A few new strays (sold)

Below are a few encaustic paintings where I incorporated and transferred representational (somewhat) images to integrate with the work.

 

 Fire Fly        Moon Dance

original painting embellished with encaustic, 8x11in, 2011, sold

 I am quite happy with this image. The original sketch was done on black gessoed card that I masked off. It was rendered with acrylic and charcoal-I wanted that gauzy grainy and velvety blackness that only charcoal can do. 

I then drew on the right side of the panel with charcoal and oil bar and my homemade pigment crayons. After transferring the original painting onto the support I built the whole surface with encaustic glazes and did a lot of manipulation with the iron. What you can’t see in the image are very fine grains of silver leaf that really emulate the sparks of light on the right in a nice subtle flow.

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July, a time to rend

image transfer embellished with encaustic, alfalfa &  mixed media on panel 8x11in 2011, sold

For this work I transferred a small copy of my 24x36in painting onto the panel, than embellished it with alfalfa plucked from the field where I painted the original. A few layers of encaustic clear glazes are applied, then with pigment, followed by a final application of gold and copper leaf. 

During the process I intermittently drew with oil bar and wax/pigment sticks that I made. This was in order to reveal subtle colour nuances exposed from underneath when scraped and carved.

July, Remains of the Day

original painting embellished with encaustic & mixed media on panel 

6x8in 2011, sold

This is a small oil sketch painted last week with my students. I transferred it onto a panel, than embellished it with encaustic in the same manner as described in the previous work. (I just brought it into the gallery today and it has sold!)

*If you'd like to learn some of these encaustic collage techniques, new classes start this week-just contact me : jan@janyates.com 

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art-making under a full moon

It is one of life's bitterest truths that bedtime so often arrives just when things are really getting interesting.  ~Lemony Snicket

Fire fly  Moon dance

encaustic on panel

6x8in, 2011, available

I have willingly surrendered myself to moonlit summer nights of art-making

And the Moon Swept Down

encaustic on panel

6x8in, 2011, available

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly coloured than the day.  ~Vincent Van Gogh

Fire fly   Moon dance

encaustic , mixed media on panel

12x15in, 2011, available

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

 George Carlin

‘I heard it in the wind last night

It sounded like applause

Chilly now

End of summer

No more shiny hot nights

It was just the arbutus rustling

And the bumping of the logs

And the moon swept down black water

Like an empty spotlight’

Joni Mitchell

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6 new encaustic works (sold)

looks like a new series evolving

'Quiet Conversations' ~ -incorporating drawing and glass-will see where it takes 

 me

 

Quiet Conversations  

encaustic/mixed media on panels 

9x12in, 2011, available

 

Quiet Conversations  

encaustic/mixed media on panels 

4x12in, 2011, available

Quiet Conversations   

 encaustic/mixed media on panel 

5x20in, 2011

sold

Quiet Conversations  

encaustic/mixed media on panels 

9x12in, 2011, available

 The next 2 images incorporate paintings rendered quite a few years ago. 

I have 'framed ' them by drawing with beeswax crayons that I made, as well as oil bar, then I fused them with heat and polished to harden. I attached a small frame on the back so they look like they are suspended from the wall and have a tapestry-like quality that I am liking.   

 

 

 

                                                                              

 

Quiet Conversations 

encaustic/mixed media on panels 

9x12in, 2011, available 

 

Quiet Conversations 

encaustic/mixed media on panels   

9x12in, 2011, available 



                                  *

balance & letting go

On Sundays I work at our gallery - located in a tourist driven region of Niagara. In the summer we are fortunate in that we have visitors from around the world, and I am happy –and very thankful- to say that through this venue my paintings have moved to new homes in other countries.

I am especially happy, however, when they make their way to dwellings close to home. When local residents connect with the vineyards, orchards, fields and sky indicative of this region it touches a deeper chord.  Such was today. I actually had the opportunity to meet the couple that purchased ‘May’. Often I don’t so the chance to discuss the painting and hear why they responded to it was deeply gratifying-and so exciting to see it through their eyes! In discussing the work it inevitably brought back the inspiration and process so when it was time to part it was also bittersweet.

I guess the reason I am writing this is affirmation, for lack of a better word, that, as an artist, what I do can sometimes make a difference in not only my, but another person's, well being- being well. This always surprises me-like a revelation. Then my constant insecurities are momentarily quashed with the wonder of it all. Through many years and many paintings I have questioned why I continue to do what I do. (as if I have a choice??) I've given up a LOT-(would kill for a weekly pay check). Family, friends, loved ones are often put on the back burner. But making art is like breathing -I can’t NOT do it-so these intimate encounters with kindred spirits that 'get' my work enough to want it in their daily lives is something to behold-for me at least.

I’d love to hear from other artists on this-what have YOU sacrificed for your art?

 "May" with Doug & Pat

encaustic & quiet conversations (sold)

See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...we need silence to be able to touch souls.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

A few new encaustics - new series. I have been making wee sketches in the early evenings and will be incorporating them into encaustic as well.

Clearing out my summer studio (garage) has taken priority and now that there is room to roam I will be hosting new encaustic workshops. I love working out there with the door wide open-especially when it rains and storms –I feel like I am right in it but remain dry:)

In the meantime I have been working on a very large painting and it is taking me forever..which is okay but I am starting to get in that obsessive stage i.e. all my waking hours and now even in my dreams. That’s another reason I like to transition after working all day on large paintings- I love the silence in creating at night and seem to get away with it more in the summer months.

Quiet Conversations

encaustic on box

6x8in, 2011

sold

Quiet Conversations

encaustic on box

6x8in, 2011

available

Saying nothing...sometimes says the most.

Emily Dickinson

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak           

Baruch Spinoza

*my favourite

fire fly - moon dance (sold)

For me a summer night is especially evocative. I am not the only one. It is the stuff of songs, sayings, poems & plays.

What a marvellous night for a moon dance.

 Moon Dance

mixed media on panel

6x6in, 2011

  Fire Fly

mixed media on panel 

6x6in, 2011
sold

Summer (sold)

Love is to the heart what the summer is to the farmer's year - it brings to harvest all the loveliest flowers of the soul.  

Author Unknown

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never to the, in a Book it lie -
True Poems flee.
Emily Dickinson

In June, as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them.  

Aldo Leopold

No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.

James Russell Lowell

Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.  A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world.  

Ada Louise Huxtable

Summer afternoon - summer afternoon to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language

Henry James, Jr. 

July

Niagara Escarpment

oil on canvas

36x36in, 2010

HAPPY SUMMER !

edge & field

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.
Jean-Paul Sartre

I haven’t posted in awhile- crazy busy month! My plein air classes and workshops are in full swing, and a few large paintings are in progress.  

I do want to thank those of you that took the time to write your comments on my previous post. I haven't had time to respond or even barely visit your new work, but intend to do so soon-

*Bill a special thanks to you-your compliment sent me over the moon!

 I did manage to get out this evening for a quiet conversation with the field and rendered this wee acrylic painting. I finished just in time too- my neighbour came out with the tractor to cut down the area where I was working!

June, Remains of the Day

acrylic on canvas

6x14in, 2011

available

For me,  acrylic paint can be challenging when it comes to edges in landscape—soft and varied edges that is. It lends itself nicely to sharp edges, and, although I really like it in others, I’m not after  graphic or stylized contrast in my own work. I do  like acrylic for glazing and if used wet and/or with different mediums I am able to achieve a more varied approach to edges and application with the brush. It’s also convenient ie not having to worry about transporting a wet oil painting when hurriedly trudging through fields  -especially if one is being chased by a columbine.

Peacepoint production crew

* a bit of excitement -a documentary  was shot here all day yesterday and I played a small part-primarily as myself but hey, they still made me do 'take' after take-am exhausted! The show airs in January and will post more info then-

Peacepoint production crew

new June & plein air classes

'How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June…if it was only the other way! If it was I who were to be always young, and the picture that were to grow old! For this—for this—I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the world I would not give!'

Oscar Wilde

Below is a view from my studio and it is a snowball bush that has grown somewhat awry -which I quite like.

June

oil on canvas

18x24in, 2011

available

 (still a wee bit glare y, will re-shoot when dry)

I worked alla prima over an existing dark painting-played with  higher chroma and worked out some compositional divisions. I also worked on mixing new spring greys.

I have finally settled on a medium that works well (for me) when painting outdoors—  2 parts safflower oil, I part dammar varnish or Canadian balsam ( it’s expensive) and a few (use sparingly) drops of cobalt drier. I much prefer this drier  to alkyd additives and mediums like Liquin, which I have used on and off for many years. When I work outside in the warm sun I like the paint dripping wet so use lots of solvent /medium in the initial stages of laying in. As I build the painting with thicker passages, the sun and the medium tend to set up and become tactile-I love that ‘pull’ as the paint then has a beautiful plasticity.

 weekly  Plein air classes resume 

*Weekly classes in  Plein Air Painting  resume next Monday night, June 6. There are 2 openings left so if interested, please contact me. If you are new to art making this is an opportunity to engage in a nurturing,  encouraging and  informative environment. You will approach and develop techniques  including observation, composition, value, colour, brushwork and paint  handling. For practising artists, this is an opportunity to hone individual goals and push beyond your comfort level. 

A smorgasbord of inspiring subject matter is waiting for you:

gardens, vineyards, orchards, fields and amazing sky 

 

For more information about the series, click here or on the top right hand side of this blog.

**If you have registered and would like to pay online securely via paypal, click the link below. You do not need an account with paypal to complete the transaction.

quiet conversations (sold)

I love the following poem, and the heady scent of them right now compels me to share it.

(although I think of my own region when I read it)

My May Lilacs

oil on canvas

18x24in, 2010

sold

Lilacs

 Amy Lowell


 

Lilacs,

False blue,

White,

Purple,

Color of lilac,

Your great puffs of flowers

Are everywhere in this my New England.   

Among your heart-shaped leaves

Orange orioles hop like music-box birds and sing   

Their little weak soft songs;

In the crooks of your branches

The bright eyes of song sparrows sitting on spotted eggs   

Peer restlessly through the light and shadow   

Of all Springs.

Lilacs in dooryards

Holding quiet conversations with an early moon;   

Lilacs watching a deserted house

Settling sideways into the grass of an old road;

Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom

Above a cellar dug into a hill.

You are everywhere.

You were everywhere.

You tapped the window when the preacher preached his sermon,

And ran along the road beside the boy going to school.

You stood by the pasture-bars to give the cows good milking,   

You persuaded the housewife that her dishpan was of silver.   

And her husband an image of pure gold.   

You flaunted the fragrance of your blossoms   

Through the wide doors of Custom Houses—

You, and sandal-wood, and tea,

Charging the noses of quill-driving clerks   

When a ship was in from China.

You called to them: “Goose-quill men, goose-quill men,   

May is a month for flitting.”

Until they writhed on their high stools

And wrote poetry on their letter-sheets behind the propped-up ledgers.

Paradoxical New England clerks,

Writing inventories in ledgers, reading the “Song of Solomon” at night,

So many verses before bed-time,

Because it was the Bible.

The dead fed you

Amid the slant stones of graveyards.

Pale ghosts who planted you

Came in the nighttime

And let their thin hair blow through your clustered stems.   

You are of the green sea,

And of the stone hills which reach a long distance.

You are of elm-shaded streets with little shops where they sell kites and marbles,

You are of great parks where every one walks and nobody is at home.

You cover the blind sides of greenhouses

And lean over the top to say a hurry-word through the glass   

To your friends, the grapes, inside.

Lilacs,

False blue,

White,

Purple,

Color of lilac,

You have forgotten your Eastern origin,   

The veiled women with eyes like panthers,

The swollen, aggressive turbans of jeweled pashas.

Now you are a very decent flower,   

A reticent flower,

A curiously clear-cut, candid flower,   

Standing beside clean doorways,

Friendly to a house-cat and a pair of spectacles,   

Making poetry out of a bit of moonlight   

And a hundred or two sharp blossoms.

Maine knows you,

Has for years and years;

New Hampshire knows you,

And Massachusetts

And Vermont.

Cape Cod starts you along the beaches to Rhode Island;   

Connecticut takes you from a river to the sea.   

You are brighter than apples,

Sweeter than tulips,

You are the great flood of our souls

Bursting above the leaf-shapes of our hearts,   

You are the smell of all Summers,

The love of wives and children,

The recollection of gardens of little children,   

You are State Houses and Charters

And the familiar treading of the foot to and fro on a road it knows.

May is lilac here in New England,

May is a thrush singing “Sun up!” on a tip-top ash tree,   

May is white clouds behind pine-trees   

Puffed out and marching upon a blue sky.   

May is a green as no other,

May is much sun through small leaves,   

May is soft earth,

And apple-blossoms,

And windows open to a South Wind.   

May is full light wind of lilac

From Canada to Narragansett Bay.

Lilacs,

False blue,

White,

Purple,

Color of lilac.

Heart-leaves of lilac all over New England,   

Roots of lilac under all the soil of New England,   

Lilac in me because I am New England,

Because my roots are in it,

Because my leaves are of it,

Because my flowers are for it,   

Because it is my country

And I speak to it of itself

And sing of it with my own voice   

Since certainly it is mine.

the end

The end has come, for my orchard series this season. I think of all, I feel most connected with this wee one.

May (Mom)

Wild Orchard, Niagara Escarpment

oil on canvas

8x10in, 2011

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die. ~Leonardo Da Vinci

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