Two Upcoming Portrait Painting Workshops

I have two upcoming workshops that I will be teaching this month. One will be held in Nelson, BC from August 11th to 13th, and the other will be held in Lake Country (near Kelowna, BC) August 25th to 27th.

These three day portrait painting workshops will center on the experience of painting from life. Each day will include a demonstration, discussion and individual instruction at the easel. Discussions will include proportion and structure of the head, stages to developing a painting, as well as form, shape, value, colour, edges, balance, unity, harmony, light and modeling with colour temperature.

Here's the full write-up for the Nelson one. For more information about either workshop, email Bev at beverleybobshe@yahoo.ca

A Morning of Plein Air Painting

Check out the new video the filmmaker, Jesse Ewles made of me, Juan Martinez and Sara Sniderhan painting my lovely sister, Jessica Rae Gordon, outdoors before I moved away from Toronto!

Beyond Certainty: Flaws of Form

It's neat how sometimes there are themes that run through a few shows that I'm in all around the same time, and recently there have been a couple shows that highlight female figurative artists. The Exhibition "Beyond Certainty: Flaws of Forms" will take place at the Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts (984 Queen St West, Toronto) from June 22 through July 3rd. There will be an opening reception on Friday June 24th from 7 to 9pm. I'm actually in Norway apprenticing with Odd Nerdrum for a couple months right now, so I wont be able to attend, but I hope you all go and take lots of photos for me!! I'll have eight of my latest paintings in it, including the two below as well as the two from my previous post.






















"Indigo," oil on canvas, 10"x 8"






















"Christina," oil on canvas, 10"x 8"

New Paintings of Friends

Here's a couple new paintings I just finished of my friends here in Toronto. I'm moving away from Toronto next week (flying to Norway first to apprentice with Odd Nerdrum, then I'll probably return to BC for a bit or something). I'm really going to miss all my friends in Ontario and I was so happy to get to paint Christina Mazzulla and Nicki Brooks before I leave!


















"Looking Inward," oil on canvas, 24"x 30"























"Nicki," oil on canvas, 18"x 14"

Exhibition of Female Canadian Artists in Toronto

I have 6 paintings included in the exhibition "An Ordinary Aspect," which will be held at the Joseph D. Carrier Gallery in Toronto from June 2nd to 27th. This group exhibition of female Canadian artists explores the concerns women have for the ownership and health of their bodies; for the social and cultural roles they take on; and for the challenges that stereotypes present to a woman’s feeling of self worth. There will be a reception on the evening of June 2nd from 6:30 to 9:30. Hope to see you there!

Gushy and Grateful

Hey Guys! I'm feeling all gushy and grateful right now so I just thought I'd write a quick post to tell you all about it. Yesterday I received a book in the mail from a good friend. We have a neat friendship in that I seem to just randomly connect with him like every few years, whenever I need like guidance about where to go with my art (and life) from here. So recently we started writing again and he asked if I had ever read the book "Letters by a Young Poet" by Rainer Maria Rilke. I hadn't so he totally sent me a copy! I pretty much spent the whole day yesterday laying in bed reading it and I can tell you it is amazing and exactly what I needed to read. I highly recommend it to all you artists out there, and actually just to everyone in general. It's sooper moving to read these heart felt letters from Rilke that he wrote to a young poet (who in the introduction states that their correspondence started after he wrote a letter to Rilke, who's work he really admired, in which he 'revealed himself without reserve as he had never done before or since to another human being." I get tingles just thinking about it :) Anyway, here's a quote that stood out to me from it so far:

"...have patience with everything that is unsolved in your heart and try to cherish the questions themselves, like closed rooms and like books written in a very strange tongue. Do not search for the answers which cannot be given you because you could not live them. It is a matter of living everything. Live the questions now." ~Rainer Maria Rilke (pg 21)

and actually that got me interested in reading more of Rilke's stuff, and I have since stumbled on this other quote by him, not sure what book it's from but it's beautiful.

"I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other." ~Rainer Maria Rilke

So anyway, I am just gushing with gratitude to Jay for sendin me exactly what I needed, and thought I'd take a moment to point out how awesome random acts of kindness are and how much we can help each other on our journeys :) People are amazing. Oh, and I started a word document where I'm going to keep track of cool quotes, so if you have any I'd love to hear 'em (it doesn't just have to be Rilke quotes either;)

I may as well end this post with my all time favorite quote ever, said to me at 14 by my 21 year old friend Dez at he put his hand on my heart:

"Don't draw back from anything you feel is important." ~Dez (I don't even know his last name, but his advice has stuck with me;)

lovek!

My Painting Installed in the Great Canadian Theatre Company

I am so excited that my painting "Who Am I? The Performance of Everyday Life" is now installed on the walls of the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa! (1227 Wellington Street West) The theater is right up the street from Cube Gallery (1285 Wellington Street West), so people can view my big painting in the theatre, then continue a block up the street to the gallery to see more of my work. :)




































Apparently it was a "terror to install," but they did it! Here's a pic of the installation team after their accomplishment:








































"Who Am I? The Performance of Everyday Life," oil on linen, 80"x 50," 2010