Lest we forget.
Remembrance Day 2016
Lest we forget.
Art
From Yardwork to Artwork: The Hydrangea Story Part Two
The evolution of today’s image in Part Two of The Hydrangea Story began with the rescue of the remaining hydrangea flowerhead seen in Friday’s yard work gallery featured in Part One.
Happy Birthday to Joni Mitchell
From Yardwork to Artwork: The Hydrangea Story Part One
Friday’s yardwork, which I hinted at in the Weekly Photo Challenge: Chaos, resulted in another artwork afternoon in the studio this weekend. Last May I was trimming a rather unruly photinia which featured in the post From Yardwork to Artwork: The Photinia Story. This time clearing our patio garden involved cutting back a hydrangea that was beginning to take over rather like The Day of Triffids, as described in the 1951 post-apocalyptic novel by the English science fiction author John Wyndham, a story that may be familiar to some of you.
As you can see Sunday joined me and enjoyed the catnip
The trimmed stalk made for a useful drawing tool.
Part Two to follow…
desktop bouquet
3.11.2016 watercolour, pen and ink 11′ x 15″
when it’s raining outside
bouquet of the imagination 27.10.16
branch majesty
I rescued this majestic branch whilst walking home one day last summer and brought it back to the studio. It was about to be pulverized in a wood chipper but like the photinia that you will remember from my yard work to art work story, it became my model.
Using the small branches from the photinia as drawing tools it started to come to life transforming my empty sheet of Arches watercolour paper one warm July day.
Finally, as I completed the painting today with the brushes from the Gift of the Four Treasures, the spirit of the branch filled the studio once again and its story was complete.
the secret path
Today’s painting was inspired by last night’s broadcast on CBC television of Gord Downie’s film, The Secret Path. The film acknowledges a dark part of Canada’s history – the long-suppressed mistreatment of indigenous children and families by the residential school system and tells the story of twelve year old Chanie Wenjack who died alone beside the train tracks fifty years ago on October 22, 1966 whilst trying to walk home to his family from whom he was taken over 400 miles away
If you can find an hour take the time and see the film, and be as moved as I was. Learn Chanie Wenjack’s heartbreaking story, listen to Gord Downie’s unforgettable songs and music and be inspired by award-winning cartoonist Jeff Lemire’s illustrations. You can find the film here on the CBC website: The Secret Path.
Dedicated to the memory of Chanie Wenjack
Discover Challenge: Mixing Media
For this week’s Discover Challenge: Mixing Media, Michelle asks us to “publish a post containing the kind of work you’d normally publish — but mix it with a second type of media, either digital or analog.”
This seemed to be the perfect opportunity to revisit some of the paintings that many of you will have seen on The Changing Palette over the past year. Using iMovie on my MacBook Air I have pulled them together in a short video and added the sublime accompaniment of Glen Gould playing one of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. I hope you enjoy it.
it’s a tulip sunday
16.10.16
catching the wind
landscape of the imagination – 15.10.16
thechangingpalette 