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| Luscious Greens, acrylic, 12" x 9", CAN $300 |
Blog 22
I love that the second half of each year starts with a family vacation. In 2017, the weather was not what I had hoped for a summer week at the cottage, but colder and rainy days increased my painting time. We have a covered patio, and I painted on four days, finishing two paintings and almost a third. I also felted a poppy and some leaves of a white water lily.
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| Sweet Candy, acrylic, 12" x 12", NFS |
One lovely evening, I spent on the beach capturing the soft pastel hues with coloured pencil, a sketch that I still have to finish. Drawing with coloured pencils takes a long time. Next time, I will pack my small watercolour kit that is perfect for quick colour sketches.
I kept going with my Creativity & Me workshops. In July, we created mixed media tot bags. In August, we felted three-dimensional poppies and red water lilies.
I continued to teach half days until the middle of August. Then, I instructed the kids of one of the City of Ottawa arts camps at Emily Carr Middle School in Blackburn Hamlet. I had a small group of enthusiastic students, which surprisingly had twice as many boys as girls.
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| The Essence of Summer, acrylic, 10" x 8", CAN $250 |
Less teaching hours meant that I could paint more with my friends again. Helene and I went painting at the Humanics Institute Sculpture Park that offers a beautiful trail through a wooded area (see above). Lots of sculptures of various religious and life themes invite you to relax and meditate. It is also perfect for sketching and painting. My friend Janis and I went to the Cumberland Heritage Village Museum to warm up for our yearly Kamouraska trip.
Starting at the beginning of September, I taught Canadian government students in the afternoon, which required adapting my schedule. As a result, I had to cancel my Drawing with a Twist art classes.
I hardly got to know my new students before our yearly Kamouraska trip in the second week of September. Beautiful summer had returned so that we experienced such sunny and mild days like never before in our eight years of painting in this beautiful area of Canada. We discovered many new painting spots. We spent more time painting together as a group and even created a sunset painting. To read all about our adventures, you can follow my travelogue, starting with the blog of Friday, September 22, 2017.
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The Old Hut at Pointe-aux-Orignaux, oil, 8" x 10", CAN $250 |
After my return, one of the Cartooning and Comics courses at François Recreation Centre started with a waiting list. My supervisor and I decided to increase the number of participants while cancelling two other courses. In mid-October, the Acrylic Landscape Painting session started at Bob MacQuarrie Recreation Complex. I was not too disappointed about the cancelled courses because I usually had to drive directly from one job to the next due to the heavy rush hour traffic.
Since I started my part-time job as a German instructor, I struggled to find time to paint and also neglected to spend time with the important people in my life. For the rest of the fall, I made meeting with family and friends a priority. My parents came from Germany for 2 1/2 weeks, and I spent time with my friends and in-laws. Even though this has limited my creative time, it was necessary to lift my spirits. Painting and the administrative part of my business are usually very secluded activities. During the last painting trip and recent events in my circles of family and friends, I realized how precious and fragile personal relationships are. I love what I do, but I do not want to regret at some point that I missed out on fostering my personal relationships in favour of working.
In the fall, I started to have problems with dry eyes. When I woke up, I could hardly open my eyes anymore. It turned out I had an inflammation of the cornea. Little did I know that this was the beginning of a health problem that is still not resolved despite several trips to specialists. A day later, my son and daughter discovered that the sore spot on my back was a tick. As it was a Saturday afternoon, my son had to drive me to the hospital for the removal. Luckily, I could have only caught it while gardening the day before. Therefore, it was unlikely that I was infected. I still had to take a one-time dose of antibiotics.
As running an art business does not only include creating art and maybe teaching but also administrative tasks and marketing, I attended a full day at a marketing workshop with Lisa Larter and the annual Artpreneur conference. I learned a lot about the entrepreneurial side of my business.
Our painting buddies group did not manage to paint together but kept in touch and celebrated our friendships with our yearly Christmas lunch. Over the years, it seems that we all got busier, even though most of the group was retired.
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| Red Tulips, wool, SOLD |
At the end of November, I did a felting demonstration at the Arteast booth during Baz’Art at the Shenkman Arts Centre that attracted a lot of attention. To finish my business activities for the year, I welcomed clients to my fourth Christmas Open House. I had a nice flow of visitors, and my felted artwork Red Tulips found a new home. Shortly after, I sold the felted painting Winter Glow.
2017 brought many changes. The outlook for 2018 suggested even more challenges, as we put our house on the market to move to a smaller one closer to downtown. Please join me next week to read if I managed to find space and time for my creative outlet.
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