temptation & restraint

I feel a little guilty painting so much when responsibilities have piled up during my Ireland escape and they do demand immediate attention. And considering I had a whole month to delve into art I really should restrain myself but just can’t help it. As well, my partner is away for the long weekend so how can I not take advantage of uninterrupted time? And the weather..well, temptation is too much to bear and I must succumb.

 May (home) oil on canvas, 18x24in, 2012, available

The location is steps from my studio, with this path leading out to my beloved field.   

May

I just LOVE May -painted outside again this evening with minimum bugs amidst the bubbling delirium of beloved Bobolinks

May, Remains of the Day, oil on canvas, 9x12in, available for sale

Spring greens & plein air classes

This is a plein air demo from yesterday's class -an exercise in rendering Spring greens

May, oil on canvas, 9x12in, 2012, available

I found the challenges of painting so many greens in Ireland did pay off however the greens here do have more varied yellows this time of year. For Ireland's greens: reds, violets, oranges and Indian yellow were mixed  primarily with indigo and ultramarine blue-some thalo. Of course cadmium yellow light is indispensable no matter where you are.

A new series of outdoor classes start next week..

ART & NATURE

 Plein Air landscape (painting outdoors)

 Ongoing Mondays or Tuesdays:6:30 -9PM
Spring/Summer series start
Monday, May21 
$85 for a series of 4 sessions. You can alternate days to suit your schedule.

*register online securely via paypal-just contact me

How fair Her Conversation

Below is a painting by my Mother.

For the latter part of her life she took great pleasure from the everyday-flowers from the  garden were favourite subjects, although she had quite a fascination with jugs of various shapes and sizes. She painted most afternoons in her sun bathed studio.

Missing you Mom:(

 Garden bouquet in Copper jug , Marj Yates, oil on panel, 8x10in

This poem is about Mother Nature-my Mother loved the Natural world

Nature -- the Gentlest Mother is,
Impatient of no Child --
The feeblest -- or the waywardest --
Her Admonition mild --

In Forest -- and the Hill --
By Traveller -- be heard --
Restraining Rampant Squirrel --
Or too impetuous Bird --

How fair Her Conversation --
A Summer Afternoon --
Her Household -- Her Assembly --
And when the Sun go down --

Her Voice among the Aisles
Incite the timid prayer
Of the minutest Cricket --
The most unworthy Flower --

When all the Children sleep --
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light Her lamps --
Then bending from the Sky --

With infinite Affection --
And infiniter Care --
Her Golden finger on Her lip --
Wills Silence -- Everywhere -- 

Emily Dickinson

home

 

 

 

May (home), oil on canvas, plein air, 10x10in, 2012

 

  lo

lo

 

divisional vibration

 

 The Spring greens  here in Ireland are especially vibrant-giving the land an almost psychedelic look

I was quite interested in the divisional elements created by the tree trunks and limbs. Also in the light and various hue and saturations in the greens. The pinks are inspired by the wild rhododendron that grows rampant here

 

 

 

April, mixed media on mylar, 20x30in, 2012

Updated workshops: plein air, encaustic, more

playplayplay

Today I finally admit to being completely knackered from my adventures here on the Emerald Isle. So a good time to spend nailing down class dates in the following:

  

Mentoring Mondays

Plein Air in the Vineyard

Exploring the Surface: Painting with Cold Wax

Plein Air Painting for the Experienced Artist
Encaustic Painting

Please contact me if you require more information about any of the workshops or to register. Registration can be made securely via paypal.

all class info is listed below the dotted line or just click here

under the knife

Although  recent paintings and posts can be viewed on my Ireland blog, I thought I'd share these wee plein air paintings.

*my computer died and the one I am using does not have editing software. This painting is much richer but you get the general idea.

Annaghmakerrig walk, oil on canvas, 8x10in, 2012

I have been experimenting with my wide knife to push paint consistency and design. Sadley I will soon have to switch to acrylic paint as my beloved oils may not be dry enough to pack as I will be heading home in May.

plein air workshops, ghost, the big house

  

Thanks to those who have been visiting  my other blog about time spent at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre  in Ireland. 

Some of you have also emailed me in regards to spring and summer classes and workshops in plein air painting. 

Sessions  will resume mid May although I am sorry that I can't give you exact dates yet. Just email me and I will sign you up and send you dates as soon as I have them. 

I've also received requests in regards to coming out to other locations to teach workshops-again, just send me a note with dates, location options etc and I promise to get back to you shortly. This year, because of the residency, I`ve kept my schedule fairly flexible so chances are we can work out some  dates. 

And I already have some exciting ideas in regards to new classes as a result of my time spent  here so stay tuned!

In the meantime, come on over to Ireland as I`ve  added another post about a ghost,  the big house and a new painting...

I lár báire 
( between), cold wax, mixed media on mylar,  20x48in 2012

paint smuggling & plein air

I've just posted day four on my Ireland blog-a new painting, paint smuggling tips and my plein air set up.

So come on over...

Alice in Wonderland & Andy Goldsworthy

I went exploring and did some art making today. To see what I've been up to you'll just have to check out my new blog. I've also posted some photos on the Ireland blog and would love for you to drop by.

just click here for a wee visit..

Departure

These paintings were made just before leaving for Ireland. 

Voyager encaustic collage on panel 6x10 in 2012

Unfortunately travelling with encaustic materials was not an option, although I  did bring some pigment crayons and heat gun.

stop by here to read more...

Voyager, encaustic on panel 6x14in, 2012

Ireland residency

I've just finished setting up a new blog about time spent at Annaghmakerrig, Ireland . 

Come on over for a visit....

Harbinger of Spring

llll

I am glad that I painted this forsythia when I did. This morning we woke up to find it covered with snow.

Nature can be such a tease

March, oil on wax primed panel, 12x36in, 2012, available

I was dying to pick up a brush this week and forsythia was just what the art-doctor ordered-such a blast to use pure, juicy, high chroma cads.

Ireland residency & published image

aaaa

This is a sheep in the Scottish highlands that followed me around one day. I’ve been feeling rather sheepish myself as I prepare to embark on a residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Southern Ireland.


 Now that time is drawing near, between the packing and preparations, I must remind myself to breath deep and relish in the unfolding. I am honoured and humbled to soon be living and working in an environment so rich in history and culture, amongst artists of all disciplines.

Needless to say I am chock full of emotion. Preparing to travel is always stressful but this is the longest I have been away and my first residency, although not my first application. So upon receiving this letter of invitation from the Tyrone Guthrie Centre I scrutinized it just to be sure it was me they wanted, before jumping up and down, gleefully shouting, etc etc.

I have also been fretting over materials-as most travelling artists do, because of possible confiscation re oil colours by customs. As well, there are weight restrictions on luggage and astounding overweight fees are strictly enforced. While at Annaghmakerrig I intend  to work on the land as much as possible so have  been researching new easel set ups (3 options so far). I  will share in an upcoming post once I decide what might work best.

When my friends travel I envy them. It must be so easy to just worry about packing clothes. I suppose I should figure something out along those lines as well..?

 Three Sheep to the Wind, oil on canvas, 16x20in, 2009

On another note, one of my paintings has been featured in a well know Canadian art magazine, called Arabella. The work coincides with a feature about artists who paint snow. Grand!

January, a time to keep silent, oil on canvas, 30x36in, 2008, sold

encaustic carry ons

As often happens after teaching an encaustic workshop, my students so inspired me that I kept working long after they left. A warm sunny day meant wide open windows and voices wafting through were such 'carrying ons' of my feathered friends..how could their shenanigans not affect the outcome?

close up- carry on

Carry On (March), encaustic on box, 5x16x5in, 2012, available

close up-murmur

             March, Murmur, encaustic collage on panels, 10x15in 2012, available

*am thinking worries re flight restrictions on what I carry on the upcoming Ireland trip might have influenced this just a wee bit...

A little Madness in the Spring

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown --
Who ponders this tremendous scene --
This whole Experiment of Green --
As if it were his own! 

Emily Dickinson

Waiting for May, oil on canvas, 11x14in, 2011

How many million Aprils came

before I ever knew

how white a cherry bough could be,

a bed of squills, how blue

And many a dancing April

when life is done with me,

will lift the blue flame of the flower

and the white flame of the tree

Oh burn me with your beauty then,

oh hurt me tree and flower,

lest in the end death try to take

even this glistening hour...

-  Sara Teasdale 

May, soft pastel, 16x20in, 1999

Listen, can you hear it? Spring's sweet cantata.

 The strains of grass pushing through the snow. 

The song of buds swelling on the vine. 

The tender timpani of a baby robin's heart. Spring. 

Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

May, mixed media on canvas, 8x10in, 1999

happy spring!

Nesting Rights (new encaustic works)

 

A lot of artists depict birds-lately the trend seems to be birds on branches. I guess I am no exception. Living here on the Niagara Escarpment I am privy to their company every day and to be with them (not on branches) in their natural environment is something to behold.

And this is the best time of year as my far-away friends are arriving from their winter vacation - the air is swelling with little voices.  

 Murmur

encaustic on panel

7x10in, 2012

I've already witnessed some territorial wars involving Robins here on the property- the coveted prize? A grapevine ball on the studio porch. Apparently it provides the ideal digs when it comes to nesting..perhaps it is because they can swing back and forth...I know I'd enjoy that.

June, encaustic collage on box, 11x8inx3in, 2012

Murmuration

encaustic on panel

7x10in, 2012

A Branch from the Lightning Tree

we are story carriers

‘storycarrier’ - someone connected to the wyrd beauty of their own walk in this world.

I have been immersed in Martin Shaw’s ‘A Branch from the Lightning Tree: Ecstatic Myth and the Grace of Wildness. I was inspired to do so after reading a review in Earthlines Magazine. 

Have we fallen out of our own story?  ‘Where does the story land within you? ’asks Shaw. ‘We all need stories. We also need nature to bring out the stories. Nature holds a series of mirrors much the way stories do’  

March

oil on waxed panel, 12x40in, 2012

Earthlines review:

 ‘Martin Shaw gave up a three-album recording deal with Warner Brothers to live in a tent in the Welsh mountains for four years, during which time he learned to live outside in ‘the kingdom of wood lice, badgers, elder, nettles, brambles, roe-deer, and ivy that gave feral lectures endlessly into my fool ear, the shattering cold of the waterfall that was a morning shower, [while] bellowing out ancient stories from the black hills of Wales, the source of the stream.’ If there’s a better qualification for a rites-of-passage wilderness guide, let alone a storyteller and mythologist specialising in initiatiory experiences, I haven’t yet found it. Martin is now based in Devon, and runs the Westcountry School of Myth and Story (http://schoolofmyth.com) in between teaching in the US, UK and Europe and serving as a visiting lecturer in Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Leadership Programme at Oxford University. ’
 

A Branch from the Lightning Tree explores the relationship between myth, story and the wild in prose that is beautiful, poetic and vividly alive. It’s a book that is both entertaining and scholarly, and if you like your Barthes, Derrida and Heidegger leavened by Trickster and Baba Yaga, then it’s a must-read. The heart of Shaw’s thesis is that we have forgotten how to be wild: we have exchanged the old longing, the old call to a deeper knowledge of the world for ‘a trance state, engineered by clumsy media spells’. And so the essence of this book is a rediscovery: the psyche’s journey from the civilised world back to the wild. We can, Shaw tells us, regain a Culture of Wildness through rites of passage, through necessary initiations into the wild that is still within us. And we can be guided through this process of initiation by myths and stories. ‘The heart of ecology is mythology,’ Shaw says. ‘With this in mind, it’s possible we could re-vision through story a kind of curious genius that wraps us back into accord with the great tapestry of earth. In short, we could remember what story we are actually in.’

Sharon Blackie

Two Ravens Press

Westcountry School of Myth and Story

More Murmurations

mmmmmm

 

Murmuration

part 1 of triptych, 10x10in

mixed media on aluminum primed panel

Jan Yates, 2012

Murmuration

part 2 of triptych, 10x8in

mixed media on aluminum primed panel  

Jan Yates, 2012

Murmuration

part 3 of triptych, 10x10in

mixed media on aluminum primed panel  

Jan Yates, 2012

Murmuration

10x28in

mixed media on aluminum primed panels 

Jan Yates, 2012

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

• “Starlings are great virtuosi, wonderful mimics as well as splendid singers, and incorporate so many different sounds into their songs that a flock of them is called a murmuration.”
  Simon & Schuster: Birdology
• “A murmuration occurs when many thousands of starlings flock together in preparation to land and settle for the night.”
  Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
• “murmuration' make fantastical shapes as the flock wheel and dive through the air.”
  Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph

Encaustic Workshops coming in March

 

 

The upcoming month will be crazy busy but I did manage  to arrange two encaustic 'mini' workshops and possibly a third full day workshop-still fleshing out dates/time on my calendar for the latter.

I enjoy conducting these shorter workshops and my students, some never having picked up a paintbrush, quickly become excited and inspired-shedding any pre-conceived notions of how intimidating art-making might be. 

 For returning and practising artists that are familiar with the medium, these sessions offer time and materials to explore new and challenging ways of working  and enable them to expand on ideas and approaches. 

Participants will thoroughly immerse  and engage  in a variety of techniques, or if they wish, can focus on one or two. At all levels, there will be  lots of hands-on time to play.

Encaustic Workshop @ the Grimsby Public Art Gallery
Wednesday March 7, 2012 (1 session)
From 5:00pm– 8:00pm
$30 + $20materials
to register
phone:  905 945 3246 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            905 945 3246      end_of_the_skype_highlighting 
email: gpag@town.grimsby.on.ca

Ancient and intriguing, this method of painting originated in Greece, where it was used for the earliest easel and mural painting. A heady combination of colour, melting wax and heat, encaustic mixes dry and oil pigments in hot beeswax. Artist & educator Jan Yates has been working with this luscious medium for over 15 years and will share techniques including image transfer, photo collage, colour, glazing, layering, drawing, mono type and cold wax techniques. Classes are enjoyable for those with no previous art-making experience as well as returning artists who want to further explore this alluring and tactile medium

 

                                           

Encaustic Workshop @  my studio (Grimsby)

Tuesday, March 13, 6~9pm

$65

to register: jan@janyates.com