After several years with Blogger I am moving over to WordPress. Blogger did some odd design things to my blog and I simply do not like it anymore. I've enjoyed sharing this art journey with you all, your comments and thoughts inspire me and I would love for you to continue on the trip.

WordPress was supposed to import my followers and subscribers to my new blog but it didn't so I invite you to visit the new blog to subscribe and to read my latest post Exploration - Tulips to Tigers. It's all about exploration in art and life.

Red Horse at Lando Gallery

Carmine Reverie, 30x30, Oil on Canvas

Carmine Reverie is part of a series of horse paintings that started last year when my husband and I saw some gorgeous appaloosa horses in a pasture. I knew I would paint them at some point but what I would do with them wasn't immediately apparent. That's inspiration for you, sometimes it's there, only partly formed until one day bits and pieces of ideas start falling into place. This is #5 in the series with more to come. You can see the rest at www.cindyrevell.com. And you can see Carmine Reverie at Lando Gallery in Edmonton, AB. 

The Neighbour's Peacock

A Little Something, 30x24, Oil on Canvas

My neighbour has a couple of peacocks. They like to perch on the roof of the house or her deck railing and they like to stand right in the middle of the road. I have some of their lovely feathers which eventually inspired this painting. Sometimes it takes a long while for an idea to come together.

And is often the case in my work there is a hint of mystery in the painting - is he getting or giving something?

An Orange Frog, A Wild Cat And Inspiration

Jeremiah, 12x12, Oil on Canvas

Tangerine Reverie, 18x18, Oil on Canvas

Inspiration. It's everywhere and is filtered through other things that resonate with us. Jeremiah, the orange frog was an idea that came to me after a trip to the greenhouse where I saw a huge 4 foot tall green resin frog nestled among the water plants. Ok, so Jeremiah is not green but I'd just painted the orange wild cat/cheetah/leopard hybrid Tangerine Reverie which was partly inspired by my petunias and was still in the mood to paint orange. And more spots, stripes, flowers and pillows, motifs that I explore again and again in various ways. When I paint realism my subject matter is usually still life and here it appears as the setting for Tangerine Reverie. You'll see piles of pillows in Maybe Later and The Art of Resting about 6 posts down from January 2015 and March 2013 which also show up in Jeremiah. It's a lovely organic melding of past ideas that I'm not finished exploring. 

Romeo - Blue Horse and Owl Oil Painting

Romeo, 30x36 Oil on Canvas
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These past months have been filled with inspiration as I paint for my upcoming solo show "Be Your Own Bird" October 15, 2015 at the Daffodil Gallery. In this new series of paintings birds are the common element in a menagerie of uncommonly coloured exotic cats, horses and other animals that symbolize trusting in and being your unique self. We are spiritual creatures, enjoying our time on earth as individuals, different from one another with our own stories and paths to take yet interdependent and connected as suggested by têtê-a-têtês between the animals. 

See more of my recent works for this new show at www.cindyrevell.com

Maybe Later - Black Leopard on Cushions

Maybe Later, 30x36 Oil on Canvas

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I love colour. Colour with a shot of black. Yummy. But this black leopard needed to really stand out and using a more limited palette achieved that. 

Limitations have a special role to play, they can provide focus and direction which may seem kind of a funny thing for me to say since my work ranges from whimsical illustration in 3 different mediums (scratchboard, acrylic and digital) to realistic oil painting to whimsical oil painting.  To see how focus and direction can be fun and not boring at all visit my brand new website which includes 4 different portfolios, different but very much connected through colour.

For those of you who followed this blog because of the still lifes I hope the shift away from realistic still life wasn't a disappointment. In fact, I hope the shift brought fun and pleasure. I've learned that exploration provides inspiration for other areas of one's art and is of great value. Stick around, I'm not done with still life just yet. Thank you for being part of my art circle. 

Available at the Daffodil Gallery

Oil Painting Inspired by Summer Flowers

Cosmos Lily Afternoon

12x12

Oil on Canvas
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Painted one hot afternoon on the deck outside my studio. Inspired by the the glorious colours of cosmos and lilies in my garden and the blackbirds that play by the pond.

Portrait of a Rooster

Morning Call
20x16 Oil/Canvas
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Morning Call was loosely inspired by my lovely bantam rooster Vincent who, in real life, has an interesting shock of orange feathers on either side of his comb reminiscent of the pageboy type hairstyle worn by a young Vincent Van Gogh. His hearty crow announces each new day.

Portrait of Pete

Pete at the Crowsnest
5x7 Oil/Canvas
NFS

This is our dog Pete, a handsome fellow with huge ears which were laid slightly back in the wind making them look rather average in this depiction. At only knee height Pete is short but his enthusiasm and love are tall. This painting was a gift for my husband.

As the years have gone by I'm discovering a real love of painting in a more expressive manner. Lively brushstrokes and more interpretive colour have become more important to me versus painting exactly what I see. Although in this little painting the colour is, for the most part, as I saw it. The brushstrokes  however, are looser and more descriptive than my usual work and I'm happy about that. This painterly and more expressive way of painting has an energetic give and take that I love!

Cheetah and Pillows

The Art of Resting, Oil on Canvas, 30x24
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'The Art of Resting' was painted after a month or so of doing primarily still life. As much as I love the zen of still life the lure of playing with my imagination and going wild with colour is irresistible.

It's fascinating to see the links and threads of one's own creative life, to see how old unformed concepts connect to the present. Even though I have only been painting these whimsical cats, birds and flowers for a couple of years the idea for something along these lines was lurking about only as rough scribbles for illustrations in sketchbooks and bits of paper. An idea that was sketched out years ago and found in a file cabinet was the inspiration for this painting. Suddenly I'm grateful for my propensity to note everything and save those scraps of paper that litter the studio, you never know when an old idea will come to life.

Still Life, Tomatoes

Shades of Red, 6x8 Oil on Canvas/Panel Sold

The tomatoes are lush and plentiful this year and ripening madly in shades of greens, green-orange, orange, orange-red and deep rich reds. Unlike the perfect round specimens from the store homegrown tomatoes are alive with flavour and lumpy with character. Their colour and shape with it's lumps and bumps are just meant to be painted.

Sunflowers and Red Wing Black Bird

Secrets of a Fall Garden 16x20 Oil on Canvas
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This time of year is a sensory smorgasbord with geese calling their way south, birds feasting on berries, crisp apples right off the tree, yellow sunflowers, fields with golden swaths, and the crunchy sound and rich smell of fallen leaves. As if those aren’t reasons enough to love fall there’s a particularly soft and mellow quality to the light. It’s a golden colour that infuses everything with it’s soft warm hue.

Back and Forth Between Still Life and Whimsicals

Peony on a July Afternoon 6x8 Oil/Canvas/Panel

Peonies, such seemingly fragile blossoms yet in spite of wind, hail and pounding rain they've hung in there long enough to be painted.

I'm once again exploring still life after a couple of years of working on a series of whimsical paintings featuring wildcats, birds and flowers. I am, as ever, in awe with the way light plays upon flowers, fruit and objects. Light and me, it's a love affair that never really goes away, it just sits quietly waiting while the whimsicals with their bright color and opportunities for imaginative play keeps me captive.

Some artists remain faithful to one style and medium then there are others like myself who are a bit more fickle. I've gone from watercolor to a scratchboard/watercolor/pencil crayon mix, then turned to acrylic, digital and eventually to oil paint. My style morphed and changed too, going from realistic to a naive and whimsical style when I began illustrating and then returning to realism once again when I began exploring oils and still life. Each style has a hold on me for a time but no one style ever wins, I work in whichever style suits my mood and the subject matter.


One thing I'm sure of, different styles and mediums enrich one another and they are all rewarding, I'm not sure I could choose a favorite. What about you, what is your experience with working in more than one style? Or are you loyal to just one? If you are an art lover, do you like to see an artist exploring or do you prefer to see them stick to one style and medium? Curious.

Symbolism in Art

 Journey On
18x18 Sold

Recently I had a conversation with some friends about how paintings are interpreted. How much of the understanding of a work of art is based on the various elements the artists use to get across their concept and how much of the interpretation is really influenced by the viewers own life experiences?

Sometimes the message is quite obvious and other times it's ambiguous and very much open for interpretation regardless of the artist's intent. My own work has it's own symbology which I hope comes across to some degree yet I rather like knowing the viewer relates to it in their own way too.

Journey On represents the passage of time, where it takes us, where we've been, how we get there and with whom. The moon symbolizes the rhythm of the years, the boat represents life's journeys and was inspired by ancient middle eastern vessels, while the cat and bird, two creatures typically not seen as companions become shipmates in this painting, as they do in much of my work.

As an artist or collector what is your experience with the interpretations of art? Do you get the same meaning from a work of art as the artist intended? I'm interested in your opinions.

Orange Wild Cat Oil Painting

Que Sera20x12, Oil on Canvas
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Another year has passed and with it some very good moments and along with some inevitable sad ones. We can't experience this great big wonderful life without having both, it's what gives life it's richness and depth. This painting is symbolic of our viewing of the past year, as we look back at the past and ahead to the future.

Autumn Inspired Still Life

Indian Summer Songs
18x18
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This painting was inspired during a walk through the forest to feed my chickens. The autumn light was a mellow gold that seemed to guild everything with the same dusty amber colour. I just stood there and smelled the fall air and enjoyed that gorgeous light, the mellow air, and the sound of aspen leaves flickering. It was a sublime moment which inspired a few golden toned paintings. It seemed right to include the cheeky blackbirds that visit our backyard pond in this painting of light and sunflowers. It's interesting that even though I'm not painting from life now light still influences my work.

New Website and New Paintings

You Can't Handle the Truth
30x36
Oil/Canvas
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Yes, this blog is black! I know some web designers and critics detest black blogs and websites but my work seems to look better on black so when I decided to build a new website I decided to take a chance on black. I wanted my blog to match somewhat so had to make the switch to black here too.

As well as being completely rebuilt my website has a whole new category of paintings which you can see at www.cindyrevell.com, click on oil painting then click on whimsical. My apologies for not providing a direct link to the portfolio but I have yet to figure out how to make the URL specific to a particular page.

After contemplating a completely new look for my website and analyzing a lot of website templates I finally chose Big Black Bag who seemed to have the greatest amount of flexibility with the design and type of packages available. In terms of ease, unless you choose a template and not manipulate it too much it's probably pretty simple but the greater the manipulating of the design the greater the amount of work involved. Nevertheless I like the ability to make more than a simple template change. Big Black Bag’s customer service is fabulous.

I'm continuing with these cat paintings and find it exhilarating to use my imagination and tell a bit of a story, to play with my favorite colors, to explore size, and see how loose I can get. The picture doesn’t seem very loose but in real life they are.

No, I'm not giving up still life but I'm truly enjoying these new paintings and have so many ideas that I just need to let it play out and see what comes of it. I've found that art I've done in the past, like the fast studies, my illustration work, and motifs I explored about 15 years ago have an influence on my work. I can see the still lifes and these new paintings perhaps getting a bit closer to one another. I am loving it.

Looking Back - Exploration in Art

Looking Back, 20x16, Oil on Canvas
© Cindy Revell

This last year saw years of exploration bear fruit. Experimentation is important to artists and by trying different mediums, styles, new color palettes, or unfamiliar subject matter we make discoveries that lend greater depth to what we are already doing or take us in new directions. I'm not giving up still life but I'm certainly enjoying exploring this new direction and indulging myself in working purely from my imagination and playing with color, pattern, and considering the symbolism of the objects in the paintings.

This first decade of the 21 century was a wonderful journey in my artistic life and what this next decade will bring I don’t really know but I’m certain that it will be no less exciting as the last. I hope this next decade is a rich one in your own artistic travels.

Last Peony of the Season - Oil Painting

Last of July, 6x8, Oil on Canvas
© Cindy Revell
$325 Framed
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I'm back to painting still lifes as I finish up the final painting for an upcoming show this weekend. Last of July was painted at the end of July when my peonies were done blooming and there was this one final, lovely blossom left.

This summer I did 3 peony paintings and kept jars of them near my easel. Their fragrance mingled with the lovely scent of oil paint. The smell of the peonies and my paints, the sight of the dried flowers, bottles, and bowls, all set out as I planned still lifes and left them there to inspire me, windows opened to catch the sounds of birds and a crowing rooster. Delicious.

At those moments I forget about the illustration assignments, commissions, and other projects that are waiting for me and just take it all in, such riches of the senses. Looking at that painting a few months later I remember just how it felt.

Combining Illustration and Oil Painting

It's an interesting back and forth process to switch between illustration and oil painting.They're very different stylistically but they each influence the other. Over the many years of illustration I've explored different ways of getting an idea or story across depending on the requirement for each particular assignment, that builds a bit of a mental storehouse to draw upon for subsequent paintings.

The idea of combining my illustration and oil painting has been lurking in the corners of my mind for a few years but it was a vague idea of exploring themes, patterns, and favourite subject matter in the naive style of my illustration in oils. I made a few stabs at it but it wasn't quite what I wanted, the vision was hovering but just not clear.

One day while doing my early morning writing I could see my vague idea become clearer. I was writing about my recent studies and the things that I was learning from them like painting colour more intuitively and much looser and freer brushwork when suddenly I could see how I could use these expressive ways of painting to combine my illustration style with the oils in a way that would be pure painting pleasure.

What to paint? I kept it simple, choosing motifs that I love like pattern, birds, cats, flowers, and still life. I began exploring different techniques and with each painting things began to fall into place. Where are they going? I'm not sure. I only know that it's the pleasure and exploration that's important for now and the joy of seeing how they change over the years. I would never have done this had it not been for all those years of illustration and then the oil painting, it's all the experimenting and the doing that brought me to these new paintings and it reminds me of the great importance of exploration in art.


Bird with Tulip & Vase, 20 x 16, Oil on Canvas
© Cindy Revell


Thoughts, 20 x 16, Oil on Canvas
© Cindy Revell


Spring Songs, 20 x 16, Oil on Canvas
© Cindy Revell


Russet Spring Songs, 20 x 16, Oil on Canvas
© Cindy Revell
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