One Life Fine Art Blog – Page 8 – Blog of Canadian Fine Artist Debbie.lee Miszaniec, BFA

23Mar 2020 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

The Timely Sketchbook

Sketchbooks, What's the Big Idea?, Youtube Channel

I have always loved the beautiful sketchbooks of other artists, but they have never been a regular thing for me. Mine are usually decades old and half full of loose composition ideas, shopping lists, reading notes, budgets, business ideas and the odd nice drawing of a landscape or portrait. But a proper visual diary of my thoughts, observations and inspirations? Nope, I've never had much luck with those. Maybe it is because my thought process is long, but I usually respond to circumstance through my paintings, rather than in bound books of daily sketches. Covid-19 Sketchbook Drawing 1, Ink on paper, Debbie.lee Miszaniec However there is something about the need to respond quickly to the realities of the Covid-19 crisis, that has me revisiting the sketchbook as a way to…

16Mar 2020 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Time to Plan (your Art Show) for Better Times

Uncategorized, Working Artist, Youtube Channel

As I write this today it seems half of Calgary is shut down to limit the spread of COVID-19 and the shops may as well be for the amount of stock left on their shelves due to panic buying. My daughter's university practicum is cancelled, putting her educational plan in limbo, and I am worried about the safety of my mother and her husband on her upcoming trip to Calgary from out of province. They are in the high risk category for complications if they were to get sick. So although I think my household could handle the illness, I will be following the suggestions for social distancing and hand-washing. I am doing that so my older family members don't get sick, and so I don't have to self-isolate and…

09Mar 2020 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Art/Life: Monday – Friday

Working Artist, Youtube Channel

I am so close to releasing the video about planning a timeline for an art exhibition. Behind schedule but still on task, and planning to have that uploaded for this Friday, but in case there are further delays, SUBSCRIBE to my Youtube channel so you will not miss it when it finally does come out. In the meantime, I recorded a wee video diary over the week I began the research and script for the above mentioned video project: http://youtu.be/bBs_-hm3KXs You'll see in the video the foreshadowing of future delays on that project. But I really was not thinking of this video as an explainer for my shocking lack of adherence to self-made deadlines. Rather when I recorded it I was thinking about providing a window into my workweek for…

17Feb 2020 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Happy Family Day Alberta!

The Sunflower Project, What's the Big Idea?, Youtube Channel

Because families start with love: http://youtu.be/RD7kC2mb38Q I love that Family Day follows Valentine's Day here in Alberta! Because, as the song says, (insert name here) & (insert name here) sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G; first comes love, then comes marriage (or whatever relationship definition works for your reproductive unit), then comes (insert names here) pushing the baby carriage. So in honour of that special bond that grows between two people and then is shared with the next generation, Happy Family Day from my family to your's! I hope you will enjoy watching this Valentine's day video that I published to my youtube channel for Valentine's day, and that it inspires you to encourage your next generation to pay the love forward as well! Happy Family day from our family!

10Feb 2020 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

A Valentine for the World

The Sunflower Project, What's the Big Idea?

I've made 6 new sunflower seed paintings remind you to share your love with the world! I've published a new video to Youtube for Valentine's day documenting the process of creating all six and I encourage you to subscribe to my Youtube channel so you don't miss that. Remember to sign up to the sunflower project if you have not already by visiting my website here.

05Feb 2020 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Thoughts on Over-painting (oil)

Uncategorized, Working Artist, Youtube Channel

I just didn't have a passion for the project anymore. The inspiration did not work out and I was not stubborn enough to invest more time in making it work. So wasteful to abandon high quality* canvases in this time of thoughtful consumption, so I repainted them with fresh inspiration. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImfXs3W7rp4 Of course there are considerations for overpainting canvases: Is the original completely dry? If you're considering immediately repainting a painting you will have to worry about the dry rates of the underlying layers, oil and solvent contents of those layers and how it will effect the new painting. Is the painting fresh enough that you could just scrape the whole thing back? If not I would strongly suggest waiting until the painting is completely dry so at least you…

03Feb 2020 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Medium of Exchange:Process HUB@302: March/April 2021

Events & Announcements, What's the Big Idea?, Working Artist, Youtube Channel

Its a bit early for a SAVE THE DATE announcement, given we are looking over a year down the road, so I am just putting it out there that the show we have been working on putting together for over a year now, Medium of Exchange: Process (a follow up to Medium of Exchange: Debt (2010)), has been invited by the Alberta Society of Artists to show in their gallery! Jesica Campbell, Penny Chase, Jessica Hauser, myself and Koren Scott, will be mounting the exhibition at HUB@302 in March/April of 2021. I will be documenting the development of this show here and on the One Life Fine Art Studio Channel in a series of videos and posts exploring how to mount a collaborative visual art exhibition like the Medium of…

01Feb 2020 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

A Better Butter Tart (painting).

The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?, Youtube Channel

https://youtu.be/845smnDVeqE So This is what happens when an initial idea doesn't pan out on a canvas. Originally I was going to do a series of small paintings with a recipe card for pancakes overlaid with agricultural and ingredient images. It just wasn't working, so I abandoned the set after the base sketches were done, and decided to re-use the canvas for these lovely little food still life paintings depicting Canadian heritage treats with tea, books and various items. So here is the first of three of these original oil paintings shown being painted directly over the original sketch. Speed-painting and time-lapse painting video's of the other two paintings will be uploaded to YouTube in March and May, so if you would like to see them as well you should definitely…

27Jan 2020 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Finding Your Subject: Just Keep Making Stuff

The Story Behind the Painting, What's the Big Idea?, Working Artist

Butter Tart Finding your style, your subject, as an artist is something artists are encouraged to do, but most are resistant to, though many hope to arrive at something naturally. Why is that? Branding mainly I suppose. It is easier to be known for something, and to build a market for something, if that something has a consistent look to it. As creative types who are trained to push boundaries and break norms, settling in to one style or subject is like choosing to encase yourself in a plastic suit that looks like you but can't move, or grow, or express all the interesting weird parts of yourself. I was once told that based on the range of my work (I had brought three paintings to a critique), I came…

25Jan 2020 by DebbieleeMiszaniec

Back to 2018: New/Old Video

The Sunflower Project, Working Artist, Youtube Channel

https://youtu.be/o5TfWAPOfOM 2020 Revisits 2018 I discovered that I still had some footage from a 30 day vlog project I was recording in 2018, testing if I wanted to do this video thing. It turned out that I had way too much going on at that time to juggle a regular vlog, and so I shelved the footage. In between then and now two thirds of the footage went missing, but what remained was still an interesting look back for me as I reflected on what happened to those projects and involvements, and how they affected 2019. Now that I have decided to work on my Youtube Channel for 2020, I thought it might be fun to do a rewind and update video based on that test project. One thing I…