...we never, ever, finish there. I had a delightful weekend in the company of these three lovely women in my Intuitive Painting Two Day Intensive workshop.  I experimented with something new this time around, and had all of us begin with the exact same colour palette for the first four layers, and access to exactly the same tools and mark making items. As usual there was a wonderful mess on every table, a sure sign that creativity is brewing. Yes, that is corn. No, it's not lunch. And as I suspected, the canvases, even with the same colour palette and tools, varied wildly from person to person by the fourth layer.   (Sometimes you gotta get down when creating!)  Birds and hearts paved the way for houses and bicycles Sometimes fish show up, and you just have to deal with it! On day two we all worked hard, finessing the last minute touches on our paintings (plural for my students, singular for me - I never even touched my second canvas, so lost ...

Before - Nocturnal Dreaming - 2012 After - There is Music in the Spacing of the Spheres - 2018 Quite often as I am painting I think about the similarities between life and art, and never more than when I am working on a do-over.  I have discussed in other blog posts the concept of "when a painting is finished" and shown several examples of paintings of mine that have fallen prey to the do-over, sometimes years after they were "finished" (the first time).  As in life and card games, each of us players must constantly hold, play, and discard.  What gets held in the hand, what gets laid on the table, what goes onto the discard pile - for every one of us, every day, these "keep, play, discard" choices are made.  In a lifetime, we make millions of them, many of them unconsciously. In art, as in life, we also continuously keep, play, discard.  As artists, our styles, palettes and subject matter morph and change; in response to events in our ...

  Alchemist of Change Freedom From Within Last week I took the painting Alchemist of Change  that I had painted six years ago and transformed it. It even got a new name: Freedom From Within. My style and color palette has changed over the years, and I felt it was time for this piece to change too. One of the things that is hard to do, in life and in painting, is let go. There were several elements in this painting I was very attached to - the birdcage, the bird, and the words embedded in the bottom right corner. These were two quotes that really resonated with me at the time that I painted the original piece: Let your history be the alchemist of change and A diamond is a piece of coal made clear under pressure It was very difficult for me to let go of those words. I struggled with working around them for hours, but in the end I let them go, and welcomed the changes that letting go brought to the newly transformed piece. Besides, they are still there, jus...

I have 7 paintings to gift to the first peeps who contact me to claim them: (Update - all paintings have found new homes) lesleyfountainstudio@gmail.com or on facebook - Lesley Fountain Studio  Challenges Are Gifts - 24 x 24   GIFTED   Infinite Riches - 16 x 16   GIFTED  Hopes and Fears - 16 x 16    GIFTED   New World Emerging - 24 x 20   GIFTED It's Written in the Starlight  10 x 24  on board   GIFTED   "It's written in the starlight, and every line in your palm"  - Dire Straits This one is a particular favourite of mine. It is one of the nine paintings in a celestial series that showed up a couple of years ago. Here is a blog post about the series, how it came about, and a little bit about the paintings. http://lesleyfountain.blogspot.ca/2015/09/the-celestial-series.html   All My Bags Are Packed - 16 x 20    GIFTED Toge...

And somewhere between the time you arrive And the time you go May lie a reason you were alive But you'll never know   These lyrics from the 1973 Jackson Browne song For a Dancer strike a deep chord with me.  I have been blessed in my life to have met many people who have walked along beside me - sometimes for many years, sometimes for a short time - and while we walked together they shared with me their intrinsic beauty, their insights, their earthly gifts, and their own unique wisdom.  Whether you believe in spirit guides, divine intervention, guardian angels or kindred souls, for each of us, as we walk our solitary path in this life, there are those who share our journey with us, and if we are open and curious about the fate, destiny or serendipitous circumstances that placed each of these particular people in our path, it is my opinion that we can continue to learn, evolve, and accept and embrace the change, uncertainty, and the inevitable los...

I have created a photo book of the 100 Faces Project paintings.  For now it is available as a PDF download only from blurb.com, (viewable on any device) with a soft cover to be available very soon (at a realistic price, not blurb's!) The instant download is 6.99 CA  -  click on this link to view the preview and order: http://www.blurb.ca/bookstore/invited/6946988/1852e7536e291d6ef53cac2d0bd178c8f015451b

Now that 2016 is in the rear view mirror and my 100 Faces Project is completed, (and I have had my winter "nap" where I don't get much done except hibernate by the fire with tea and a good book) I have been enjoying creating the first few of what appears to be a new series of paintings. Working on large pieces of ripped, raw edged canvas, I have been exploring ethereal imagery in a creamy, dreamy palette with predominantly whites and blues. So far I have completed seven pieces, take a look: (update - July - painting #7 is the final one in the series, time to move on to something else!)  An Angel Falls From the Sky - 6' x 3' Little Things Are Hard to See - 5' x 5' First Roots, Then Wings - 4' x 5'  Go On and Make a Joyful Sound - (Lessons From My Guardians and Spirits) - 5' x 5'  Words of Love a Ladder to the Heavens - 3.5' x 3.5'  Protect Me - 2' x 4'  You Are The Magical Enchantment in Y...