I created this painting for this year’s Vancouver Island Musicfest in Courtenay.   “Raven Act” is mythical scene where a raven dances on stage while in the background the Tsolum river transforms into a rainbow coloured crowd of people.  I’ve drawn my inspiration from several summers of enjoying Musicfest and also from painting on location there last year (see painting below).   I see Musicfest as one way for people to be reminded of their common humanity, which is expressed through the music and guarded over by nature.

“Raven Act” is acrylic on canvas, 30″ x 36″.  The price is $1550 and 100% of the proceeds are going to the CV Community Arts Council (which in the face of drastic cuts to the arts desparately needs support).  It will be on display at Musicfest (July 9-11) in the merchandise tent, along with prints and cards.

Recently saw exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery:  The Modern Woman:  Drawings by Degas, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and other Masterpieces from Musee d’Orsay, Paris. I love seeing drawings and I wish all my students would go see this exhibition.  First, you notice how important drawing was to these artists.  You get the understanding that they didn’t just leap into painting without doing the groundwork of many drawings first in an effort to understand their subject matter.  As well, you see that they were not perfect.  They made mistakes (students are you listening?).  Drawing and learning are just all part of the wonderful and enjoyable process of creating art – whether you end up with a masterpiece or not is irrelevant.

A couple weekends ago I participated in a weekend mural workshop with Mike Alewitz.  Alewitz is a trained sign and commercial painter with a keen interest in social issues.  He teaches maybe the only mural painting class in a university in Connecticut.  I learned quite a lot in a short time.  In my own university experience, I didn’t learn many practical things about art; such as what different paint brushes are for or how to use a colour scheme…most of what I learned was art theory….the “why” of art.

Anyway, Alewitz mentioned how he gets frustrated watching fine art painters wasting so much time in trial and error , figuring things out as they go along (remember, as a sign painter, time is money!).  I think that’s fine because painting is also a process.  However, I did see in a book on Chagall, a couple times where there was a small drawing done in the exact colour and design as a larger work.  And this is Chagall, a highly creative painter.  To me it looks like he pre-planned his painting…saving time otherwise spent in trial and error when he started in larger format.

Some practical knowledge is so obvious to someone trained in the trade of sign painting, but a fine art painter may have to figure out these things for themselves.  I am going to experiment with getting my drawings more figured out before moving to larger canvas to see what happens.  If I don’t like it, I can always paint over!