When :  February 17 - March 6, 2015   Where:  FCA Gallery on Granville Island, Vancouver BC

I am so excited to share this milestone with you in my art journey.  I entered my first painting into the Federation of Canadian Artists Landscape Exhibition juried show and it has been accepted.  The Landscape Exhibition will be open at the FCA Gallery on Granville Island from February 17 to March 6, 2015.   Perhaps I will see you there.

I have been  discussing my painting process  over the past few weeks  in pictures and words ;  identifying challenges and yes, frustrations, along the way.    The most important action for any artist is to get up every day and paint.....  and then to paint  and paint and paint some more.  This is how I learn.  This is how I absorb all that I have been taught along the way.  This is how every artist must find themselves .  Close the door on the world, the teachers, the workshops and all the other outside influences and simply paint. 

But , at the end of each day a quiet moment is needed to be your own best critic .   I keep a diary and note every kind of thing about the day and the work.   Things about brushes , and colours and composition, and values, and vibrations and colour mixing and things to not do [ keep colour vibrant, use less water and more medium, clean my brushes better, change my brush size  for interest, etc, etc ]. Try more blue or more gray ; go more complementary, etc. 
I make notes on each painting too.   Is it compositionally strong or weak?  Can I change it to make it better? Where do you want the viewer to focus?  Is there a focus? I agonize over brushstroke energy as this is the kind of painter I want to be - Van Gogh meets de Kooning kind of energy. Is there colour excitement without it being distracting or intensely ugly [ I often overdo the colour and have to work on grays to calm it down.  This is still the case with this one I think ].

Regardless of my own critique,   I think it is time to stop , even though I am not satisfied. [ I often decide how happy I am - right now I'm  in the 50% range].   I have learned what I can about this painting and its time to move on. [ I may continue to put a brush to it  gently  over time.  I often leave a work I am not satisfied with on a separate easel and let my mind absorb it for awhile unconsciously to figure out what's wrong with it . Sometimes I wake up one morning  and know  what I need to do to fix a painting.  It feels like magic even though there are scientific studies to explain how it all works].

With any  recent work, I always find there are areas in the painting that I love- mostly the way different colours vibrate off certain other colours  in one little square or area of the painting.  I note the colour combinations I especially like or don't like and try to take this knowledge into my next painting .  So, while I didn't completely destroy this one [ as I was thinking after my last blog] ....  it is still not in balance and there isn't enough calm space and colour  to balance the frenetic  energy of my brushstrokes.     Sometimes I just keep painting because it makes me happy .  This painting makes me happy.  How does it make you feel?