NEWSLETTER

After my return from a short trip I realized what was bothering me about the painting. It was too dark and too cool so I brightened it up and added more red. I have posted the start to finish story below.

I did a demonstration on Saturday at Opus Art Supplies with another fun group of painters. I started a still life but because I once again ran out of time I promised the group to post photos of the painting once I had a chance to "finish" it. Since I am going to be away for a short while I decided work on it on Sunday afternoon. Posted below are 2 photo's taken with my iPad. The first is how the painting looked when I left the demo and the second is an "almost" finished painting. I say almost as I am not quite satisfied with it yet and likely will go back into it and mess with it a bit more after I have a chance to look at it with fresh eyes at a later date. Those of you who attended the demo and have any questions or comments please feel free to do so. I obviously made some changes to the vase etc.

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I had my painting accepted into FCA Abstract Show

I have been taking an online course on Abstracting the Figure by Melinda Cootsona a figurative artist from California. I am really enjoying it and have tried out some new things. I am posting a couple of paintings that I have done in the last week fyi. The first 2 were done on old paintings and are somewhat lumpy and bumpy and therefore are not for sale but I learned a lot doing them. The first figure is called "contemplation" and the second one is called " Leggy".I may try a "redo" of these works on some new canvas later. The 3rd painting I challenged myself with colour and and in finding a figure in the underpainting which was fun. Since it was done on a new canvas I have posted it in one of my galleries.

I have had 4 paintings accepted for the upcoming FCA Shows Artists Choice and Canvas Unbound. Two of them are shown below

Saying goodbye to last year - like many people I know I found 2016 to be a rather challenging year. There were wonderful things that happened on a personal level but also some unwelcome surprises and difficult news and events including those from around the world. Art wise it was a busy year. Once again I did some teaching, had a lovely show at the Ferry Building in West Vancouver and participated in a number of FCA and local shows and won a few awards.

For those of us who live in the lower mainland of BC our new challenge for 2017 seems to be dealing with the cold, snow and treacherous icy conditions that we are not used to. The unforeseen benefit of this for me is that I've started focusing on painting again. I took a bit of a hiatus this fall after a busy year and to rest an injured shoulder. I sometimes need to remind myself that painting is my "joy not my job". My intent starting out this year is therefore to enjoy the painting process, experiment and to take a few courses myself. I do plan to continue to submit to some of the FCA shows and I have one demo planned so far and one of my paintings will be published this spring in the book Acrylic Works 4, "Captivating Color".

Please check out my events section and my blog on my website if you want to stay in touch with what I am up to. I will continue to send out a few these email blasts but anticipate they will be less frequent than previous years

www.lindabell.ca (again please let me know if you wish to be removed from the distribution list)

A little bit of whimsy below. The painting is called "So Near and Yet so Far"

Wishing you all a wonderful New Year!

My last post (see below) was about the Still Life demo I started at Opus. I wasn't really happy with the result so on the spur of the moment yesterday I painted and collaged over most of the surface and redrew the images - similar to what had been on the canvas but changed the colours and a few of the other elements to see if it would work. It is always good for me to leave a painting for several days and then look at it with a fresh eye. This one works better for me and I like the "tropical" colours in this one.

i did a fun demo yesterday at the Opus store in North Vancouver. To show some ways to approach a painting I made a start on a small painting. There clearly was no way to finish it in the short time available so I promised to post what I was able to do with it after the demo. It was a challenge as I had used some new paper I was not happy with -- so I gave it a try and here is the result. The first post is the painting at the end of the demo and the second is one I took after working on it for a couple of hours today. I am not sure I am finished with this one or not.

Thanks to the group of people that attended the demo - very enthusiastic and great questions!

I have just added two new paintings to this site. The second painting was inspired by the fact that my daughter is expecting and I'm going to be a grandmother soon!

I have several more events this fall - Coming up is the Paint By Numbers FCA Fundraiser and the FCA 75th Anniversary Show next week. The Opus Demonstration will be held Sat October 8th in North Vancouver. More information can be found in the Events Section.

I also had a lovely photo sent to me from the Women who bought " Did Someone Say Lunch" for their North Land Family Counselling Offices in Edmonton Alberta. Apparently it is a bit of a conversation piece - so wonderful to get this photo and the feedback.

I will also be adding some more of my paintings to the AION Gallery Film Rental inventory soon.