Scenes from the Garden - Paintings at the Mym Gallery

Scenes from the Garden. Showing September 24 - October 12, 2011.

I am showing a selection of paintings of my garden at the ARTsPlace Gallery in Annapolis Royal starting today. It's a great feeling to see my work on display in such a sun-filled space.

That Day in the Garden. 30" x 36"

The Gallery is open from Tuesday to Friday, 9 - 4 pm., and on weekends from 1 - 4 pm

I will be at the Gallery on Saturday, October 8th from 1 - 4 pm, after the last outdoor Annapolis Market of the season. Please drop by!

Here is a video of the work in situ!

And here are photos of all the paintings. Clicking on the images will enlarge them.

Crocosmia. 7" x 9"

 

Blue Horizons. 10" x 12"

 

The Dancers. 10" x 12"

 Dahlia and Nicotiana. 9" x 12"

I added black and white photos of my flowers to the display to give the viewer a sense of the setting I'm in.

 

The Studio. 9" x 9"

 

Flowers in a Blue Jug. 11" x 14"

 

Red Gladiolas. 9" x 9"

 

The Blue Jug. 9" x 9"

 

Iris Seed Pods and Zinnia. 11" x 14"

 

Gladiolas. 9" x 12"

 

Joe & Tansy. 9" x 9"

 

Cordelia's House. 22" x 22"

 

Nasturtium. 9" x 12"

The price list for the paintings is here. 

Paintings can be purchased through the Gallery or you can contact me at flora.doehler@gmail.com.  

Floral Fusion painting

This is my newest painting which is living at the Flight of Fancy gallery right now. I love the cerulean blue in it, especially in combination with the orange. All of the flowers in this bouquet were grown in my garden. I am so happy to see their smiling faces every day and I hope this painting shows that joy.

Floral Fusion by Flora Mary Doehler. (sold)

At this point there is such a profusion of colour that I can set up my canvas anywhere in the garden and find an amazing scene to paint.

Here are some details from the piece. It measures 30" x 36" and is acrylic.

Acrylic Painting - The Red Tulips

In the Sunlight
30" x 36" acrylic on canvas by Flora Doehler SOLD
at the Flight of Fancy, Bear River Nova Scotia

After months of flower deprivation, it was so exciting to find tulips for sale in the grocery store mid winter. One of the disadvantages of living in southwest Nova Scotia is the almost complete absence of flowers in the wintertime - except for expensive roses.

Red tulips against the snow. I would 'fake' a spring backdrop for my painting.

I have a strong need to paint from life so this aspect of life here is a real challenge for me.! It is a great feeling to be present with a living flower and to sense the life force of it. Sometimes I paint from photographs I've taken, but it's not as satisfying an experience for me.

The first marks on the canvas are the hardest.

Although I try to abstract the scene and even change what I am actually looking at,  when a painting is working for me, I  get lost in it and I feel like I am channelling the essence of the object of my gaze.

At this stage, my focus is the colours.

Every painting evolves differently. Some come easily, others are trickier and need more time. The trick is to stay fresh and positive about it. Just like with life's challenges!

This painting went through quite a few stages and changes before I finished it. You can watch this development in the movie I've made for you.

I decided to create large areas of calmness in the painting–a departure from my usual style of creating texture and movement on every square inch of the canvas! The architectural shapes in the work let me experiment with mixing geometrical and organic shapes.

I really liked the dripping paint on the bottom of the canvas, but I finally had to let it go and tone it down so that it wouldn't compete with the drama of the tulips.

I love the way tulips nod their heads. The shapes of their leaves and stems are so beautiful and delicate. I really enjoyed being in the tulip universe while painting this.

You can visit my painting at the Flight of Fancy gallery in Bear River where it is for sale.

When is a Painting finished?

22" x 22" Acrylic on Canvas. Painting by Flora Doehler, 2011.

Occasionally I'll read an article about some old Masters painting that was x-rayed to reveal another painting underneath. The writer will seem amazed and surprised by this. Oh, if those writers only knew how common this is for painters!

These past couple of weeks I've been trying to discipline myself to finish up some of the unfinished canvases I have accumulated in the studio.

These paintings are under the finished piece. I still like the first one. It was fresh and spontaneous. However, I prefer my latest version of this.

I found some paintings that I don't like anymore. Either they don't intrigue me or they just don't have the movements and/or color that I like to achieve.

When I'm not happy with the outcome of the painting I like to use it as a background for a new one. So rather than paint the whole thing out in one colour and start 'fresh', I like to incorporate aspects of that old painting into the new.

Pushing the paint away to reveal the colours underneath.

This painting morphed several times. In its last three incarnations it hung in my studio like a reproach saying “are you really satisfied with me?” I would stare back at it and try to imagine what it could be. I'd pick out the parts that I really liked and visualize how I could retain them and change the rest. I'd think about what colors to obliterate and then every 6 months I'd take it off the wall and work on it some more.

Tulips lift my heart!

Still inspired by yet more tulips that I found in Digby at the grocery store, I decided to turn this back into a tulip painting. I wanted to calm down the yellow and red while retaining glimpses of those exciting colours. 

I squirted matte medium over the entire canvas and then brushed first blue paint, then green over the canvas in strategic places. I used my rubber tipped color shaper to pull away some of the blue and green pants to reveal the tulips underneath.

Adding matt medium slows down the drying time so there is time to shape and scrape the surface.

Finally, I brushed some red and yellow on top of the painting to suggest the tulips.

I am happy with the outcome of this painting. I like the colours now. The green and blue create a movement in the painting that I think expresses the energy those flowers transmit. The tulips explode to the surface.

However, that could change in another 6 months. When is a painting finished? That can be a very tricky question.

I paint on a flat surface so that the matt medium and fluid acrylics don't run.

What do you do with your abandoned paintings? And how do you know when a piece is finished?

I'm loving that green that I bought in Vancouver and flew out here to the east coast last November.

Lost and Found - Painting all Over

Painting details. Click on the images for a larger version.

In my continuing attempt to deal with unfinished paintings, I came across one of an amarylis flower from last spring that lacked the energy that I found in that beautiful bloom. I loved the reds and I felt attached to the colours in the painting, but not to the outcome.

Amarylis 2010-2011

In the end I felt my painting was overworked and I work very hard at painting in a loose and free manner. It requires concentration and confidence. If I allow doubt and hesitation to take over, the marks and strokes reflect that and the work looses it's fluidity. My painting confidence comes from regular painting but also enough sleep, feeling good about other things, great food, company, music and surroundings. A painter friend of mine said it perfectly: "I live in a state of constant angst about painting covered with a thin patina of confidence." There is so much that goes into a painting! It is a mysterious alchemy.

Waiting for the thaw.

I've been admiring for months the colored bottles in my windowsill that hold seed pods from last year's fields. My friend Pamela came by the other day and said “Why don't you paint those green bottles?” The question had occurred to me as well – I just wasn't sure how to approach it.

And then as I was going through my pile of "unfinished paintings",  I came across the Amaryllis. I decided to use it as the background for my painting of the bottles because red and green are complementary colors and are very exciting together.

A chose a pthalo green for this painting which I rarely use. Honestly, I'm not very fond of that green at all (although I love it in this painting!). But I wanted a contrast for the red underneath. So against my emotional judgement, I smeared a combination of the green, a touch of zinc white and gel medium over the entire canvas.

Scraping the green paint reveals the painting underneath.

The gel medium delays the drying time and enables me to scrape the paint away right down to the color on the canvas. I use a rubber tipped “color shaper” for this.
The big advantage of painting over another painting is that it really eliminates the “fear of the white canvas phenomena” :-) It also creates unintentional surprises when the two realities of two different images combine or collide.
You can see in this photograph that the Amaryllis is still showing through the green. That transparency is because of the gel medium that I added to the colors.

I really liked the intensity of the red against the dark green.

Because of the green, I was drawn to put some blue highlights into the painting in a cerulean blue colour that I also rarely use. I also added a red oxide. In other words, because I had stepped away from my usual palette with the green, I was compelled to use colours that I seldom use. 

Some strategic opaque greens obscure the flower head.

I'm very happy with the looseness of this painting. I like the feeling of a woodcut and the suggestion of a drawing as well. The 'hidden' painting has brought this canvas to life.

Hidden in the Shadows. Acrylic painting by Flora Doehler, 2011.

This photo gives you an idea of the size of the canvas. 

Painting seed pods with a creamy colour bring the stalks forward.

I use Golden Fluid Acrylics and here is a colour chart of their paints.

If you are interested in purchasing this painting, please contact me at 

flora.doehler[at]gmail.com

Dyeing with Rust on Fabric

Rust on linen and photo transfer by Flora Doehler.

I've been experimenting with dying rusty objects onto fabric. Fabric artist friend of mine, Marilyn Preus, used this technique in one of her beautiful wall–hangings and I had to try it out for myself!

The key ingredient for this is to find rusty objects and we still have quite a few of those in our barn. Thank goodness I didn't throw everything out when we moved in last year.

Suddenly all those funny bits of nails and who–knows–what seemed like a pirate's booty and I was so glad that we haven't quite got to sorting things out in the barn.  I was also glad that we saved so many of the handmade nails that came out of our house during renovation. They have all rusted at this point and could be used for my project.

 Iron nails that are more than 100 years old.

 Rusty nails, hooks and buckles.

 Rust dyeing works best on natural fabrics so I used cotton canvas,  linen, and silk for my experiment.  I also tried dyeing a piece of polyester-cotton but the results were very poor.

After placing my pieces on the fabric, I squirted the entire pieces with vinegar until the cloth was saturated.

 Rusted pieces laid out on poly cotton and silk.

 I slipped the plastic board that held the fabric into a large plastic bag and let everything sit for 48 hours.

 Vinegar dissolves rust.

 My art room smelled like a fish and chips store for a few days!

 I wanted to use a ribbed pattern to dye the cotton canvas  and I found just the thing in an old wood stove pipe that is resting in the backyard.

 Thankfully this old stove of ours missed the dumpster.

 I brought the stove pipe into the house, and wrapped the cotton canvas around it. Then I poured vinegar all over it and place it in a bag where it sat for 48 hours.

I loved the result when I unwrapped the cloth but unfortunately I washed it before it had a chance to really set so I had to redo my steps again. I learned to rinse in cold water and then let the cloth dry and sit for another 2 days before attempting to wash with soapy water.

The shapes that the ribbing in the stove pipe made are reminiscent of a birds wing. I am now looking for donations of rusted rebar because I think that would be very cool.

 Rust dyed canvas from rusted stove pipe.

Why this experimentation with rust dying?  I am working on a piece for a show here called “Pirates and Outcasts”. This art show will be part of a Bear River Winter Carnival event. Both are wonderful opportunities to have fun in February.

I have been working with an image transfer as well. It's an abstracted photo of young men sailing to this new world in the early 1930s. These men were in their 20s and are probably all dead now.  One of them was my father although this isn't a portrait of him per se.  In the piece I create, I want to suggest the impermanence of all our situations as well as suggesting that immigrants are both casting out and are outcasts.

 I have ideas floating around in my head,  but there are still the technical details to master!

This piece was on linen and although I liked the placement of the metal pieces, for some reason I had difficulty getting enough rust on the cloth.

After a couple of attempts I decided to roll up the cloth with those rusty pieces and spray the heck out of it and shove it in a bag for three days!

 When it was finished it certainly had a lot of rust marks on it! The shapes weren't as controlled as I would've liked them to be and in retrospect I wish now that the photo image transfer had been larger.

I also rusted a piece of silk and discovered that the most interesting results happened in rusting this piece. Look at the detail in this piece of fabric, especially where the spring was placed.

It is back to the drawing board for me or to the rust heap!  I am also experimenting with the image of my young men with paint on a canvas which I may show you next… and there is also the landscapes  that I continue to work on… plus I just dug out my weaving books and am considering threading the loom again....  so much to do–lucky me!