Tag: artist

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Health

Musing About Picasso…

I read an interesting article about Picasso the other day. An online artist/art teacher was suggesting that the figures in his paintings were cold and grotesque because they were a reflection of the person he was. Basically, he was a jerk. A genius, but a jerk. She had studied him as an art student, and learned that he was described as a womanizer, narcissist, violent and an abuser of women!

So, I wondered… what does my art say about me? Hard to self-analyze, of course. But in the past 18 years living on the coast in Cap-Pele and painting for the past (how many is it?) years, I find I am drifting toward becoming a naturalist, or at least gaining a greater appreciation of the amazing beauty of nature, as I watch the changing seasons outside my windows then examine the scenes closely enough to create a version of them on paper. I notice things that I didn’t before, even when I’m not painting live or taking photos to paint later. I’m becoming more of an environmentalist, wanting to protect the nature I’ve come to love here.

I also find myself wanting to capture stories of where I am, the feeling of the place, not just reproducing the beautiful scene. I want my creations to also capture the emotion and experience of the place, memories of being there. My paintings that sell are almost always of a place that the buyer has also been so it holds memories for them too. The painting becomes a little piece of their experience that they can take home with them, to view and re-experience the feelings whenever they look at it (often of relaxation and a wonderful holiday, and often of a beach vacation since I live at and paint the beach a lot!).

I also have a life partner who has totally supported me in developing my skills as an artist (when I should really be doing more housework and yard maintenance!). He is my “Muse”. Muse was one of the goddesses of Greek mythology, presiding over the arts and sciences. In art, the term has come to refer to a person who inspires and influences an artist through their qualities and relationship. I’m sure I would not have become a professional artist who paints almost every day without his support and encouragement!

Recently I painted live at the Hom’Art Festival in Shediac — it was an honour and privilege to have been chosen to perform at the festival! And the painting above was what I created “en Plein Air”, trying to capture some of the spirit of the day. Funny story — the gal in the pink and purple shirt I portrayed in the painting was another artist/vendor. She stopped by at the end of the event and I pointed the figure out to her. She was thrilled to have been captured in a piece of art and took photos and a video to post on her Instagram account! She’s Steph Sutherland from Riverview.

So, people often ask me how long I’ve been painting… and I really wasn’t sure! I started drawing in graphite (pencil) about 12 years ago, sometimes using some watercolour pencil crayons for colour and progressing to chalk pastels which behave somewhat like graphite. When we started travelling to Spain I realized that pastels don’t travel well — the final painting is easily damaged — so I eventually discovered and switched to watercolour paints probably about 6 years ago and fell in love with the medium! They travel really well and work great for outdoor “plein air” painting which a find I really enjoy (even if it doesn’t always turn out as well as a studio painting). I’m having such fun that I want to encourage others to take it up too. I gave a plein air workshop last month at Le Hub on Main St in Shediac and will have another one on October 7th.

Meanwhile, my next art show will be at the Memramcook Parlures d’Icitte Festival, on October 18th, from 10-4. Maybe I’ll see you there!

Categories
Health

Hello, I’m Back!!

Well, hello again! I’ve been on hiatus for a while, and I thought it was time to explain my absence. While I still enjoy writing and love to share what I’ve learned, hoping it will be helpful to someone (or at least entertaining), I’ve found a new “love”… art!

I actually started drawing years ago, painting wildflowers in a little sketchbook that I would pick on walks , just for myself, for fun. But my hubby said, flowers are boring… why don’t you paint something more interesting… like faces! Of course, I told him faces are hard (and they are!). But it was a challenge! My sister-in-law had been an art teacher for many years, though, and she steered me to a wonderful instruction book: The Big Book of Realistic Drawing Secrets by Carrie Stuart Parks. It is excellent and even includes a section on drawing faces, and I also bought her Secrets to Drawing Realistic Faces book. I soon discovered I love drawing faces! It’s the challenge of making the drawing look like the person, a little puzzle to figure out what line or shading is incorrect and making it look “off”.

These early drawings were all done in pencil (“graphite”), occasionally adding some colour with watercolour pencils, but I had difficulty making the colour even – most of the time the colour looked blotchy and streaked. I knew so little about watercolours that I didn’t realize you need special paper that’s made for watercolour! So I decided to try chalk pastels, thinking they would behave more like graphite. They did, but they were messy and didn’t travel well and, by then, we had started going away for the winter.

Then I learned that key piece of advice: watercolour needs to be used on watercolour paper! With the help of online courses and a few You Tube videos, I started to progress and I discovered I love it! Watercolour is my thing!! Suddenly I seemed to have no time for writing my blog, although I continued to read and make note of interesting subjects to write about – I just never made the time to write them. I was addicted!

I drew or painted family and friends, gave them as gifts – wedding gifts, Christmas gifts, even hostess gifts sometimes (invite us to dinner, get a painting as a thank you!!) I started wanting to paint places that we’d visited, and that drew me into painting landscapes and buildings. I still love to look through those paintings because of all the memories they hold.

In January 2025 I decided to try painting outdoors, “en plein air”. It’s so much fun! And creating tiny paint kits that had everything I needed became a sideline hobby (I have quite a few… too many really!) Later in 2025, I heard about an art sale being held at the nursing home here in Cap-Pele. By this point I had so much art created that I didn’t know what to do with it all. I was stuffing it into presentation books to store on a shelf as the walls of my art room/sun room were completely covered with my art, plus there was a lot more scattered throughout the house. So I signed up for that show (a great success!) and 3 more over the summer and fall.

My blog started as a way to reach out to women going through the menopause change – my earliest posts are all about hormones and, if that topic interests you, just scroll back in my archives on this site to 2016 and you’ll find what I wrote. Very little has changed since then, except that taking hormone supplements is believed to be safer than what was suggested when the Womens’ Health Initiative Study was stopped early in the early 2000’s. My opinion has always been that hormones that are the same as what our bodies make, in similar amounts, must be safe. They are what we ended up with through evolution, survival of the fittest. It’s synthetic hormones, that are different and therefore have different actions in some parts of the body, that are more likely to create problems and side effects. And, just like too little of our own hormones leave us with unpleasant effects, too much isn’t good either. The safest and most effective route is always to replace only what hormones are missing with the same hormones in a normal “physiological” amount. OK… I’ll get off my soap box now!!

So, fast forward to today… I feel like many of you are good friends who have followed me during my health journey, sharing what I’ve learned, learning from my experiences, passions, and sometimes rants! And, since this blog has been going for 10 years, like me, most of you are well past the menopausal change. I still read about health issues, for both men and women. I want to stay healthy and active and I’m sure you do to. So, I’m thinking I could and should be writing about issues we older gals (and guys) face.

But I feel like I want to share my art journey with you too, although it seems off-topic from my previous writing. I strongly believe doing art is good for your health, giving a purpose in life, an excuse to continue learning and advancing skills, and a passion that can be shared with others. And viewing art is good for your mental health too – it can transport you to another place and time, capture memories, create positive emotions and so much more! The paintings that sell fastest here in Cap-Pele are the ones I’ve done of the beach – people buy them to take the memories of a wonderful vacation or walk on the beach home with them to view whenever they want to feel those feelings again, to feel calmer and better.

So, I’m proposing a new blog, one that’s aimed at supporting physical and mental health — a chat about current health issues and disease prevention, but also sprinkled with some art for you all to enjoy… sharing my learning and my passions in a weekly or bi-weekly chat. Does that interest you? I hope so!

I’ve added a Gallery page to my website, if you’d like to see some of my work. Just go to the menu on the top right to navigate there. I’ll apologize in advance… some paintings have been sold already. I still need to figure out how to mark items as sold!

Every painting has a story and I hope that some of my art stories will resonate with you. I haven’t figured out how to attach explanations of the where and why behind each painting yet either, but I’ll learn! Let me know in the comments below or by direct message if you’re interested in this new format… and which paintings are your favourites!!

PS: The painting above in the center is my latest — just finished yesterday. It’s a celebration of the return of the Blue Herons… just saw my first of the season!