10 Best Art Books of the '00s

An ENORMOUS and ECSTATIC thank you to Marion Boddy-Evans at About.com: Painting for placing my first book, The New Acrylics, at NUMBER 6 in this list!

flattered and thrilled. Thank you, thank you!

Thinking about mediums and liquids...and about how they are the perfect complements to one another.

A drop of colour in a clear gel can create magic. The way it disperses into the thick, viscous pools of self leveling gel, or feathers into gloss gel, the character of the colour drawn out into displaying it's vibrant undertone and deep mass tones.

The transparency of gloss mediums is an ideal playground for colours to play and develop in.

I'm working on complex paintings, but am being struck again and again by the beauty in the simplest of brush strokes.

Art is pretty fun.

Buried bling, shinning from the depths of a glaze in a textured surface. Detail from a painting.

Blingy Bits

Holidays approaching, the first real snowfall and suddenly I want the blingy bits. Sparkle, shine, shimmer, all the seduction of those points of light. I am making custom gels and liquid mediums, bringing in those flashy additives that sink into the self-leveling gel like jewels, crest the gel waves and are stars in pools of liquid acrylic. There is so much fun stuff available out there to add to acrylic mediums. Add more light to your world. Bring on the BLING!

Making marks

Rediscovering, uncovering, redefining my expression through making marks. I find the road rather bumpy. So I proceed with some basic tools. My fingers, words, textures.

At points I find those little areas that work, that sing. Little seeds. Beginnings.

Marketing and promotional art taking up too much space in my studio and in my head. Producing the books, as a friend in the business said, is the least of the work. Promoting them is the long, hard slog. I am learning this truth, and it is humbling...though somehow exciting. Now, to find the head space and clarity of mind to produce a different kind of work too, one mark at a time.

Surfaces demo and nature's creepy creatures.

There is a lot of pretty in nature, and a whole lot of creepy as well. So much colour and texture and mystery. A treasury of inspiration every time I look!
Getting back into painting requires so much research, so much searching.

I'm beginning with tactile surfaces, colour scapes and playing with luster.

As part of my own growth, and hopefully to provide others with a smattering of creative tweaking, I'll be giving a demonstration of acrylic surfaces at Wallack's Art Supply in Kingston, ON, on December 5th from 12-4pm.

My books will be available as well as a great assortment of Tri-Art Liquid Acrylics and mediums. Come play with me.

Those who know me, know this painting, it marked a beginning. The springing, bouncing, jumping off point for taking acrylic off the page and into the sculptural realm. This is an acrylic skin, made up primarily of gloss gel and a whiff of colour, and loose liquid acrylic script. It is stretched on a wooden frame and hangs in Grace's house.
I am preparing my studio to begin again, and I am wondering where my materials will take me this time.
Curious, fearful and excited. I think this is what it is that makes me a painter, a craftsperson, and is the groundwork for becoming an artist.