About
My artistic life began with oil painting. Over the years I have tried many other media: acrylics, pastels, wood carving, and clay. I settled on a combination of oils and acrylics. I love the silky texture of oils and the way they can be blended right on the canvas. I love the practicality of acrylics. There is a lot to be said for a medium that dries quickly, especially when painting away from home. A wet oil painting is a hazard to everything around it. For several years I used both oils and acrylics.
Several years ago I started using a palette knife, and the knife started to take over, jumping into my hand without my noticing. Brushes are necessay for signatures and painting the edges, but the palette knife became my weapon of choice.
In 2013, I discovered cold wax, and it changed everything. Cold wax is a combination of beeswax and resins. It looks like the paste wax of former days, and one mixes it with oil paint. The oil/wax mixture is applied to a wooden board rather than a canvas, as the wood does not move as canvas does. It allows the use of wonderful new tools like brayers and spatulas. These days I have a knife in one hand and a brayer in the other. A painter’s life does not get better than that. The downside is that it is extremely messy, and continues to share its hues with anything that touches it for much longer than it should.
I have lived on three continents, and my life and art has been influenced by each. Like our Dutch ancestors the women in my family have always grown flowers. Tulips make my knees wobble; orchids make me swoon; I talk to my lilies. Flowers are wondrously beautiful; they must be painted. They seem to pop up everywhere, even when I am painting abstracts. Nine years in tropical Africa have made me see life in vivid colour. No shy snowdrops there. Life bursts forth in boldness and brilliance. I grew up in northern Ontario and the landscapes of the north have influenced me as well. Rock formations, their interesting shapes and patterns, offer a constant invitation.
Still life and flowers were my first subjects. Landscapes followed. An impressionistic interpretation began to overtake realism. Recently, I have succumbed to the siren call of abstraction. Non-representational work is my current passion.