henschel-paintings-art-talk

Step 2 on "Seven Up"

2011-12-06T22:05:00.000-08:00

The next step in this painting is to give it some interest in the ocean area. After all, it is literally"framed" by the shoreline, cliffs and the hills in the distance. The painter has some important decisions to make at this point: Shall the water be calm and therefore reflective or shall it has some waves or ripples and texture? This will change the whole nature of the water and the feeling of the scene. A calm surface will give you a feeling of peacefulness when viewing it and a textured surface will create some excitement. Since I had planned this to be a painting showing some action with fishing boats and whales, the textured surface seemed a natural choice. I began to paint wavelets on the surface of the calm, blue water.

After I finished the wavelets the water still seemed too benign. After spending countless hours on the ocean, especially in Johnstone Strait, I knew I had to add some more turbulence. Often the wind and currents change the reflection of the sky so that, in the distance, there is a profound change in the colour of the water and it becomes brighter and lighter if the distant water is calmer (less wind and current) or it turns darker and more grey if it is turbulent. Well, Johnstone Strait is turbulence re-incarnated, so my choice was easy! I painted a dark line of water just below the far shore.
When executing a painting, it's always a good idea not to concentrate too much on one area but keep working all over the place. This unites the whole thing into becoming ONE PIECE instead of separate units. I brought my attention back to the foreground and decided to try to make the Kelp bed take shape, giving the painting some depth and uniting the distinct shoreline with the water. At this point I began to wonder about colour. I had been sticking to the reality of the blues and greens of our seascapes but at this point it didn't look very exciting. I was determined to "warm up" the painting so I cautiously added some warm clouds at the top and started to incorporate some of these colours into the rest of the painting. Adding the fishing boats to the scene gave it more life and depth. How much farther to go with the warm colours? Next Blog-----

Step by Step on "Seven Up"

2011-11-27T22:38:00.000-08:00

In the last blog, I promised to demo some of the steps in doing a marine scape. This is one of the last paintings I did called "Seven Up on Johnstone Strait, a 20x24 inch acrylic on deep canvas and this first image is the finished product, presently hanging in Gallery 223 in Nanaimo. During the next few blogs I will show it in its various stages of production and explain how it came about.

The next image shows the very beginning of the painting. I began with a cool colour scheme of blues, typical of summer in the area. I usually begin an acrylic with flat washes of colour in all the shapes that I have used as a composition, making sure that all are interesting and different in size. This is actually the most important part of the whole process. If your design is not correct, you can use the mostbrilliant technique with a myriad of colours but it will still be weak and uninteresting. At this point, you must check to see if all your shapes within the painting are interesting and different.
The sky, mountains, hills and ocean are all horizontal and, although different in size, beg to have verticals or diagonals for relief. The beach and cliff provide this interest, with the cliffs being slightly more vertical and forcing your eyes toward the ocean. If the eyes go there, thay must have some entertainment which must come next. (In the next blog!)

At Last a new Posting on my Blog

2011-11-12T21:36:00.000-08:00

I must apologize for my tardiness in keeping this blog up to date. There have been some major changes in our family and in our life but everything is a bit more settled now and I can go on with keeping you informed and up to date. We are still running the gallery on a "by appointment" basis. "By Appointment" sounds so formal but really means give us a call before you waste your gasoline to come out here to make sure we are home.

I am involved with one other commercial but hope to expand to others as well. The gallery I am with at present is in Nanaimo and is called Gallery 223.
I've done some interesting marine scapes and will demonstrate how I've done them on this blog in NEXT BLOG. In the meantime, if you look on my website and click on "Paintings", you'll find at the top of the list a new category called "Small Original Paintings". If you click on this it will present a blog with a number of new, small original paintings for sale. The November rains have come with a vengeance and I am enjoying the warmth of my studio with all sorts of new ideas! Check me out in a few days!

Commissions

2011-05-24T22:26:00.000-07:00

Just finished a commission for a person in Germany. I enter the agreement to do a commission rather hesitatingly because it is usually a distraction from the work that is creatively straight from my Muse. When I accept it, the client understands that there is no time limit. This gives me the opportunity to work on the piece when I am in the frame of mind to do so. For instance, if the work is to be one of a beach scene, I will work on it when I am ready to explore that subject. This was a watercolour and the spirit was with me!

Did you know? Old watercolourists never die, they just wet their sheets!!!

South of the Border

2011-05-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a road trip down to San Francisco. For several years we had been salivating with our friends about a drive down the Oregon coast to a possible San Francisco destination. We finally did it but our friends were limited to ten days. Two big revelations for me: Cannon Beach, which I idolized in my mind, was a cluttered, tourist trap with access to the beach severely limited by an endless row of beach houses. When I return I will make my base at Newport Beach and drive from there to a number of gorgeous areas within its circumference to paint and paint and paint! The other revelation was rather humbling for a Vancouver Islander. The Redwood trees were immense and much of the original old growth was saved. A highway called The Avenue of the Giants led through 35 miles of trees so large it seemed unreal. 35 miles of Cathedral Grove!!!

These were the highlights of an reconnaissance trip that gave us a really good idea of places to settle into and explore.

Lady Ellen Point

2011-04-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

North Islanders have been trudging out to Lady Ellen Point for donkey’s years for almost as many reasons as there are North Islanders. As mariners make their way down Queen Charlotte Strait, they eventually reach the west end of Malcolm Island, whereby they must decide whether to go to the left of the island and remain within Queen Charlotte Strait until they reach Blackney Passage to get into Johnstone Strait or to keep to the starboard and enter Broughton Strait. If the latter is their choice, they will have Lady Ellen Point on their right. This passage through Broughton is such a narrow seaway that it seems you can touch both shores by simply reaching out your arms. This is what makes Lady Ellen Point so delightful to anyone wanting to watch the traffic of the sea. You are almost in the shadow of the huge Cruise Ships. Besides being a darn good place to wet your fishing line, it’s a really nice hike for couch potatoes!

Some twenty years ago, Western Forest Products very kindly cut a trail to the ocean from one of its logging roads in the area. Since Lady Ellen is on the flip side of Ledge Point, the peninsula directly across from Port McNeill, the logging road that goes to the Lady Ellen Trail takes off to the left from the Ledge Point road. For years, we used to go to the end of this logging road, where the trail began, and walk down to the ocean through groves of huge spruce, but when you reached the ocean, it was still a hefty two kilometers to Lady Ellen. When the tide was in it was touch and go because we often had to dodge in and out of the heavy jungle that lined the shore. Last summer saw the building of a state of the art hiking trail along this shoreline ending at Lady Ellen but slated to continue until it meets the Ledge Point road and trail. What a magnificent hike that will be! Rumor has it that you will eventually be able to begin this hike at Bear Creek in Port McNeill and circumvent the entire Ledge Point!

This small painting came about when I followed my wife, daughter and grandson on their jaunt to Lady Ellen to try out their luck on the pink salmon run. While they fished, I painted. None of us got skunked!

Mexico!

2011-01-24T21:13:00.000-08:00

We returned from the Baja California Sur (south Baja) on January 13th to piles of mail and dozens of jobs as well as 4 inches of snow - a bit of a turnabout from South Baja. I did as much sketching as I could but was plagued with a chest cold. We stayed at our daughter's house in La Ventana , a small fishing village on the Sea of Cortez. Most of the "Norte Americanos" there are wind surfers or kiters and the beaches are full of such action. The beach from the town southward goes on for ten miles or more and, though I'm not a wind surfer, I love walking the sand that goes on forever and plopping down and sketching some of the action, since there is quite a significant tidal change here. Here and there the beach is interrupted by rocks that are old lava flows that have tunnels worn into them by the sea and here, when the tide is high and the wind strong the water is pushed into the tunnels and comes shooting up into the air through holes worn upward through the rocks. Locals call them "The Booferaws" from the sounds they create. Ann took some photos of me sketching there. One of the many rough sketches I did is shown here as well. This beach tends to be quiet in the morning and windy in the afternoon, so sketching was easier the earlier it was done.

I'm back painting in my studio again, still working on a series of autumn on Mt. Cain. As the alders slowly turn to their beautiful spring browns I will be making my way into the North Island countryside to do some pleine air painting. See you again soon.

Where did November go???

2010-11-30T22:19:00.000-08:00

On November 15th we took 7 new paintings to Gallery 223 in Nanaimo (on 223 Commercial Street). They are an excellent gallery but do not want to show anything behind glass; so you won't see any of my watercolours there.The owner, George Leschuk actually owns the building, which is unique among art galleries, has a generous sized area for originals and another area for prints and framing. On the second floor he rents out space to resident artists.
Some of the paintings we left with George are shown below. I added to my autumn on Mt. Cain series by concentrating on the bright foliage around the ski area.

We hope to be going to ourdaughter Kathy's in Mexico for Christmas (Dec.11 to January 10) so hope to have a few Mexican scenes from there. Merry Christmas!! (or should I say Feliz Navidad?)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2010-10-09T19:46:00.000-07:00

I LOVE North Vancouver Island, our home for the last 36 years. Usually I can't find enough adjectives to describe its beauty, but this time of year I often wander afield to find fall colours because there are so few deciduous trees that show off in autumn. My favourite spots have been in the interior in the high plateaus of the Cariboo and the Chilcotin or to the old haunts of my youth in Eastern Manitoba and Northern Ontario.

Lately I re-discovered local colour that had eluded me, since in the fall during the last few years, I was making these excursions inland and over the prairies. I was looking at some photos I had taken several years ago of my grandchildren on Mt. Cain in autumn and the background colour knocked my socks off. Since it was early September, too early for colour, I used these old photos as references to create a 16x20 acrylic that enbled me to use my"hot" colours. I waited for the beginning of October and watched the weather for the first opportunity to trundle up the Mt. Cain rocky road. It happened! The weather and the colour co-operated and I got my first sketch and a number of photographs. Blueberry bushes are everywhere on Mt. Cain so an endless variety of reds pervaded, but there were lots of yellows, golds, magentas, purples, and autumn greens as well. At this moment, we are into a few rainy days but as soon as it clears a bit, I'm going back! This sketch I did will tell you why.

What Summer???

2010-09-12T21:36:00.000-07:00

Just a few more days before the Autumn Solstice. Leaves are already beginning to make their descent while many of our summer birds are just memories. Tomorrow is officially our last day to have an open door gallery. Taking down the OPEN sign will give us a new sense of freedom: to wander, to unlock the gate to new pathways.

Our summer in the gallery literally flew by. Alicia Young, our resident sculptress produced a number of great pieces and I painted nearly every day, some days en plein air. Basically, the summer was unseasonably cool but for one week we broke all heat records. I was painting fireweed pictures in a clear-cut on a 34 degree Celsius day! Just recently I spent a delightful day in one of my old haunts out at Rupert Arm, an offshoot of Quatsino Sound. Below is the sketch with which I began. The original will be on my website. Also below is one of Alicia’s pieces she did in our gallery. Adios until next time!

Summer 2010

2010-07-18T22:02:00.000-07:00

Summer at The Henschel Gallery will be short but furious- from August 1st to September 7th, open 9 to 5 every day. Our added attraction is the exceptionally talented Victoria sculptress, Alicia Young who will be with us the entire time. Shown here is the rack card that will make its appearance this week at most North Island outlets, B & B's, hotels,etc.

After this period the gallery will be closed and I will be working with and through other galleries.

Just to set things straight with the numbers of people who think I am retiring, I hope this move frees me up to paint more on site. ARTISTS DO NOT RETIRE!!!! Prior to building the large addition to the gallery in 1996, I was always with at least four galleries and travelled a great deal more. I will return to this life style this fall.

This website and blog will continue but will direct you to galleries that handle the work shown on this site.

WHERE IS GORDON????

2010-06-23T21:23:00.000-07:00

For those who follow my blog from my website, you know I'm still around but how come no blog? The answer is NO TIME to blog! Since my last blog my wife, Ann and I have been totally involved in moving my 95 year old Mom from Surrey to Port McNeill. She had been living in her own, same, apartment for 28 years and enjoying it, but the emergencies to the hospital were becoming more frequent. In April she was there for a month. We transferred her to the Port McNeill Hospital on May 13th and then spent the better part of 3 weeks clearing out and shutting down her apartment - many, many trips since January. The trips are over now but we must get her settled in a senior care home. Where, what and how are still to come.
My blog is called ART TALK so enough of unloading my personal life on you. My painting has been at a standstill but will resume in the VERY NEAR future (like tomorrow). We are expecting our first bus tour to our gallery here in Nimpkish Heights tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. precisely and after that the painting will begin! A pleasant return, but not an easy one, to an activity that sustains my enjoyment of life . Something like a freight train, the beginning is super slow until you get on a roll once more.
Bear with me. As the train gets rolling the blogs will roll too!

The Pinnacles of Synchronicity

2010-04-18T20:40:00.000-07:00

This story is not about Northern Vancouver Island but is an amazing account of how small our world really is and how we are all tied together.

In the year 2000 we visited friends in a suburb of Fremantle in Western Australia. Gillian Peebles is an outstanding artist who was the official artist for the Americas Cup when that huge sailing competition was held in Fremantle for two years in succession. Her husband, Ron, helpful at every turn, was the epitome of supportive partners in the game called art. She and I had painted together briefly on North Island when they toured here the previous year and so the invitation to visit them was extended every month or so.

Ron had seven weeks of holiday time saved up and so they created some very ambitious plans for all of us to travel over most of Western Australia, a huge area almost half of Australia in size. Gillian took us to all her relatives and the places of her youth in the outback. We painted nearly every day in the most exotic places imaginable for a North Islander! One of these was a remarkable desert region preserved as a National Park, several hours north of Perth.

The Pinnacles National Park, an area of shifting sand quite near the Indian Ocean, is unique in that pinnacles of brilliant sandstone stand upright throughout the entire locale. The persistent wind from the ocean, not only weathers the pillars, but moves the sand around to expose new ones, changing the scenery almost daily. Did we paint? You better believe it! Gillian had the foresight to bring a lawn-chair and umbrella but I did my sketches in watercolour by kneeling in the sand and working in my shadow, the painting shaded from the brilliant sun. The sketch shown here was one of these productions.

End of story? Hardly. The painting, being a rough sketch was never framed when we got home, but we thought it would be worthwhile to place it in a mat and shrink-wrap it for inclusion in one of the bins in our gallery; where it stayed until last summer. Then the most synchronistic thing took place. A young lady from B.C. came in to browse the gallery and went, almost directly, to one of the picture bins, removed the sketch of The Pinnacles and brought it to the take-out counter.

I had to know why she had chosen it after so many years in the gallery. She told me, reluctantly with tears in her eyes, that she and her husband had been on a vacation to Western Australia and, while they were walking in The Pinnacles National Park, he had a stroke and passed away.

How do you ever explain how she had found this painting? She could not, so I’ll leave it up to you.

The Canadian Shield

2010-03-20T17:38:00.000-07:00

Re: Our website at http://www.henschel.ca/, on the Home Page under "What's New" you will find "Canadian Shield". For many visitors, to whom this term is new, let me explain. The Canadian Shield is a massive area about 3000 km. in length and varying in a width I wouldn't want to guess at. It lies in a south east to north west direction, beginning in northeastern USA and ending at the Arctic Ocean in Yukon and Northwest Territories. With a rock base of mostly granite, the last ice age carved all sorts of shapes into the surface which later filled and became lakes. The rock base is really the remains of the most ancient mountains on earth. Incredibly hard, one can still see the striations on the surface of rock outcroppings that the Ice Age produced.

The reason that this section is on our website is simple: I was born and raised at the western edge of The Shield, in Manitoba. Although we moved to B.C. in 1974, we still make regular forays into our old stamping grounds, especially in Autumn when the whole area turns gold! So this is why, if you look at the Canadian Shield section on our website, you will find a lot of Autumn paintings. It is so delightful to sit and paint by one of the lakes in Whiteshell Provincial Park and paint the brilliant yellows and reds while listening to the Canada Geese honking and flying in huge V formations overhead. This is one of the biggest flyways for North-South movement in North America. Enjoy the paintings in this section of our website. There will be more!

Paintings, Paintings, Paintings!

2010-01-25T20:26:00.000-08:00

During the early Sixties, already an avid painter for several years in Eastern Manitoba, my good friend and fellow artist, Robert Kost, told me about an experience that had taken place at his home and studio. He had a call from a lady in Brandon, about 300 miles away, saying that they had heard that there was an artist in that area and would he mind if they came to him and his work. As it turned out, four ladies arrived a few days later, sketch books and cameras in hand, and talked for several hours with him while he showed them what he was doing. A happy event for all!

During those days artists were so few and far between that a 300 mile drive to see one was not considered strange. Artists were usually trained in college art schools and mostly worked for firms that employed Commercial artists. GRIP in Toronto was such a firm and became central to the forming of The Group of Seven. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Seven_(artists)Self-taught artists were a rarity and usually not very good at what they did because Instructional art books were hard to get.

In today's world, I could easily find two or three hundred instructional art books , not to mention almost as many videos and television series showing you exactly"how to do it". Coupled with this plethora of "art stuff" is a new age of retired folks who are often well-pensioned with plenty of leisure time on their hands. Not surprisingly, the number of artists has mushroomed. The quality of the art is sometimes questionable, but they are having fun and some of them are pretty darn good!

"So what's he getting at?" is likely your question. The vast numbers of artists today mean several things to artists like myself who have been practicing their craft for half a century. First of all, I've taught a lot of them and claim responsibility for something that some older artists believe is a problem in competition. Secondly, Art is not a competitive game because as the numbers of artists grow, so does the population. Thirdly, because there are many more people involved in art, the interest in it increases. You would be surprised how many folks can identify the old masters and are very discriminating as to the quality of paintings in galleries. This surge in growth of artists, professional or amateur, has led to a new Rennaissance. In 1960 some folks drove 300 miles to see an artist at work. Today they wouldn't cross the street for that experience and if they did, the art had better be good.It's an exciting challenge to be part of it!

Happy New Year!!!

2010-01-02T18:08:00.000-08:00

Once again I must apologize for not having posted anything on this blog since November and won't burden you with a number of excuses like "the dog ate my laptop"! I do keep a diary fairly consistently and my biggest excuse for being so tardy with my blog sits on every January 1st page of each year's diary: "This year I will get organized"! So--if at first you don't succeed write it into next year's diary!

Since the name of this blog is "ARTALK", I must tell you every artist struggles with distractions. In the days of Van Gogh life was much simpler and one could get on with paintings without having to check your Blackberry and your laptop, not to mention the latest Canuck game. Probably I should change the new year's message to myself to: FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS.

I have a special request to readers of my blog: There is a small section at the bottom of the blog for COMMENTS. Please use it for questions as well about my work or your work and for any subjects that you would like to talk about, problems that you have encountered if you are a painter, etc. It would help me deal with what direction I want to take with this blog.

Meanwhile, enjoy each day to the fullest in 2010!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Plein Air Painting in Acrylics

2009-11-08T19:52:00.000-08:00

In the past I have not been enthusiastic about painting on site with acrylics since they dry so quickly even in the studio, where you have much more control.

Why would you want to? (1) For work that is considered "finished" enough to put on the wall of galleries. Many galleries will not accept watercolours or any other works behind glass. This includes most galleries in Europe, as well as in the southern U.S. Oils are also considered more "finished" work but take much longer to get to gallery walls because they dry much more slowly. (2) For working away from your studio and yet wanting more finished work. For example, if you are painting in Spain for a month or more and want something that is immediately available to the collector, acrylics is your best bet since you can pack them around almost immediately.

I have painted on site from time to time with acrylics using what they call a "Stay-Wet" palette. Daler Rowney makes one that works well.The palettes are made from plastic and consist of a base tray with a tight-fitting lid. A wet piece of watercolor paper (or thin sponge) is placed in the base of the tray to serve as the water reservoir. On top of this is a sheet of grease-proof or baking parchment paper, to serve as a membrane to stop all the water going into the paint immediately. You lay your acrylic paints out on top of the grease-proof sheet. As the water in the acrylic paint evaporates, it is replaced by the water being held in the watercolor paper so the paint doesn't dry out as fast as normal. This is made for the more traditional fast-drying acrylics, but "the times they are a-changing"

The Golden Paint Company has come out with something called "Open Acrylics" that dry about 10 times as slow as the regular ones. I have used this with some success. They take some getting used to since thay are a bit more tranparent but the beauty of them, even in the studio, is that they are far more open to manipulation, allowing you to gradate areas without streaking, especially in skies or large areas of snow, etc. In the painting, "Dining in the Cathedral", (on page one of this website's original paintings and shown above) I did almost the entire painting with Open Acrylics. They mix with regular acrylics which lets you pick and choose between the two.

Give them a try. Golden sells small starter packs to let you do this. Honest, I don't own stock in the Golden Company!!!

Autumn Colours?

2009-10-26T20:50:00.000-07:00

Once more I must apologize for being so late with this blog. I was in Manitoba since the middle of September and am not great with a laptop. Anyway, we went to Manitoba for two reasons: One, to visit old friends and relatives and two, to paint the usually great fall colours. The first was successful but fall colours did not materialize. Here's the reason: Manitoba had an extremely rainy summer followed by a hot, hot Sepetember. The leaves were green on green on green. When I arrived some were just beginning to show a few warm colours until a severe -10 degrees celsius hit the area as well as a snowfall of about 10 centimetres to break the ice! The leaves fell to the ground green!

We stayed on a farm along the Whitemouth River, a delightfully scenic spot. The Canada geese were everywhere, since this is one of their major flyways. These sketches were done along the river and one in the Whiteshell Provincial Park, my old stamping grounds. The river here was lined by huge old Oak trees. Sketching them was pure pleasure. The scene with the barn was typical of the area. Farmers here are like people everywhere, loving to live along the river.

Trails ran through the local park with crops still dazlingly green through the trees. The Whiteshell sketch was a quickie done from my van to avoid a biting wind with zero temperatures. I will work up all these sketches into larger pieces, using them as a guide for further exploration. The lake scene done from the van, for example was a roller coaster in values, dark and stormy one minute and bright several minutes later. I liked the dark water the best with highlights of strong sunlight on the waves. ASlthough this sketch is very different from that I will use it to give me the inspiration I need to follow through with a final knockout painting!

Be back soon, since I will have more time when I'm home and in my studio. Hasta la vista!

Plein Air Painting in Oils

2009-08-24T20:40:00.000-07:00

Sketching in watercolours on site (plein air) is the usual way to go for most artists, since equipment is light and technique fast.; but if you are painting on a day trip, oils are often the best way to go, especially in inclement weather. There is nothing more devastating than rain to a watercolour, while an oil is completely impervious to it. Oil sketches are also more likely to be treated as serious art. Witness, for example, the incredibly lively oils of the Group of Seven. The 8 x10 inch paintings of Tom Thompson express a liveliness that his larger works miss. These were all done on the spot. Many of the French Impressionists rarely painted indoors and produced huge canvases en plein air. Monet, Pissaro, Sisley and, of course Van Gogh relished their time in the sun.

On North Vancouver Island, when I head out for a day of painting I nearly always use oils, even on a sunny day but especially on a showery one. I have painted wearing rain gear and watching the water running down my canvas while I worked! My usual equipment is a French easel, often accompanied by a stool for comfort. The only drawback to using oils is their slow drying time, which means being very careful getting the finished product home! I love to use a slow drying white called Zinc White(because of its transparency it doesn't hide the pigments that are mixed with it) so my oils take a very long time to dry.

Above is a photo of my easel on a newly logged area high above Nimpkish Lake on a cloudless day early this summer.

Plein Air Painting in Watercolours

2009-07-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

One of the simplest plein air sketching setups is in watercolour. The number of pieces in your sketching bag or box is minimal since it requires little beyond a piece of paper (preferably watercolour paper), a pencil and a few colours, often available in blocks. There are some exquisite little paint boxes, small enough to fit in your pocket, containing small watercolour blocks of paint along with a little bottle for water and a wee brush. These can be used to do a painting without the aid of a pencil or to colour a pencil or pen sketch, a technique known as pen (or pencil) and wash. This kind of outfit is great for traveling when you simply don't want to be burdened down with loads of painting gear. If you are waiting for a plane or ferry, you can whip this out and have a "quickie" done in no time because you don't have a lot of preparation to do. Here are some pics of the Winsor Newton Sketch Box that will fit in your smallest pocket and a small sketchbook.

When I have more time and want to do something a bit larger on good watercolour paper, I cut paper to size, punch the proper holes in it and place these in a looseleaf binder. This makes for a lot of flexibility and gives you the kind of paper you want. If you are heavy on the pencil drawing be sure to give your work a good spray of fixatif. Here is the binder:

If you add looseleaf note paper to your binder it's great for making notes about your painting experience.

The Merry Month!!!

2009-06-06T21:10:00.000-07:00

After years of teaching painting workshops away from home, usually at the request of an Art Group, I taught my first ever watercolour PLAYSHOP at our Henschel Gallery from May 19th to the 23rd and we had a ball! It was a group of seven ladies from all over the map who were determined to have a good time!!! Four days flew by without a hitch and we came away, due to the benefits of a small group, being good friends. Here is a picture of our gang in the workshoproom and another of lunch in our yard.
You may notice on our website that "Up and Coming" has nothing up and coming. The reason for this is not that we are doing nothing, but that we are in a process of change that is still in the planning stages. So bear with us; there will be "Up and Comings"!!!
There will be new reports and ARTALK on the joys of Plein Air painting this month. Throughout the summer I will be out there a lot!
It's so great to do ART again. May was mostly taken up with elderly family members and their Golden Years, which seem to consist mostly of hospitals and medicational side effects. One message rings loud and clear after being involved with old folks: enjoy them while you've got them but also enjoy TODAY!!!

You do what you have to do!

2009-05-06T20:45:00.000-07:00

Once in awhile, you just have to follow the Maker's plans for you and put your own on hold. Our Florida trip was cancelled by my doctor, who discovered that I have what they call , "Atrial Fibrillation", a condition in which the electrical impulses that make your heart beat regularly get mixed up and cause the heart to flutter or"fibrillate". In my case my heart is sound but there is a danger of stroke because the blood can coagulate in the atrium. I am now on a blood thinner until I can get a regular heart beat going again, hopefully soon. I feel good but have to holf off on the distant travel until the ticker ticks properly again. My doctor has plans for this.

Plans: May 19 - 23 a watercolour workshop right here in our gallery! This is a definite GO.
May 24- 31 a painting sojourn to The southern end of the island.
June and July will find me in my favourite haunts on Northern Vancouver Island, a huge area that includes some of the most spectacular wilderness in the world.
August will find me close to home. Our gallery will be open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day from July15th to September 10th.
In Sept./Oct. we will be in Manitoba for the fall colours.
These are the best laid plans of mice and men

Spring has Sprung

2009-04-16T20:31:00.000-07:00

The robins are back, daffies are in bloom and the salmonberry blossoms are breaking out, much to the delight of the few courageous Hummingbirds that have flown into an exceptionally cool spring. The inspiration that gets me painting is also here and almost gone, that is the catkins on the alders are creating a colour that drives painters like me crazy. It is a reddish brown with purple undertones in the shade and yellowish overtones where the sun hits them. Because this a reddish grey that is the complement of green, when the alders are juxtaposed against evergreens their usually muted greys become brilliant.

This is a painting I did from a pencil sketch and a few colour notes near our home here in Nimpkish Heights. It is a view looking down the beach that leads to the mouth of the Nimpkish River, the longest river on Vancouver Island. The alder trees visible are on the opposite side of the river.

The sketch is 5 1/2 x 8 inches. In my studio, I painted a 18x24 inch acrylic on canvas. Both are shown here to illustrate how a sketch is used as a basis for further interpretation. I have spent 35 springtimes on North Island trying to capture the essence of it all. Haven't got it yet, but I'm learning!

MEXICO

2009-02-12T20:53:00.000-08:00

We are reluctant Snowbirds! We love the seasons of North Island and when many of our neighbours pack up their motor-homes and head for places like Yuma and Phoenix, we put another log on the fire, hunker down with a good book and listen to the rain – a time for R&R. This winter, however, we weakened to the call of the sun and the invitation of our daughter and son-in-law, Kathy and Don Mancell, to join them at their house in The Baja, Mexico. On December 6th we drove to my Mom’s in Surrey and on the 12th flew to San Jose del Cabo where Kathy and Don took us on the two and a half hour drive north to their place in La Ventana.

La Ventana, a small Mexican fishing village, has become “Gringo-ized” by wind and kite surfers. Likely one of the best places in this hemisphere for this type of surfing because of the very dependable winds, it has grown in popularity to where many of the surfers have exchanged their spots in the campsite and built more permanent adobe style houses. The land here slopes away from the Sea of Cortez and nearly everyone has a view of both mountains and an ocean that is never more than a kilometer from anyone’s house. Kathy and Don’s place had an added “Casita”, a self contained unit separate from the main “Casa” (house), that we inhabited It had its own patio facing the mountains that were bathed in colours at sunrise and silhouetted at sunset. Among the fifty or so sketches I did were several views from the patio. The one shown here is a ten by fourteen inch watercolour that shows the incredible Cardon forest sloping all the way to the mountains. The Cardons are a cactus closely related to the Saguarros in the American Southwest. My favourite place to sketch was in the desert among these friendly giants. The holes in the old ones, drilled by various woodpeckers, were often inhabited by other birds. I soon discovered where our humming birds went during the winter. Any time there was a flowering plant, there they were!
Christmas was, strangely, not too different from here, except for the century plants used as Christmas trees. Christmas Eve was celebrated with a monstrous potluck dinner at the campsite on the beach and, later, a huge bonfire and Christmas carols. Church, the next morning, was all in Spanish but meaningful, nevertheless. We arrived home to banks of snow in Vancouver but, to our delight, sunshine and no snow in Nimpkish Heights! Home is where the heart is, don’t you know?

Milestones and Transitions

2008-11-28T19:15:00.000-08:00

Transition and painting are not favourable companions for me. I paint the most when: 1. I'm feeling well and energetic and 2. I have an established well worn routine. Both of these have been changed a bit this fall. I had eye surgery that took two months to normalize and during this time we changed our gallery operations from 7 days a week to "Open by Appointment' and stopped custom framing. This is a milestone, since we have operated this gallery for over twenty years. BUT we have not retired! The gallery was wonderful for meeting people from all over the world and both my wife and I love people, BUT it tied us down and often kept me from doing as much PAINTING as I would have liked to.

So, as Bob Dylan put it, "The Times They Are A-changing" and we want to expand our horizons and "roam a bit". I always paint wherever I go and this winter I hope to bring home a lot of scenes from Mexico and Florida. April will find us in the Canadian Shield to paint the breakup of ice on the lakes and rivers and, if the Good Lord is willing and the creeks don't rise, late May and June I'll look for springtime in the high Rockies. North Vancouver Island and home is the world's best place to be in the summer. I'll be back painting my favourite haunts here. So stick with me -I'll keep you posted!

Let me talk a bit about mediums. I'll be traveling by plane to Mexico and Florida and try for portability. My choice for air travel is usually watercolours but as long as you keep your images on paper you can use acrylics or pastel. On site painting with acrylics is somewhat restrictive since they dry so quickly, I've been trying out the Golden Company's new OPEN ACRYLICS that have a drying time up to ten times slower than regular ones. They still dry a lot faster than oils and are a good alternative for travel so you won't have to worry about bringing back wet panels. We tried them out at The Hills workshop and students generally liked them.

When I paint the Shield in Manitoba/Ontario and later The Rockies, we will travel by car and be free to use whatever medium is suitable - probably my nostalgic old oils! The big trick with travel, since I don't have a satellite connection is keeping up with this blog and my website at http://www.henschel.ca/ Meanwhile, Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Frolige Weinachten and Joyeaux Noel! The Jolly Holly, by the way, is in front of our gallery door.

Workshop at The Hills Health Ranch

2008-10-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

Back home from the B.C. Cariboo at 108 Mile House.

Here are a couple of pics from the Workshop there. Great group: folks from Prince George, Chase and Barriere as well as local 108-ers. The Cariboo (cowboy country) is full of friends and neighbours!

Head's Up!

2008-09-26T20:38:00.000-07:00

Back in the swing of things again! It's wonderful to be able to look at the world in an upright position once again. The retinal surgeon gave me a thumbs up report a couple of days ago and made me realize how much I have to be thankful for, especially for all your best wishes and prayers!

Getting prepared for the upcoming workshop at The Hills Health Ranch from October 5th to 8th.

This will be my third Autumn Playshop there and just a whole lot of fun. The huge expanses of this incredible place open the creative pores in you body and the paintings just flow! This year the emphasis will be on Watercolours and Acrylics, either individually or combined and with that combo, you can pull off anything (well, maybe not your clothes!).

Acrylics are a medium that I've returned to lately and tried on a number of surfaces. It can be very watercolour-like on paper and on other surfaces if undercoated with Golden Absorbent Ground. When used on Masonite or Canvas, it can act like oil paint, either impressionistic impastos or very detailed photo-like images. In the painting shown here I've used it on canvas quite thinly but impressionistically. Now, with the addition of Absorbent Ground on regular canvas or the recently marketed Watercolour Canvas, you could do much the same thing on canvas with watercolours!

I know that some of my old students will be back for another run and am really looking forward to seeing them again. Hasta manana at the HillS!

An Aye for an Eye

2008-08-26T19:51:00.001-07:00

Eyesight is one of our great gifts. Do visual artists have any greater appreciation of this gift than others? I doubt it. Most people cherish their vision, becoming accutely aware of it when it begins to weaken with age and eyeglasses become part of their life. Doctors discovered a hole in my retina about five years ago, a condition I found I could live with until lately.
On September 11th a retinal surgeon will repair it in about an hour. No big deal, except for the entire following week it is imperative to keep your head down, eyes parallel to the ground, twenty out of twenty-four hours a day. The surgeon replaces the vitreous jelly in the eye with a gas bubble which then must rise to rest against the healing retinal hole. The entire healing process usually takes about eight weeks, but I will have one good eye as the other one heals.
I don't experience too many "firsts" in my life anymore, so this tends to put some variety back in my existence.
I'm trying to think of ways in which I will be able to amuse myself: 1. Looking down, I could become very rich by finding a lot of money. 2. Do a thousand small sketches. 3. Write a novel. 4. Play a dobro. 5. Clean up the garage on my hands and knees. 6. Examine anthills. 7. Search for four-leaf clovers ---- the list is endless, so I can see I will be having a ball!
I need to heal quickly, however, because on the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th of October I will be teaching a Watercolour/Acrylic Workshop at The Hills Health Ranch at 108 Mile in The Cariboo.

Wish me luck!

August, 2008 - BIG CHANGES COMING UP!

2008-08-18T19:43:00.000-07:00

I have done some editing on our blog, so bear with me for this latest update. I am also learning a bit more about blogs, so if you would like to respond, I WILL try to answer you.
August has been our busiest month in the gallery since we opened it nearly twen ty years ago. At first we operated out of a small area that had once been our living /dining room. Twelve years ago we added a large addition to create about 2000 sq. ft. of gallery space and included custom framing as a service. We have had it open for regular hours most of the year and from May 1st to October 15th from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 7 days a week. It has been a wonderful experience to meet so many art lovers but there comes a time when changes are in order to create a positive movement in your life. We need to free up some time away from the gallery.
October 15th will be the last day the gallery will be open for regular hours. Henceforth it will be open by appointment only and framing will be permanently discontinued. Our website, however will play a big part in displaying my work and we intend to enhance what is even now an outstanding site.
We intend to keep in touch with our gallery friends with a newsletter. If you would like to be included on our mailing list, please send us your e-mail address.
Who knows, I might even have the time to keep this blog up to date!

Happy 2008!

2008-01-01T21:07:00.000-08:00

It's New Year's Day , 4 degrees Celsius and raining on North Vancouver Island. My last blog was in September and since then I've taught two workshops in October, the first at Hills Helth Ranch at 108 Mile in the Cariboo and the next one at Moorecroft Camp in Nanoose Bay on Vancouver Island. For three weeks in November my wife, Ann and I took our first trip to Hawaii on Maui. We both loved it! I took a small set of watercolours with me and I sketched on most days. The included pencil sketch is one of many I did on the beach just minutes from our suite in a private home. Look for some Hawaii paintings on our website this spring.

I have a 93 year old mom who lives a day's drive from here and has suffered ill health during 2007. We,ve spent a lot of time with her and had to forego time from art. Moms are one of a kind and it's payback time.

We are going to make some big changes in Henschel Fine Arts this year. Probably the biggest changes in ten years. Plans are in the making. We'll keep you posted!

Plein Air Painting

2007-09-09T20:02:00.000-07:00

September! My favourite time of year for some plein air painting. This is a term introduced by the French Impressionists who broke away from their studios to paint outdoors! Imagine - the nerve of those guys to break away from established rules of painting in your srtudio. The reason I love to paint outdoors this month is because of the light. During June, July and much of August, painting during the middle of the day(when it's warmest and comfortable to sit quietly for hours) gave you a sun directly overhead and very few shadows. Light and shade is what make landscapes come alive, so painting is limited to early morning and evening for interesting shadows. During September you get those beautiful long shadows all day long and the weather is still comfortable to sit out there. Usually it's not as rainy either, which is nice. October brings the autumn colours but you better take along some warm clothing! Al in all, we are in for some exciting outdoor painting during the next couple of months. Time to gather sketches and ideas for some winter studio painting. This was the usual routine of The Group of Seven: out to Algonquin Park or Great Lakes country to get some autumn material for their winter studio painting. A.Y. Jackson, one of the group, rarely painted in the summer as he quite disliked green! But we must give the hardy old boy his due because he often sat out in the snow drifts and painted during the winter. So, painters, let's take a lesson from The Group, grab your paints and get out there!

Hazy but not Lazy

2007-07-29T22:30:00.000-07:00

Hi, folks. Don't give up on my blogging just yet. I intend to get on this blog more frequently and my intentions are honourable! WE ARE BUSY with our gallery. The summer of 2006 showed a decrease in tourism of 40% on North Island, probably due to the sinking of the Queen of the North, the very popular cruise between here and Prince Rupert. This summer the visitors seem to be making up for it and showing up in unprecedented numbers. Today, a Sunday, was a good example - from 9 a.m. to after 6 p.m there was always somebody in the gallery! Often the parking lot was full of cars. It is wonderful visiting with everyone. The nicest people in the world walk through the door; everyone is in a good mood. They are on holidays and are interested in ART! They come from all over the globe but we are getting more visitors from B.C. than usual. I believe they have finally discovered the incredible beauty and tranquility of North Island.

Summertime

2007-06-20T22:06:00.000-07:00

Our gallery here in Nimpkish Heights becomes more busy as summer gets closer, with visitors from all over the world. It's only June and the Brits and the Germans seem to be here in full force. It is great fun visiting with them all. The nicest people in the world walk through our doors for when people are on holidays they are in a good mood and tuned in to having a good time.

As the weather warms, the great outdoors calls me to paint "en plein air" and I do a lot of pen and wash sketches that I often use to create larger paintings in the studio, but everyone, in order to stay healthy, must get some exercise, so we do most of our own gardening, keeping flower beds and an acre of lawn in some semblance of order. This time of year you can watch the grass grow and mowing is my main activity, while my wife, Ann, plants and tends to the flowers. We buy our hanging baskets each year from Carter's Hanging Baskets in Nanoose. This is their specialty and our baskets bloom from May to October! Here are some photos of what our yard looked like on June 18th.

Last week's "Odysseys"

2007-06-04T21:41:00.000-07:00

Time flies!!! May 22nd to the 25th was 4 day workshop at the Fairgrounds in Saanich. A WIN WIN workshop- fun for me and fun, by all reports, for the "students". The end of May found me itching to do my "en plein air" thing and paint in the great outdoors of North Island. Where to go? Since there are hundreds of great places here, I usually decide to go where I have not painted for some time, mostly to see if there have been any changes.

Wednesday found me down a logging road that led to Ledge Point, a beautiful spot across the bay from Port McNeill, where I did a 12 x 16 in. oil on Canvas. While I was out someone had come into the gallery at home looking for something of Coal Harbour and found nothing. I had not painted there for nearly three years, so guess where I went on Thursday!

Coal Harbour was delightful as usual and I took my watercolours, ending up sitting on the old ramp on which they used to pull up whales and cut them up, during the old whaling days. From here I did a pen and wash sketch of the Government Wharf and some of the town. When you are out painting, there is often a side show that happens quite unexpectedly. On my way back home I saw a mother bear with three cubs, probably last years, since they stay with them for up to two years. Here is a quick photo of them.

On Friday I took some prints to hang in the office at Telegraph Cove and had a good chin wag with some of the staff, most of whom I've known for years. While I was there I did a pen and wash sketch of the business end of the Old Cove with Stubbs Island Charters and the New Bones Museum, as well as the Gikumi tied to the dock.

On Saturday, I went out, with my watercolours, to Hidden Cove to our old friends, Dan and Sandra Kirby's resort. I have had this picture in the back of my mind for years and decided now was the time to paint a view from deep within the bay and include Dan's sailboat, which has been anchored there for years, as well as the lodge. I haven't finished the 15 x 22 in. watercolour yet but it will be a toss-up where the centre of interest will be, the boat or the lodge!

Those were my odysseys this week. The rain has moved in now, which is a good time to finish off the paintings I started.

Intro. to my Blog

2006-11-28T21:48:00.000-08:00

November 29, 2006

Welcome to my blog-world!!
I have been a full time artist on Northern Vancouver Island for over 27 years and love every minute of it. My regular website: http://www.henschel.ca was started nine years ago by a Graphic Artist, Eric Beal, who now lives in Courtenay, B.C. and still maintains the site. This blog, which can be accessed through the site, will be a more personal attempt at sharing my life as an artist as well as everyday happenings. As a landscape painter, I hope to share photos of my journeys into some of the places I paint, as well as some of the stories about inspiration and perspiration, passion and pain. Art is a never-ending journey and being an artist means you never"arrive" That is the essence of the joy but also the frustration. Come along for the ride!