, bunches of fresh locally grown flowers will arrive at my doorstep. I have in mind twelve still life paintings on 11 x 14 inch fine linen covered birch wood with walnut oils. The flowers and the linen covered thick birch wood are expensive. But the fine linen surface is also exquisite to paint on and the subjects and my intention to explore peace through nature make the expense seem reasonable. However, before I even pick up a brush and dip it into the painting laid out on my palette, I have around $150 invested in each painting. It is a lot really. Yet, so little if I can expand my own and our sense of peace and deep interconnectedness with all things.
As we shall see, this month has been a time of deep inward focus with my brushes being my outward connection and my translator as I explore peace through nature. Someone online posted one of those meme quotes that caught my attention as it resonated with my painting intention to discover the essential essence for world peace in a time that seems volatile and uncertain. The quote had the author included so I researched for more context and found a much fuller segment which lead me to reading more about the writer. Let’s begin with the fuller quote…
“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.” ~ Etty Hillesum
It is a quote from Etty Hillesum’s diaries published in Dutch in 1986 and translated into English in 2002. Etty was born January 15, 1914 in Middelburg, Netherlands. She died in Auschwitz concentration camp on November 30, 1943. She was 29 years old. I have yet to order the book with her full diary but these words, in just this one quote, are worth bringing forward into my painting practice today.
SMALL AND LARGE SEASHELL PAINTINGS
This issue brings four new paintings and two are the seashell paintings. The first is “Suggestion of Shells” and 12 x 16 inch walnut oil on linen board. I started by laying in rough shapes on a grey ground.
From there I just kept working up the paint until it was blocked in.
I could have possibly stopped here but I wanted just a little more texture and definition to the shapes.
Now the painting is done…
Artist notes: Shapes of shells drift in and out of random patterns, shifting colours move with the morning sun as I walk the reef. My brushstrokes are meant to capture more than seeing alone could ever offer.
I have been fascinated by how different each seashell painting is though still recognizably about the same subject. Next, I set the large canvas on the easel after putting hanging wires on it…
and on three other cradled wood boards that then are sealed.…
and stacked up on the round table out of the way so we can have our dining table back for dinner.
David and I sometimes joke that we do not have a home with an art studio but rather an art studio with a bed, two bathrooms, a kitchen and his office. 😉
I knew from the start that this larger painting was going to have to be done over several days. I went to the seashore frequently gathering inspiration and references. I then began with an underpainting, not to define the shapes of the shells but rather to help keep track of the flow I wanted between the light and dark areas.
I start the process of blocking it in by taking shells from about a dozen images and painting bits and pieces of each in a random manner while keeping track of the light.
Eventually, a crab crawls onto the canvas and takes up the bottom left corner. I try to get him out and even went as far as editing an image of the painting with my Apple - pencil. He is having none of it! I am afraid he seems to be there for good.
Artist note: There is a special kind of mysterious intrigue to the land up close at the edge of sea during a low tide. A large macro landscape offers not just a change of perspective but access to a world we likely visit less often as adults… unless in the company of children.
After placing the painting in a digital room view, I decide that the painting works as it is, crab and all!
Here we can see all four of the new seashell paintings together and all are currently still available. 😊
I suspect there will be more of these sea floor macro landscape paintings over the summer but we shall see.
OYSTER BAY IN MORNING LIGHT
I was contacted by part-time islanders about going plein air painting with one of their guests. I said yes and made a couple of new painting friends in the process. We chose Oyster Bay and found a sheltered spot from the cool northwest wind to set up. I didn’t take any process photographs but we have the finished painting still on the easel on location. There is nothing quite like these morning plein air painting sessions. The light was magnificent, though I did lose my foreground sea in the outgoing tide before I was finished. We were all set up shortly after 8:00 am and I took this image of my painting at 9:03 am…
Here it is by itself…
Artist notes: Choosing a position along the beach that is sheltered from the northwest winds, I have a front row view of the sandstone shore, sea, mountains and sky. The light is magnificent while sensations and motion overtake my brush.
These small plein air paintings are like practicing meditative breathing for me. I always finish each session with more clarity and calmer vitality than when I arrived.
Next, I came back to the studio to start on the first Summer of Flowers painting in the afternoon.
THE BEGINNING OF SUMMER OF FLOWERS
This summer I have purchased 12 buckets of locally grown flowers from Amber at Hardscrabble Farm with each bunch being delivered every two weeks to our doorstep. Amber came up with the offer in February and I knew it was just what I needed - a summer of flowers. I said yes and sent an e-transfer for $537.60 on a gamble. I am gambling on the farmer’s ability to fulfill the order under uncertain weather conditions with climate change having led to drought every summer for six years. I am gambling on my ability to commit to painting a still life painting every two weeks. I am gambling on my ability to find homes for enough of these paintings to cover my costs. I take the risk and then ordered seven fine linen with thick Baltic birch wood substrate boards from Terkell in the United States the next day. Then I waited. When they arrive, I tucked the box of painting panels under the table in the studio and let the weeks and months pass from February until June.
Two weeks ago on Thursday at 4:45 pm, Amber arrived with the first bunch of flowers that includes some of her amazing peonies. I set them outside on the side deck to stay fresh and also to let the ants finish opening the blooms. I took a few reference images in the evening light just to get to know the plants and the blossoms.
I follow this up the next afternoon by doing a quick acrylic underpainting as a guide by using the paints I already had set out on the wet palette from plein air painting in that same morning.
It didn’t take long until I had enough of an idea to understand where I was going to take the still life painting. Unlike some underpaintings, I chose not to work in complementary colours but in the basic hues I was going to use for the over painting. It was a judgement call but one I think worked out in the end for this specific work. My reasoning was that I wanted the pinks to layer up nicely and I also didn’t want to wait for layers of oil paint to dry in order accomplish this.
I was ready to switch to oils and make a cup of tea while I waited for the acrylics to fully dry. By 2:30 in the afternoon I want to scrap the whole thing off and start again! I couldn’t see where to take the painting and I was played out. My legs and body were tired from standing and painting since 8:00 that morning at the beach.
I convinced myself to stop and just leave it until morning and I moved the flowers back onto the side deck to stay cool and put the easel with the wet painting down in the art studio. For the rest of the day, I walked by and glowered at it as I washed the brushes, as I made supper, as we ate supper, as we prepared to watch a movie and then one last time as I went to brush my teeth before tucking in. But I didn’t pick up a brush. Mostly because I would be too tired to wash it once I had used it.
The next morning I woke with an uncertain path forward for how I was going to resolve the composition. If it didn’t work, then I would scrape it back and start again. What I did was turn the bunch of flowers around and around while placing blooms from other areas exactly where I wanted them in the composition so that the spiral movement held and the colours, shapes and textures created the dynamic movement I was after.
It worked! Pheewwwf!
I moved the easel back to the art studio, set the bunch of flowers beside it and left the dirty brushes for a couple of hours… just in case I wanted to do more.
I didn’t. The painting is done! The painting remains loose and rich in colour and contrast.
Artist notes: The peonies continue to open as I paint. Could they hear the paint being brushed across the linen? Could they feel their shapes being formed under my hand? Could this have precipitated some desire of their own? Most likely it was the warmth in the art studio. Still, they turned and spiralled with graceful ease. If there is an inner peace to be expanded upon through nature, this seems like a good place to start.
WHAT I HAVE BEEN WATCHING
I have been doing more watching than possibly reading this past month. Mostly, with such focus on my painting practice, I didn’t have as much desire to read. So here are a couple of my favourite art finds from YouTube.
First, you will never look at a pencil the same way again! Jackson’s Art In Conversation With Carole Hübscher and Eric Vitus, Caran d’Ache.
Next, I discovered an interview with Belfast Artist, Brian Ballard, born in 1943, that was skillfully done in his art studio. I love how many paintings he has stashed around. I feel much better about the number of paintings in our own home and my art studio. It must possibly be a painters way of being. Brian Ballard is wonderful to listen to and has a humble approach to sharing his work and painting process. I think just being a person who appreciates art will be enough to enjoy this interview with him by Eamon Kerrigan.
Brian Ballard trained first at the College of Art in Belfast, and then at the College of Art in Liverpool. He still lives in Belfast but spends long periods of time living and working in his house on the remote and rugged island of Inishfree, off the coast of Donegal. Listening and watching interviews with artists like Brian always feels like good company to me, as if there are others in the world that go about their day in a similar way. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
WHAT I AM READING
Though I have been reading less this doesn’t mean no reading. I picked Always Pack a Candle (2021) by Marion McKinnon Crook out of the Tyee summer reading list along with the her second book Always on Call (2024). Both would make interesting Book Club choices to consider for those that are part of one. Crook’s storytelling and writing is both superb and accessible. If you like my stories you are going to love hers. Her memoirs are from the places and rural life that I lived both as a child and young adult.
I start on the bench beside the garden one afternoon and read until the sun was gone.
The next morning, I have my book under my arm and sink into a natural seat on the sandstone shore and read until noon.
This is pretty much how it went until both books are completed. Here is the book blurb for the first book just to give you an idea what I got myself into…
Winner, BC Historical Federation's Community History Book Award 2021
The true story of an adventurous young nurse who provided much-needed health care to the rural communities of the Cariboo-Chilcotin in the 1960s.
In 1963, newly minted public health nurse Marion McKinnon arrived in the small community of Williams Lake in BC's Cariboo region. Armed with more confidence than experience, she got into her government-issued Chevy—packed with immunization supplies, baby scales, and emergency drugs—and headed out into her 9,300-square-kilometre territory, inhabited by ranchers; mill workers; and many vulnerable men, women, and children who were at risk of falling through the cracks of Canada's social welfare system.
At twenty-two, a naïve yet enthusiastic Marion relied entirely on her academic knowledge and her common sense. She doled out birth control and parenting advice to women who had far more life experience than she. She routinely dealt with condescending doctors and dismissive or openly belligerent patients. She immunized school children en masse and made home visits to impoverished communities. She drove out into the vast countryside in freezing temperatures, with only a candle, antifreeze, chains, and chocolate bars as emergency equipment.
In one year, Marion received a rigorous education in the field. She helped countless people, made many mistakes, learned to recognize systemic injustice, and even managed to get into a couple of romantic entanglements. Always Pack a Candle is an unforgettable and eye-opening memoir of one frontline worker's courage, humility, and compassion.
So there you go. Resist if you dare to miss out! 😉
UNTIL NEXT TIME
I hope you have enjoyed this deep dive into exploring peace through nature with paint. All four of these new paintings are first available for your consideration as paid subscribers until June 28th when they will become publicly listed. Please just send me a note of you are looking for pricing details. Also, they are part of the private offer of 20% for 20 days ending on July 8, 2024.
I am trusting that you are still enjoying this newsletter as we go farther into my painting practice. It seems the only way when exploring a notion like peace through nature with paint. This is not an abstract construct for me but a visceral part of my life in the most intimate way as I support David through his increasingly declining cognitive health. I am sometimes asked how I manage? Or someone will say I appear to be managing extremely well. For the most part, I do manage well. However, this doesn’t make the process any easier. At times the situations are heartbreaking and at other times humorous in an almost hysterical relief kind of way. This to say, my search and exploration of peace through nature is as much needed in my immediate circumstances, where high amounts of acceptance are required, as they are in my desire to make a difference for world peace. My brushes are my strongest allies in underpinning and supporting my personal physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual wellbeing. Both my personal life and global circumstances are a marathon not a sprint. Yet, these times feel extremely precious and not to be missed. I want to take them in whole and thoroughly with attentive hungry reverence!
Thank you for reading and listening and being here to bear witness during this part of my journey as an artist and as a person. Your ongoing interest, patronage and humanness are noticed.
Warm regard as always,
Terrill 👩🎨🎨❤️
P.s. If you would like to comment on this issue and share your own thoughts you are more than welcome. Also, feel free to email me directly at anytime and reach out to tawelch@shaw.ca as I am always pleased to hear from you.
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