Summer has been very busy with house guests and enjoying weather…and watering garden and picking berries. Fitting art in is difficult, but along with summer comes festivals and outdoor events. When I get asked to participate as an artist, I’ll often say “yes”, cause I see this is a chance to fit some painting in when I might not otherwise. I was just painting at the Filberg Festival (for Arts Council) this past weekend and found I actually got lots done. The background music and noise was almost soothing and it actually helped me to focus. Also, since people would stop and watch, I was extra careful with my brushstrokes. So I will be doing this again on Friday, Aug 6 outside at the CVAG Plaza (Comox Valley Art Gallery on Duncan & 6th), from noon to 4pm. There will be another artist and a couple music performers also there – another chance to get some work done!

Here’s a link to artists “capturing the spirit” at Vancouver Island Musicfest last summer. It’s an exciting challenge to paint outdoors, since conditions are in constant flux; not like controlled studio conditions where the tendency is to paint slower and to be less spontaneous. I took a few reference photos for later, but was able to paint most of this impression of the main music stage, on location. What great fun!

I just completed this mural (4’ x 8’) for the Village of Cumberland. It is going to be displayed with six other murals (by several other artists) in the Village Park next to the Cumberland Bakery.

I wanted this mural to feel alive and bursting with a variety of life, like the Cumberlandforest itself. Some of the flora and fauna I included were: several types of trees; fir, cedar, alder, hemlock, spruce; as well, daisies, columbine, foxgloves, vanilla leaf, skunk cabbage, salal, boston fern. Names of wildlife are: a singing Swainson’s Thrush (as an appreciation of all the musicians in Cumberland), crow, Pileated woodpecker, red-legged frog, black bear and swallowtail butterfly. I included the trail sign “Bronco’s Perseverance” (an actual sign and trail) because Bronco Moncrief was one of the longest running mayors in B.C. and also because that is Perseverance Creek in the corner. In the background you can see a hint of two Cumberland cultural icons: the Waverley Pub and Dodge City Cycles.

The new murals will be displayed in the Cumberland Village Park soon, at which point I recommend you enjoy them with a cup of tea from Tarbell’s and a local delicacy from Dark Side Chocolates finished off with a visit to the Cumberland Museum.

This summer I completed a painting called Beach Time. It’s inspired from a photo I took last summer of a place just around the corner of Helliwell Park on Hornby Island. What particularly struck me about this location was the perfect half-circle shape of the little bay, which was retraced in the line of the seaweed and also in the half ring of bleached white driftwood.

While painting this I thought that I love how nature “tells” us time. Rocks, very slowly, are made round and shiny by water, the tide line moves daily; sea and sky are in constant flux. In nature, time is marked by transformation. However quick or slow, the change simply unfolds.