Bay doodle

reflected mountain
green dragon ripples over
cloud-flecked blue water

This doodle is not a portrait of the Bay… more just a feeling… an impression , one could say I visited this beautiful place in Quebec last weekend with friends.

Today I am experimenting with blogging directly from my iPad mini… hence the short text.

UPDATE: Haiku from Tom. See above! Haiku (c) 2013 TJ Radcliffe

(cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer

face with flowers

Just a random doodle today… trying a bit of contrast between soft and hard edges.

Have a great rest of the week!

UPDATE: New haiku from Tom!

meditating mind
empty open free
where are my car keys?

(c) 2013 TJ Radcliffe

image (cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer

more flowers

Check out this photography blog with some lovely detail shots of flowers, architecture and more.

UPDATE: Original poem from Tom in the comments! Captures the image very well – thanks Tom!

Floral embers smoulder, bursting fire
beneath the gusting winds of warming Spring
raising up the Year King on his pyre
to burn within the sacred garden’s ring
where arms of leafy green are raised up high
to welcome back the Eastern-rising sun
rebirth is in the air across the shire;
Winter’s reign at last is finally done!
So brightly burn the floral fires today
that only for a moment will they last
yet toward the Summer they will light our way
melting Winter’s grip so cold and fast.
So the Year King burns, for he is slain,
Yet all that dies will one day live again.

(c) 2013 TJ Radcliffe

image (cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer

Soft flowers

I have recently started experimenting with a new app called Procreate. So far it is behaving both more intuitively and flexibly than others I’ve tried. Thanks to the art blog of  Nicholas Herbert for bringing my attention to this app. Check out his traditional and digital artwork – pretty cool!

Hopefully, I will start posting more regularly again – spring is inspiring!

UPDATE: Thanks to Tom for commenting with this new poem for my doodle!

When April with her showers sweet
brings to an end the cold March drought
and birds through tangled bushes tweet
then do the flowers rise and shout:

“Now Spring’s upon us! Winter’s done!
Let all rejoice for we have won
Another year of life and love
beneath the Sun so bright above!”

(c) 2013 TJ Radcliffe

image (cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer

about to…

This is a really quick doodle (maybe under a minute) I tweeted the other day. Tom tweeted back this great haiku:

lo! arising loon
just to speak on weighty things
then light on water!

I really like the idea that the loon got distracted from his important speech by the beauty of the scene. ummm… what was I going to say again??

I’ve been painting more than doodling lately so it takes longer to get something blog-worthy but I should have something new soon… and I have worked some more on the paintings in progress in the previous post so I may post them again for the comparison. I feel like I am starting to get somewhere – while recognizing the length of the road… enjoying the journey though!

Take a minute and check out this lovely sketch – but then I am very fond of cats – and this blog is from a cat’s perspective – very cute!

image: Hilary Farmer (cc) 2013

haiku: Tom Radcliffe (c) 2013

elegant terns dancing

elegant terns in repose

I have recently started what will likely be a series of paintings of birds – especially shore birds. I love the way they tie sky and water together – and I want to spend some time experimenting with painting water. It is a challenge so far but will improve I trust.

Why the yellow sky? I was inspired by some traditional Japanese screen paintings which use a lot of gold leaf and also the interesting use of colour by more recent artists such as the Fauvists. It is a way of giving myself freedom to play by not being too realistic from the start.

Elegant terns make a great subject because they appear to have so much personality and are particularly dynamic in their movements.

The two above paintings are in different states of completion. The top one has been worked on for three sessions and should be finished the next time I can work on it. The lower one has just been worked on for one session so far. I quite like the soft feeling but at the same time, want to increase the contrast by strengthening the black and white. I will post them again when they are finished if I like how they turn out.

My four year blogiversary was two days ago – it’s been  an interesting process to track my own progress  – and I am still enjoying it!

oil paintings 12″x 12″ (cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer

surreal umbrellas

This is the third and last in the series of paintings I started during a course last fall with Melanie Matthews and finished recently. Once again I have struggled with taking a reasonable photograph of the piece. This one has a fair amount of texture making it especially difficult. There are also some reflective metallics – so it changes a lot depending on the light and angle.
The under water feeling I was trying to create was wonderfully captured by Tom’s haiku.

surreal umbrellas
shelter depths from raining light
currents blowing wind

(c) 2013 TJ Radcliffe

underwater detail

painting mixed media on board 12″x12″ (cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer

Here’s a fun  art blog and check out this lovely watercolour with a wonderful piece of fortune cookie advice – and it doesn’t just work for artists!

year of the snake

Finally posting an image for Chinese New Year! We were busy last weekend with celebrating – eating Chinese dumplings with friends – mmmm!
I was having a difficult time thinking of a way to make a snake cute. So when I saw a really cute snake in the style of a traditional Chinese paper-cut on a billboard in the metro last week, I let myself be inspired… yes, that’s where idea of the flowers came from!

Here’s Tom’s haiku from when I posted this image on twitter.
a lisping forked tongue
funky flower-petal skin
year of the cute snake!

(c) TJ Radcliffe 2013

image (cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer (with credit to billboard artist!)

curious koi

Another in the series from the last post. Tom’s haiku is clearer in this one since fewer layers were added after the text.

opening their eyes
curious koi might enquire
after the abyss

(c) 2013 TJ Radcliffe

It is hard to see this painting well in a photograph since the texture catches the light. Actually, the painting looks very different under different lighting conditions. The detail below was taken later in the day and shows another feeling… more abyss-like!

the abyss

Playing with texture but using a similar palette with metallics to make a visual connection with the previous water lily painting.

image (cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer
12″x12″mixed media on panel

On another note, you will find a new link – twig and leaf – in my blog roll. Here’s a recent lovely post.

Have a great week!

waterlilies with haiku

Once again some time has passed without a post … busy times!

I started three panels in a class last fall but didn’t ever have the chance – or perhaps the inspiration – required to finish them until last weekend. There is a kind of theme which will be clear once I’ve posted them all. Anyway, I had asked my good friend Tom to provide a haiku for each that I would integrate into the image. Since the text of the poem was added to the panel fairly early in this mixed media experiment it is a bit hard to read. So here is it again:

glass water dewdrops
lily’s leaves catch summer sun
shadows of blue sky
(c) 2013 TJ Radcliffe

waterlilies detail

Here is a detail of the lower part. You many notice an additional bit of text “une illusion” which is upside down.. not quite sure what I was thinking when I added that but I somehow feel it fits in!

painting (cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer