Sunflower Seed Paintings 31 – 36

The Sunflower Project, What's the Big Idea?
These six sunflower seed paintings are the first for 2018, and the first of thirty I was able to purchase materials for, thanks to the honorarium from Taking It Global's Wish 150 Mosaic project. Thanks Taking It Global! In honour of the new year, I decided to take these six back to basics with black and white, and to explore active words which might give us thought about how we want to be in the new year. Root has already gone to a good home. I am sure the rest would also like to find their homes! Go here to learn about the project and sign up to receive one free, or donate to ensure we keep this project going!
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Sunflower Project 2017 Review

The Sunflower Project, What's the Big Idea?
[caption id="attachment_269" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Wish150 Alberta MosaicDetailAcrylic on Panel[/caption] One year since I started the Sunflower Project, to encourage lovers of art and of life to share their gifts with the world. This has resulted in 30 paintings completed for the project, 18 of them with the assistance of donated funds from supporters.  25 paintings have been mailed, my gift, to people who have signed up on the web site to participate in the Sunflower Project. And then, the project grew: Taking It Global and Wish 150 invited me to contribute a piece to the Alberta Mosaic. The detail above is from the panel I contributed to the mosaic, and is based on the Sunflower Project. The Mosaic was unveiled in Edmonton at the end of October, and there are…
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Event Announcement: Journey of a Lifetime

Events & Announcements, The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?
[caption id="attachment_224" align="aligncenter" width="242"] The New Homeland16 x 20 O/C[/caption] I am pleased to announce that the seven paintings in my Canada West series, which centre on themes relevant to immigration, will be on display in conjunction with the exhibit The Journey Of A Lifetime. The Exhibit is on display from January 23rd - April 22nd 2018 at Heritage Park Historical Village. It is built around the last surviving colonist railway car in Canada and is partially sponsored by BMO. I have included my Artist Statement relating to the Canada West series below: ARTIST STATEMENT To judge the past by it’s advertising literature, one would assume that immigrants to Canada were a fairly homogenous, and privileged, bunch. The Canada West series explore that assumption. The Canada West series are paintings…
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100 Rejections 2017 Review

100 Rejections, What's the Big Idea?
I aimed high early last year when I decided to work through my fear of rejection by taking inspiration from Jia Jiang. My goal was to accumulate 100 (art related) rejections over 2017. So how did that work out? First off, I would like to say that I only got 1/3 of the way to my goal this year, sending out 34 applications. Of those, 6 were accepted, which works out to a 16 or 17 % acceptance rate. So I actually accumulated 28 rejections in 2017. Having got a slow start during the first half of the year I had to apply myself from the last half of the summer by applying to 5 opportunities a week for the rest of the year to meet my goal. That proved…
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2018: School’s out Party’s over.

Art Lessons, Art Parties, Working Artist
Hi again. I know, I know, 2 posts in one week? Madness! On New Years Day I like to look back over the past year and think about what has worked, what has not, where things seem to be going and what new things I would like to explore in the coming year. Sometimes sacrifices must be made to allow other things to grow. So, in order to put more energy into the studio, including some interesting projects that showed great potential for growth in the last year, for 2018 I am discontinuing offering Art Parties,  Art Lessons and Artist's on a Mission programs. I guess I'll have to get new business cards made soon then.
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New Year, New Blog

Events & Announcements, Introduction, The Story Behind the Painting
Hi all. For my first post of 2018, and my first post in a while, I wanted to start with a recap of the past year, and then introduce a few changes for the next year, specifically involving this blog: I started this blog November 4th of 2016, a little over a year ago. In the past year I have learned that regularly posting articles to a blog in a journalistic fashion is really not for me. When I have the time, I am stretching for things to talk about. When I have a lot going on to talk about, I don't have much time for blogging, or for going through reams of spam searching for legit comments before I write anything. I debated scrapping the blog altogether, however I…
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