My Top Books About Artists and Their Gardens
Finding inspiration and companionship in the gardens of artists & creatives. A few favourite books + one video!
What does your creativity do for you? Does it bring you delight? Satisfy your curiosity? Give a means of expression, connection, or healing?
Behind-the-Scenes: How I Paint From Life
Top tools, quick composition process, painting plein air, and more
See the process I follow and the tools I use when painting from life. I share recent paintings of interior scenes painted around the house, as well as a few studies done plein air around the neighbourhood.
Behind-the-Scenes: How I create studio paintings
Top tools, sketching process, and more
Do you ever make something that surprises you and then go back over and over trying to figure out how you did it? What was it about that piece that just came together for you? How can you do it again?
How do you get to know a new place?
I love getting to know somewhere new – and reconnecting with familiar places – by walking (new collection sneak peek!)
Walking is nearly always how I first get to know a new place. It allows me to experience it in different light, weather, moods, and seasons. I notice its people coming and going, its homes as their lights turn on for the night…
Stepping Out of Your Creative Comfort Zone
Expanding your skills by exploring an unfamiliar subject
In taking steps toward a goal, you will find that new steps reveal themselves to you, as you go. Sometimes they are simply next steps on the same path, other times they are a surprising new direction, a different perspective on your work, or an unexpected creative challenge. I share how to step out of your creative comfort zone, why it’s important to fill your toolbox with new skills, the importance of embracing mistakes, and how to incorporate your new skills into your unique creative style and voice.
Moody Paintings of Interiors
The curiosity & excitement that comes when your work takes on new directions
I’ve been working my way through a self-directed online painting class. It’s supposed to be a landscape painting class, but since it’s been snowy and cold outside, I’ve been painting any and every scene I can find around our Montreal condo. It’s been an unexpected treat to have these paintings to remember our place by when we move to our farmhouse in Nova Scotia.
Spiralling Upward: Finding the Motivation and Courage to Keep Going
How to keep going when doubts, fears, and wobbles take hold
Making big life changes can be very overwhelming. It can be hard to keep track of who you are and so easy to be afraid of all that you cannot see about where you are going... It can be a struggle to stay motivated, remember why exactly you are trying so hard, and keep your vision for yourself and your work fresh. Take heart, you are not alone.
Winter Magic: Paintings of Montreal in the Snow
The creative discoveries that come with paying attention
Montreal is so beautiful under its blanket of snow. I have been savouring every minute of our last winter here in the Plateau. You learn so much when paying close attention to something and then making work about what you’ve seen.
A Year Without Alcohol: An Experiment in Creative Flow
How cutting alcohol changed my creative practice
Over the past several years, I have been looking carefully at all of my resources – time, energy, focus, money, and well-being, to name a few – and have been looking at how I can optimize each of them. Since I became unblocked and began making art regularly, I have found myself discovering just how important creative flow is to my life.
Daily Paintings: Memories of Walks
Uncovering patterns in your creative work
Many of my mornings over the past few months have been spent in the studio, painting. I’ve been going back to the basics – making work for myself – because I feel more alive, balanced, and grounded when I am creating images. I am keeping things simple: a few brushes, smaller loose-leaf pages, my favourite tubes of colour... and painting what interests me, for me. This has helped me to remember why I began painting in the first place and reconnect with the process of making.
From the Painted Stories Instagram feed
