A Brush with Life - Issue #93 Happy Holidays and Season’s Greetings!

This is it folks! The soft light of December has delivered a calendar schedule that supports this being our last issue of 2021. This is what we shall do. We are going to skip the December 24th issue and send all our love and best wishes to you right now, immediately, like in this moment! We will save reflections about the past year for our January issue because being the kind of year it has been, it is not a good idea to get ahead of ourselves. Our next issue will be published on Friday, January 7, 2022. So let’s see what we have for today….

I have been studying the work of the Swedish painter Karin Mamma Andersson as part of my Vancouver Island School of Art “Landscape Painting Now I” course with Wendy Welch. We are about nine or ten weeks into this weekly three hour online adventure. I took the class for a few reasons but the most significant one was to spend time with the artists in the book by the same name I had bought a few years ago that is edited by Todd Broadway who I am pretty sure thinks that if a landscape painter doesn’t live or show in New York City (or better yet both), he doesn’t know that they exist. This bias aside, it is still a grand adventure to see what he has scoped out on the New York City contemporary landscape scene. The second significant reason for me taking this course was to puzzle through a suitable approach to my new Red Line Series because my previous painting practices just didn’t seem like they were going to be enough to push this idea successfully onto the canvas. After much poking around and borrowing this or that from various approaches of these landscape painters we are studying, I sense that in this latest painting I am finally getting somewhere…. Where that somewhere is has yet to be determined. 😉

The work is pretty shiny and wet but definitely alive and kicking. The underpainting was done with acrylic to allow me to work this one right through to the “resting” stage. My references were black and white images of both my photographs and a small gouache sketch that I don’t think I have ever shown you.

It is a tricky painting imagine in a room so let’s just go ahead and put it in one.

And here is a 43 second summary of the painting process…

Though this painting is not released yet, there are many other original “Terrill Welch paintings” ready to choose from in my full portfolio at:

Just remember to select “Available” at the top right so you do not need to browse through all the “Sold” paintings.

This story is from December 2016 and many of you will remember it from past years. Still, it is a favourite and worth sharing again….

To courageously release part of your inner life that one has laboured over with vulnerability, insight and vision is not an easy thing. Whether works find their forever home or not is secondary to taking that belly deep breath, exhaling and saying “okay, this one is ready to show!” I know this sensation and process all to well. With this in mind I would like to personally take a moment and thank the incredible landscape painters that have allowed the gallery to represent their work both in our physical space and online. I am honoured and humbled with this opportunity to show the work of…

And…

An extra special thank you to each of these artists and all the best of the holiday season. If you have any questions about any of these artists or a specific work, feel free to use the inquiry option or send us a direct email reply from this newsletter or however you usually connect with me. ~ Terrill :)

As the holiday season begins and the year comes to a close, I just want to say a huge thank you for your continued patronage and support. We wouldn’t still be sharing inspiring landscape paintings every second Friday without you! So here is a nod to the things we have spoken about, the things we have left unsaid, the paintings you have enjoyed and the artwork you have given a special place in your home! Thank you, thank you and thank you again!

By the next issue it will be the end of the first week of 2022. Our New Year will be fully underway. We will have some hints of the adventures to come and will have had time reflect on the year past. There is no rush or hurry or urgency here at the Terrill Welch Gallery. We like to take the slow and thoughtful approach during this liminal time. Enjoy your family. Enjoy your friends. And enjoy your own company.

I look forward to having our next issue in your inbox for January 7, 2022! Happy Holidays and Season’s Greetings!

With kindness, as always,

Terrill 👩‍🎨🎨❤️