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What is your mid summer nights dream?

My dream is one wherein the world has blown past the anxiety of pandemic days and heat waves, nights are cool, days are summery warm and there is enough rain each week so that all birds, bees and butterflies have lots of juicy flowers and bugs on which to sip and nibble. And I can hug whoever I like.

Outdoors is as always a great place to spend your time these days or any day!  Take a hike, a walk in the park or go for a drive in the countryside. Breathe! Healthy and safe.

The seeded perennial meadow is in full bloom. Pale coneflower(long, lanky and limp) is finishing and sturdier regular  echinacea is taking centre stage complimented by varying shades of billowing pale purple bergamot. The tall spikes of blazing star are unfurling into blue-violet fuzzy spires and there are even more than last year. Here and there are vervain, fading  butterfly weed. The spires of special showy goldenrod are reaching for the puffy clouds, in preparation for their stunning debut in September.

We’ve seen white admirals, monarchs, wood nymphs, hummingbird moths, red admirals, fritillaries, crescents, mourning cloaks, and black swallowtails  and  tiger swallowtails. I hope I can add to my list of over 20 butterflies this season.

You will see in my paintings and  posts that I love to spend time in peaceful meadows and energizing mountains. And then I go into the studio to choreograph these beautiful landscapes into original unique artworks.

How do you feel when you breathe in Canadian landscape?

Bergamot Haze 30"x30" in the Meadows Collection of our new gallery shop.
 

April 1, 2020 

It feels like a cruel April Fools joke but today I finally got the long awaited but expected official cancellation  of The Meadow Project: If You Plant It They Will Come due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  I would be lying if I didn’t confess my immense disappointment in the unfolding of  events with respect in particular  to my exhibition. I take my consolation in the recent event of my work  “Joy Riding” becoming a part of Ontario’s cultural history.” To have work in a public collection is a good size line in an artist’s bio😊.

News of the exhibition being rescheduled will be posted at a later time. I am free to create again. Yippee, sort of!

 I hope all my family and friends and art lovers like you will guard your health as the precious jewel that it is.  God bless. 
 Cheryl 

It was a particular joy for me to check my email this morning and find that my painting "Joy Riding" has been juried and selected by the Curators at the Archives of Ontario. The Ontario Society of Artists(OSA) has a long relationship with the Ontario Government and is the longest continually operating art society in Canada-- since 1872. In fact we are coming up for our 150th anniversary in 2022 and we will celebrate. Special exhibitions and a book and video are currently in the works. 

Last summer, members of the OSA were invited by Archives of Ontario to submit work (particularly on a landscape theme) to be considered for inclusion in the Government of Ontario Art Collection. The work was submitted by early October and the news has finally come out. The last time this invitation was extended was 15 years ago. Needless to say I am greatly chuffed to receive my acceptance. What a thrill in these beleaguered days of social distancing and self isolation for so many. 

At this point, there is an exhibition at Queen's Park planned for the  paintings going to the Archives. Cool!

Joy Riding 30"x40" A favourite view on the 5th in Dufferin County west of Mansfield. That's Old Dex, the 1963 Ford Super Dexta tractor, trundling over the hills. 

       detail

The huge polyptych for my solo exhibition is done! It is 200 inches wide by 60 inches high. I'm painting the 83 feet of edges now and getting the wiring and labelling started. Two of the middle panels of the painting will be the picture for a exhibition rack card. Lots of info is provided on the back of the rack card to get you excited about the exhibition. I ordered the cards today :D 

Here  is a pic of two of the middle panels:

Even after having made a mini version of this large work,  there were a few do-overs. When I am not impressed with a shape, I generally have to go back and repaint the black underpainting. It's important that the black be clean. Of course, black is the darkest dark and sets off all other colours, even dull ones because of the relative intensity of the colours to the zero intensity black. 

I find painting the light areas the most tricky because of leaving the black intact OR having a light even dry brushing to exclude more of the black.  I did the light part of the meadow and then  I painted the shadowed part of the meadow. I liked the latter so much better that I decided a do-over of the lighter area was needed.

To keep the work, of basically copying myself, interesting, aside from hefting these large panels around regularly, I did make a few changes from the mini mock ups. See if you can notice any of the changes in the two panels shown above. Here are the mini-bigs:

Really my studio is too small to attempt this size of work but it has been an exciting project. I've borrowed extra easels to line up  three of the five panels  at a time. Some of the shapes stretch over three panels and I wanted each shape painted all at once. 

There is still so much else yet to do! 

Next week I will return to the video editing which has been waiting in final stages since end of November. The installation set ups plans for the videos are being worked on. More on that later. 

Have you marked the show on your calendar? April 21-May 9 with Opening Reception on Sat April 25 from 1-4 pm.

You can click on the link below to see the latest newsletter with Ontario Arts Council news.

Cheryl Bailey’s Newsletter #3

The solo exhibition scheduled for April 20-May 10 2020 will exhibit a large polyptych on the impact wall, the wall that is seen on entering the gallery. It will be 5 canvases 40x60 for a total of 16.7 feet width. The 40x60 inch canvas is the largest canvas that my car will carry. My plan is that each of the canvases are a standalone painting and that may be hung individually or in groups with one, two or three or four neighbours. 

To this end, I have worked up a sketch of the planned work:

In order to avoid too many do-overs, I am painting some minibigs of the work to solve any problems that may come up in a smaller scale. The canvases are 16x24(relatively small), same proportions, but still ending up  6 feet wide! Here's where I am so far:

As you can see, there are still black areas to paint. The white buttonbush flowerhead are place holders - think I will add a bit more texture to those so they're not pure white. When I get the basic painting done in all areas, I'll add the juicy focal points as necessary in my signature way so that each canvas will be a complete painting.

This is an exciting project for me as it will be my largest and most complex- each picture being standalone as well as part of a whole. You may recognize several motifs that I have used before in some of my favourite works. I welcome your feedback!

You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting painted work lately. Well it’s summer and I’ve been flying! Flying Miss Sparky, that is. As part of my solo exhibition, If You Plant It, They Will Come(working title) next spring, there will be a video of a butterfly’s view of the meadow as the blooms progresses from early lupins to the spectacular show in September. 

Miss Sparky and closeup of the gimbal-mounted camera

After waiting anxiously for several years through drought and heat for the plants to mature, I am now obsessed with my meadow in the summer months. The meadow sits between the uphill mainly evergreen forest and the lowland deciduous forest.

This year,with the large amount of snow melting and then flash freezing in Feb, we had a great deal of melt water run from the uphill forest carrying a truckload(literally!) of sand down into our beautiful meadow. Desperate measures were taken to avoid the plants being drowned in 8-10 inches of beautiful fine pale sand that settled as the water ran further towards the river. An unusual problem. We dug with shovels, raked and then scraped down to the soil level with the tractor as much as possible but we are still left with great swaths of beautiful  sand covering paths and parts of the planted areas. Let me know if you need sand for your sandbox -- Really!

the sand coming from the uphill forest in april 

In most of the sanded parts of the planted meadow, most of the plants have pushed through the sand. Some spots look bare. It can’t be helped. On the plus side, I see many volunteers sprouting up from lupin seeds which are totally recognizable based on leaf shape.

In Canada, as of June 1 2019, a pilot licence is necessary to fly a drone over 250grams. Miss Sparky weighs in at 300g so I had to learn quite a lot of material to be licensed quickly in order to get flights in before the first bloom faded. 

Flying a drone isn’t as easy as I imagined. For several weeks I flew with the iPad as the controller:  fingers sliding on the glass giving incorrect direction and frustration.  I finally gave in and bought an actual remote controller complete with two little joysticks. One controls forward/backward and horizontal rotation. The other controls elevation and turning right/left. WAY EASIER than the iPad, still not easy, but happily making progress.

When the drone is flying, time also flies with only 12 minutes of battery life. Landing safely on my flat landing stone without too much rush is important so that the delicate quadricopter propellers don’t end up becoming inadvertent plant trimming clippers in  the middle of the meadow. My digital co-pilot’s recorded voice relays a curt message “Battery low, landing in 10 seconds.” then “Landing.”  And Miss Sparky lands wherever she is. 

Until next time! 
Cheryl

p.s. oops to those of you who subscribe, I forgot to send the last post to you. You can still see it on the website :D
 

I’ve made progress on the 4 part series where I play with the colour changes through out the growing season. I used the same composition, but provided some variation in the values(lightness/darkess) of the different shapes that make up the composition.

In the previous post,  I wrote about the very light snowy scene Winter in the Meadow.

The next painting, Lupins!, is basically the same composition but showing May when the lupins bloom. The meadow has been filled in with rich medium dark green plant leaves. The native lupins are a medium dark blue-violet. In the actual meadow it is a subtle scene because of the lack of light/dark contrast between the flowers and the leaves. This becomes easy to convey in the meadow shape as green and violet are both easily to darkened yet retain enough colour intensity.

The first meadow blooms are a thrill, hence the the cheeriness in the sky. Hurray Spring!

(At the moment, I am planning on just the 4 in the series, but I could easily include another for  June with the sunny and raucous coreopsis.) 

Then the Bergamot Haze of July follows showing the cloud of pale red violet. Bergamot is airy with finger-like petals curving gracefully upwards presenting the soft haze over the meadow. The first few years after seeding the meadow were droughts. But without any watering the Bergamot never failed to bloom. Such a delicate colour for such a tough plant. 

Are those stylized wisps of cloud or jet trails in the sky? You can decide. They were fun for me.   Depending on the work, I will think of the sky as a big playground for using the art tools. There are 16 items on my list to choose from when something is needed - the 'je ne sai quoi' moment.  But more on that another time.

Lazy hazy days of Summer (sigh!). Can't wait.

Lupins!

Bergamot Haze

Preparing for the Big Solo - Part I (below)    AND   3-4 Upcoming Exhibition Notices shown here

I have officially finished with this winter today on the completion of Winter In The Meadow 30"x30"(below). The blue greys convey a sense of closed-in cool with the often present winter clouds. Sunrises in winter can be quite spectacular because of these clouds already present just above the horizon.  The yellow ochre of the  little bluestem grasses have  faded  now and are quite dishevelled and short compared to early winter when they were bright and standing tall. The little cabin hides in the shadows of the evergreens which provide solid structure in the presence of the leafless deciduous trees.

Winter In The Meadow is the first in a 4 or 6 part series in which I'll play with the colour changes through out the growing season. The series will debut at my solo exhibition a year from now at the Neilson Park Creative Centre in Toronto. 

As the show is intended to be a multimedia exhibition with a meadow experience component, I have a lot of work to do as well as a lot to learn regarding the multimedia aspect. The paintings and photographs will come together I think without too much problem. However I'll have two videos that will show as well  as the 'experience.' 

Drone piloting will be an exciting  challenge to learn this spring. I am just waiting for the winds to settle so "Buzz" doesn't end up stuck in a treetop! It is a Spark by DGI which is apparently the manufacturer of choice. Sunday is looking like a good possibility.

I have a notebook going forward with exhibition plans being filled in, divided into categories:

Eligible Paintings, Photos, Resource People ,  Resource Companies, Equipment needed, Sponsors and Funding, the Catalogue, Printing and Advertising, Calendar Schedule, Gallery dimensions and wall sizes, The Statement Piece (possibilities), Video Processing and Progress, Costs

These pages are filling in. I am waiting for some of the resource people to respond. Are they interested? Spring is always a busy time, especially everything related to plants and the outdoors. 

Looking at the Ontario Arts Council granting page brings on long sighs. I have  written two successful grant applications for an organization. It was SO much work! Can I do it again? Time will tell. 

Yesterday I spoke with a contact about corporate funding. She suggested that I refine my 'ask' into actual ballpark figures and add school groups to the target audience (because she would want her children/teens to see this) She is going to research a few possibilities for me and put me in touch with an additional resource person or two. It was helpful to have this conversation as it further defined for me my intentions going forward e.g. I will want to pay those other artists who are able to help me and I should include this in my funding asks.

 I'm hoping that you are  interested to follow my journey to a stimulating and exciting solo exhibition. Thanks for reading! 

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Winter in the Meadow 

Early September in the Meadow 12"x16" (below) has been hanging in the McMichael Canadian  Collection community gallery since January. It is part of a group exhibition by mostly professional artists who painted landscapes for a week in the Pine Cottage at the McMichael in September. 

The show is closing this weekend. It is always a thrill to be included in this exhibition! 

Now the exhibition will tour  making up to 6 stops in various galleries around the province. 

This meadow is at the bottom of a forested hill and bordered on the downhill side also by a forest. Berried sumacs fringe the forest beside the brightly blooming meadow. Showy goldenrod (not ordinary Canada goldenrod!) and purple coneflower grace the stage for the last perhaps most stunning performance of the season. Certainly the butterflies and bees think so!  ... Painted ladies, Monarchs, Viceroys, Great Spangled Fritillaries, Black Swallowtails, Red Admirals, White Admirals.........  :D

Process III- Playing the surprise card

Here I am nearing the end of my play with this commissioned painting. The last thing I usually do is paint my signature ‘surprise’ somewhere. 

First an explanation: 
In art, colour intensity refers to the level of saturation of colour or the purity of the colour. A pure colour is straight off the colour wheel or rainbow. A colour that is not pure has been altered by adding black, white, gray or another colour. If the colour has been altered minimally, it is referred to as being high key or intense. If altered a lot, the colour would be low key. 

The majority of my painting is usually very low key, grayed, colours. This is known as a sophisticated palette. Because I work on a black background, any colour will appear more intense than it would on another base colour. I am continually checking the paint mix against the black as I reduce the intensity. It is always surprising how little pigment is needed while working on black. 

Amongst these low key colours, a small area (my surprise) of high key colour will show up like a red flag!  The effective power of this small area can be further increased when the colour beside the surprise also contrasts in value(lightness/darkness). 

See the painting Near Canmore below and notice how the tiny yellow-green tree carries the weight of the left side of the picture by covering it with your finger. See what it provides to the overall painting? In general, a small area of high power is able to balance a large area of low power. I love using this effect. Feel free to let me know how you see it.

Near Canmore

For the current work shown below, there  is a brighter patch of mountain flowers on the right foreground corner. I did use the  lovely long triangular shape on the opposite bank but this time, it is not quite as ‘surprising’ because it has effectively become part of the more colourful area  which includes the wildflower patch and the blue stream.

There are lots of lines on which your gaze can travel to cover the view of the mountain and stream. When you reach the summit, you will notice the beautiful blue sky and the fun I had drawing in the medium underneath. This provides my viewer with another more subtle surprise.

I’m feeling good about my process. Happily, today this was reinforced by a quote on today’s Painter’s Keys newsletter:
“In degree, it’s the calculated addition of visual surprise and incongruity that makes works of art speak both to the artist and her people.”

Follow me on instagram @CherylBaileyArts    or FB    I’ll let you know when there’s a new post. Thanks for reading!

Rocky Mountain River