Shell Fragment

Shell fragment, one of five shell paintings from a series I did in 1996. I liked the colors found in nature, the peach and pink and grays. Very pretty and canvas made these paintings soft in texture.

Shell Fragment

This painting is about 18 x 18 inches. It is painted on canvas and I've used glazing and dry brush to get a transparent effect and for a solidity, or opacity.

Cat's Cradle

 This painting has been donated to Orcas Island
Artsmith, a nonprofit artist venue for writers and visual artist. It is acrylic on paper.

Two Birds

After I moved to Bellingham, my nephew died. At the memorial, his widow picked the song Three Little Birds. Three feathers appeared on the back porch. Later that summer I painted this painting, Two Birds.

Everything is Changing

This is a painting done on hot pressed paper. The paper has a gloss to it and it holds the paint on top. It gives the piece a more painterly appearance.

Silent Orchid

This painting was done in 1989, after I left my husband and moved home to Spokane. I stayed with a friend for awhile and painted this on her front porch. This painting is watery and has a lot of depth.

Alders on Lake Padden

This painting is large, about 2 x2. It has a sense of depth, because of the the way the light shines on the water, reflecting the tree above, and how you  see through the water.  Acrylic on canvas.

Bird Of Paradise

This photo came out a little brighter than the actual painting is. But it is close and the orange plume of the flower is gorgeous, painting or no.

Money Plant

Money Plant. I painted this painting because I have always loved money plant, the fabulous apostrophes of seeds, the colors, purple and green and pink. A feast for the eyes.

Opening

This little painting became a bookcover. I love the abstract painters and wish to take my own abstractions further. This one is loose, and the photo doesn't show it's brightness. I like the line quality I achieved with a liner brush.

An Everyday Leaf

This is a tiny painting, 3x3. I was looking at larger paintings, 6x6, and was thinking it is a better size. 6x6 with an inch of white space and then the matte and frame. Makes a nice sized piece. This piece is between abstract and realistic. I like to put lines in the painting that become direction composition components.

Personal Altar

I made this altar from scrapes of plywood leftover from building the eaves of our house, the faucets? drilled wood under the eaves for air circulation and screened over so birds won't build nests. This altar has an angel theme, although I'm not big into angels. It also has keys and other symbolic images attached to it. I painted the wood with gold paint. It's hinged to sit on a table nicely.

Winter Birch

Winter Birch, and the reflections of trees and light in water. Acrylic on watercolor paper. A tiny painting--begun when I decided to do a painting a day. That lasted about a week. I'm not very good at setting myself challenges like that. But I did get about 7 paintings out of the deal. Sweet.

Evening Hawk's Quest: All My Relations

Evening Hawk's Quest: All My Relations

When Time Comes in Gushes

Black gesso on watercolor paper. Acrylic painted in layers and manipulated. Collage element. Acrylic medium to attach handmade paper.

Le Jardin

Black gesso on watercolor paper. Added collage element and acrylic manipulated zinc white acrylic.

Free Your Heart From Hatred

This is a multi-media altar that opens and on the inside there is a Rumi poem. It is meant as a sweet look into a spiritual place. The metal tags on the outside say: Free Your Heart From Hatred and Love Your Life.
There is a Flicker feather at the bottom of the box, and on the inside a framed picture of a Buddha.

Honora

This is a large painting done in the same style as "Stay Awhile." It has beautiful and subtle layers of color and is soothing to view. Photo credit: Deb Teachout-Teashon

Multi-media shadow boxes.

Here are a few of my shadowboxes. I like to put found objects together into a fun story. Little scenes. This one is called "Wants Loving Man."
"No Thing is Any Thing"

"Snake Shaman"

What If You Do Nothing?

I've been influenced by different abstract artists, one of them being Kandinsky. When I first found him, I went sort of crazy and unleashed my inner Kandinsky, splashing and squiggling and generally having a lot of fun. Art is fun and is meant to inspire. I hope you are inspired to paint, if you aren't and want to.

A Surprising Universe Full of WIsdom

This is a canvas of shapes. I wanted to break out of my usual flower images and paint in the layers I loved; acrylic is transparet and good in layers. Here is the results. Many think it is cheerios in milk. Good kitchen painting, but really it is a surprising universe full of wisdom.

Swing Leaves

A painting resurrection. I hadn't been painting in some time, and then I painted this. For the longest time I didn't like it. Now I do. This I find interesting, as judgment changes how we approach our art. For years I've been practicing none judgment, and still am not able to be neutral. I do believe there is no good or bad art. Just art. Just expression. I'll continue to practice.

Two Drawings

These drawings were done from bits of shell I found on the beach, the obvious one being a mussel, the other a fragment. I've done numerous drawings of the spirals and curls of shells. They are lovely and the shapes intriguing. This is graphite on paper.

Fall from Grace

This is an acrylic painting on hardboard. I like the way the paint handles on hardboard--also called masonite. If you buy it at an artstore you will get good quality board that won't leak glue or pitch, or whatever it is that can come through your painting later and ruin it. This painting is symbolic of feeling the power of different forces scuttling me around in my life. I guess when I did this painting, I was feeling powerless on some level, now I know I'm in charge of my life. I make my own choices.

Flame

This painting is acrylic on canvas. When I painted this painting, I was thinking about how free I want to be and how the flame in me burns brightly. It is a statement of my lust to individuate. I like this canvas a lot, even though it is simple. Technorati Profile

My Old Studio

I'm part of an artist collective, which I was juried into a year ago. This was my first studio during a gallery walk. It was an icy cold night and I was freezing in this little room. I had hot cider and nice cookies. The walls were so red I could hardly work in this room, but my art looked good on the walls.

Now I'm in a room twice the size. It had a potter in it before and there was an unbelievable amount of clay dust. Now it is yellow and the walls are covered with my work. I love it.

Desert Shadow Box

This piece has an interesting feel to it, deserty, dry, warm, lonely. It's made from a cigar box. I found some interesting shaped boxes up at the smoke shop on 12th. This is a racoon skull. I've found more than one on my beachwalks. I've found other skulls too, and am facinated by the cranial bones, the sutures, the eye sockets. What's beneath the surface facinates me.

Ruby Bird

The colors on this piece are a little brighter than this photograph shows, but there is glass on the painting and I didn't want to take the frame off. My advice to any artist, which of course includes myself, is to photograph your work as you go along. It is so much easier to photograph work now. I used to take all my pieces someplace to have them made into slides. Most places accept pieces downloaded onto CDs. How easy is that? Well, just get a digital camera if you don't have one, and be sure to do it before you frame. I tell you, if you can be organized, it's the best thing for an artist.

When The Night Changes

From a photo I took at Manito Park. This isn't a spontaneous painting. I took the image from one of my photos. Many artists paint from photos, some paint photorealizm, others tweat the composition and lighting. I like to use a photo for a jumping off place. The spontaeous paintings seem more powerful and alive to me. They seem to be sending me information and energy. That sounds a little wooey, but this painting seems a little. I've included it because I'm working on being non-critical to my creations. I think this opens the door for more. If I criticise what I do and it is leading to something stupendous, I've slammed the door in my own face. Like in writing practice, just get down the first thought or image or impulse from the bottom of your mind. That's all there is too it.

Tunnel To Inner Realms

Another spiral that leads into space. Once I saw actual pictures of space: nebula, pulsars, planets, and was astounded by how they looked like my paintings. I think that means I'm from Neptune. Well, honestly, we're all from somewhere right? Why not Neptune?

Keywords: Acrylic paint, Thalo Blue, Light Purple, Cadmium Yellow

Emergence

This painting has a ground of hot pressed paper. The paper changes the surface of the paint because of its shininess, allowing it to stand on top of the paper, rather than soaking in. More texture occurs this way, and the colors remain sharp and vibrant. Abstraction means different things to different people. This painting looks like something is coming forward from inside.

Universe

This little painting has metalic paint as the background. The orange is a cadium based paint, which gives a nice saturation to the yellow hues. This remindes me of pictures of the solar system, how space seems to spiral. We're affected by what goes on out there beyond our solar system whether we know it or not. Ha, what does that have to do with painting? Well, everything has to do with everything. That's what is true.

Birch

When I haven't been painting in awhile, I have to just start, usually without anything in mind as to what to paint. This is a where I worked from a photograph. The color is different from most of my paintings, but I like the soft reflective nature. In writing, I try to always start with beginner's mind--the same goes for painting, too.

Winter Birch

This is a tiny painting, only 3x3 and again is acrylic paint on paper. I painted it from a photo that a friend of mine took while we were hiking in the woods. I call it Winter, although I believe it was actually fall. He took the photo and passed it on to me. Sometimes he'd say, here paint this. He's very acomplished and sells his work, making art and fishing his living.

River Valley

There have been places I've lived in my life where I've investigated rivers. Priest River, Spokane River, Little Spokane River, the Naches River, and others not coming to mind right now. Rivers are always moving along, unlike the tides that come back, go away, come back. Then there are the flood plains, like where I lived in Yakima, where water crept in the night toward the house, and that's what it sounded like, this stalk, sluicing closer and closer. Here this painting, with iridescent paint, looks like an aerial view of meandering water. I like the colors and the shimmer the mica in the paint brings to the finish.

Chinese Dragon

This painting was done on a hot press paper. Hot press is shinier and those takes paint and ink different than cold press paper, which is dull and obsorbant. The quality of the paint on the paper gives this picture a watery feel, more so, I think than paint on cold press. The water just moves on top of the surface. Very soothing but alive.

Painting a Day

This painting and the one after it, are very small, perhaps 3 x 3 inches. They are small because I wanted to try following the painting a day movement to see if that would work for me to inspire new work. Writing practice generates new work and draws out of me different memories and scenes that I don't seem to consciously draw up, and I think this is because it is a continual practice. A Painting A Day is a movement to generate 365 paintings a year--there is a poetry movement that follows the same momentum. If you like, Google Painting A Day and see what comes up.

Branches

This is a painting of branches, brush, twigs, in the woods. It's painted acrylic on paper. It's more realistic than my usual paintings of late. I like the red color, looks sort of mysterious.

Being Present

This shadow boxed is filled with jaw bones of small animals, and stones and tube worm casings and marbles found on the beach. The beach is a lovely place to find objects. I often come across bits of ceramic bowls and cups and even old dinner ware. I've found flow blue and roseville. I've found tiny bottles and glass stoppers. On the beach there are agates--you have to look hard at first, but then after awhile, they seem to appear without trying. I think this is like life--if you look too hard, you don't see. It's that soft focus that lets everything in--sort of a Buddhist meditation practice of sorts. Letting life in without resisting. Recently I read in a meditation book that nothing can stick--it just keeps going through--because we are energy. Interesting to think about. As an artist, it is the resistance that blocks the work. So letting go is the best--letting things come in--be like a window.

Number 23

This was the first shadow box I made. It includes a jaw bone from a small animal, a small bird's egg shell, buttons, ceramic bits from Italy, a birds wind, a key, a marble, and beads. This shadow box has significance for me, being that 23 adds up to 5--which is my birth number--if you've ever ventured into numerology, you'll see that numbers have meaning. This means that I'm to be a teacher--oddly enough--I am a teacher. The goddess is a symbol of my need for self expression as a female. I've been wounded around my femininity, as have so many other women. Supporting myself with loving kindness is the answer to rebuilding inner strength and a belief in oneself. Also doing art is a healing process, so I always allow myself the freedom to create.

Turning Knot

This painting was made into a book cover in 2005. My friend and poet, Kelli Russell Agodon chose this painting for her book cover, "Small Knots." To see the cover and read more about her, check out www.agodon.com/

Sound Current

This is an acrylic painting on watercolor paper. I tape down the edges of the paper first, using removable masking tape. When I peel up the tape after the painting is dry, I have a very nice border around the image. My inspiration for this painting came from the current on the water. Where I live, the Puget Sound is constantly changing colors and textures, from the wind, the clouds, the sun--even the rain. Snakes of current travel with the tides, the current moving in or out of bays and along inlets. It's beautiful, the smooth texture reflecting the light, edging the rougher grays. Of course the colors in this piece make use of artistic license.

Messenger of God

A plywood altar, painted with Daniel Smith's gold liquid acrylic, focuses on a Da Vinci drawing printed on a postcard purchased at the Codex show at SAM (Seattle Art Museum). The altar is complete with ginkgo leaves, ceramic shards from Italy, bottle caps, keys, stones, shells, feathers, and more. It is hinged so it stands, rather than hangs.

Shine on Sound

This painting was part of a quick series of work I did where the images all came out with swirls and spirals and if you notice at the top of this piece, bird shapes. Frequently images in up in my paintings, sort of automatic paintings if you like, and then I enhance the images that are there. They usually tell me a story, like this piece might be about the swirl of emotion I feel and how my life can be overwhelming, yet always there is a spiritual presence I can rely on for comfort. To purchase go to www.nancycanyon.etsy.com

Inside

This painting was painted in the same series as "It's Beneath". I was inspired by an artist's abstract work that I'd seen in Art News, and thought the way I was painting could change a bit, try something new for a thrill. The series didn't go far, but I do have several paintings now of round shapes with blobs in them that remind me of crows.

It's Beneath

Swirls and lines and dancing birds. I think this is about the stick game they used to play in the streets. Hoop game. My father played it, rolled along a hoop with a stick. Now there are video games and skateboards.

Cursive Loops

When I painted this painting, I wasn't thinking about trying a new style. It just happened that I felt a certain degree of boredom with what I was doing and smeared white paint over the surface and this lovely transparency happened. All's well that ends well. I'm at a new phase again with my art, which I think is difficult to execute. Anyone feeling uninspired knows what I mean. I can wait, or I can create. I'm more believing that it's the jumping in and doing that gets me going again.

A Woman's Place: Write your destiny

A Woman's Place: Write your destiny

Fig

Swirls of color painted with Daniel Smith acrylics on Arches paper. This one I painted alongside the other one I posted a couple of posts ago. I often tape down more than one piece a paper at a time. Sometimes the paintings become pairs that I frame and hang together, other times they remain individual pieces. I cut my paper the same size and mask the painting area the same size. If I keep all my paintings the same size, it makes it easier when I got to buy frames. I have a friend who makes everything the same size and them exchanges the frames from one piece to another when putting things in different shows. I'd prefer to frame the ones I like the best, if I can afford it. American Frame has great prices on mats and frames.