New Year Blessings to All!

Lost in the 60's - oil on canvas 20 x 16 inches SOLD

Thank You ... For the Music! - oil on canvas 14x11 inches GIFTED TO SON ANDREW

Cherry Pink... and Apple Blossum Time - oil on canvas 16x12 inches

Minuet d'Hiver - oil on canvas 36 x 30 inches SOLD

The Magnificence of Algonquin Park Through the Seasons - oil 4 panels (Quadriptych)
6 feet x 12 feet

"A painting can help us to think of something that goes beyond this senseless existence."

-Gerhard Richter (realist painter)

Just a quick post to offer my deepest thanks to each of you who have made this blogging venture so rewarding and fruitful during 2011! I have learned much about the world that each of you lives and creates in! Thank you all for sharing so generously!

The purpose for my blog is to provide an open and non threatening forum where people can exchange their ideas... processes and even elements from their private lives. That seems to really have taken root successfully... judging by the fact that my 198 posts to date since 2009 have generated just over 20,000 page views(Not including my own visits). That fact speaks for itself.

While many folks simple read and move on without needing to comment... the fact remains that they plugged in... if only briefly and were given the opportunity to glean what they might have. Others have taken the time to comment and to add their own compliments... impressions and to offer personal extensions of what is in the post.

I find this interface highly motivating and inspirational to have company on an adventure where I usually find myself alone... either in the field or at my easel. Sometimes that "third eye" observation or bit of encouragement is sufficient to help one overcome discouragement and to pass those times when creation is blocked entirely.

New Year is traditionally a time to look back over the year and to examine and to reflect upon what has been accomplished, as an aid to guiding one into the next year. I went back over this year's output... which I feel has been generous and exciting for me personally. I have selected my favourite 10 paintings completed in 2011 and will offer them to you in two batches of five... the first five tonight. Some are major works if you use size as the measure... but truthfully... I feel that several of the smaller pieces offer as meaningful and powerful an impact as do their larger kin!

I hope that you enjoy seeing some of them again and to see that paintings should be undertaken to express the feelings you have experienced. By sharing these with others... you offer the gift of insight into your own world of thought and experience. They transport others across vast distances which they perhaps might otherwise... never have the opportunity to visit.

As I mentioned in a comment just this past week to one of my regular visitors... Beauty exists everywhere around you and in every part of the world. You simply have to seek it out and if you paint honestly... combining that beauty from without... with a genuine feeling of beauty you feel from within... the result will always be a beautiful canvas to record that relationship!

I recently heard an interview on CBC radio featuring Gloria Steinheim. These words from the interview are worth remembering:

"Everyone needs to tell their story."

If painting is your "Voice"... be proud to speak using it... no matter how good or bad you might feel it is. At least... you can be proud... that "You"... were heard! You might be pleasantly surprised to know that others value it!

Good Painting!.... Everywhere!... and in Every Season... in 2012... to ALL!

Warmest regards,

Bruce