Tag: #originalart

Studio Life During Covid-19 Part 2

So it is another interesting week as we see the progress of the Covid-19 crisis on the global stage and I have continued to document it in my Covid 19 series of drawings

I uploaded the final instalment of Kathleen and Quinnton’s Wedding Painting to Youtube last week, so here together for the first time are all three videos so you can see the process from start to finish!

Each video represents one day of work on the painting. So why are the lengths so different? I’m recording the time-lapse video’s using my iPhone, so I need to press stop periodically to adjust the number of dropped frames per session. In the shorter ones I stopped recording less frequently. So it appears I am a super fast painter in them! Oh the magic of video.

  • Saskatoon Jam 6″ x 8″ O/C Debbie.lee Miszaniec

I also found out this week that while I got turned down for the Western Art Gallery, my food paintings were accepted into the Mini-Masters Salon at the Western Art Gallery. So you will be seeing these (except Saskatoon Berry Jam) and a few more for sale at The Calgary Exhibition and Stampede Art Show in the Western Oasis, provided the Stampede goes ahead this year. Saskatoon Berry Jam has already been sold and is waiting to be shipped to its forever home in England.

  • #55
  • #56
  • #57

We also had three more people join the Sunflower project this week, with 1, 2 & 3 of my 12 days of Christmas series going out to them. I am encouraged to see two of the new collectors are American, meaning we are building bridges across borders at a time when borders are otherwise becoming much more rigid.

This week I finished the initial 19 drawings in the Covid-19 sketchbook and set up a page, The Covid-19 Chronicles, on my website for them. 17 of the drawings are posted there now and I will be updating that as I go along with new drawings and news about the project.

I will be continuing the series but moving from daily drawings to a three day per week schedule as I work on the Sketchbook tour video and look for ways, and possibly partners, to reproduce them and get them into the hands of more people.

The Sketchbook tour video should go live on Friday, watch for that on my Youtube channel and for notifications of that on my social media channels.

In Covid-19 Sketchbook news, it has been also covered in this article in the Calgary Herald. Check it out!

Alright, that is it for this week, Stay safe and stay healthy out there!

The Timely Sketchbook

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 document and think through both the monumental shift in our daily lives, and the weaknesses in our social and economic systems that this crisis has exposed.

Covid-19 Sketchbook Drawing 2,
Ink on paper,
Debbie.lee Miszaniec

To create a painting in response to each question this crisis has raised would leave me behind the curve as each new thought, experience and piece of information displaces the last. A sketchbook seems much more responsive to the circumstance.

Covid-19 Sketchbook Drawing 3,
Ink on paper,
Debbie.lee Miszaniec

Considering a journal as opposed to a sketchbook; in this case, I prefer the ambivalence of images to the specificity of words. If I were arguing a position I would write an essay, or perhaps a manifesto. Words can be interpreted or misinterpreted, but it is difficult to hold two, or more, positions at the same time. I enjoy the plurality of the image, where I can simultaneously hold multiple and conflicting positions, turning them over in my head as I create and contemplate the visual analogies I am making.

Covid-19 Sketchbook Drawing 4,
Ink on paper,
Debbie.lee Miszaniec

Covid-19 has had an effect on my art practice in showing me the value of the sketchbook. I may decide to use a sketchbook format more often in the future when I want to digest a complex and quickly developing situation in a timely manner.

Covid-19 Sketchbook Drawing 5,
Ink on paper,
Debbie.lee Miszaniec

For now I will continue to document my thoughts in my Covid-19 Sketchbook. When this one is full I will do a sketchbook tour video (my very first, as you can guess based on my history with sketchbooks) and upload it to Youtube. Make sure to subscribe to my channel to catch that upload.