Monday Inspiration: Yulia Biriukova

Yulia Biriukova, Prospector, Peter Swanson, 1934 (source)

Yulia Biriukova (1897-1972) was born in Russia, and Immigrated to Canada in 1929. She taught at the College of Upper Canada, and was well known for her portraits- which are collected by many galleries. I just love this portrait. His head is so small and his arms so big- maybe they really were like that- but I think it more of an exaggeration. It gives this enormous sense of power- that along with his solid blue shirt- which really acts as a big block of colour right in the center of the canvas adds to the feeling of strength. The minimal background with it's high colours, and the way the figure overtakes them makes you feel like this guy was a strong personality. Now wouldn't it be funny to find out that he was a mild mannered prospector?

Monday Inspiration: Louise Gadbois

Louise Gadbois, Woman with a Mandolin, (source)

Louise Gadbois, Femme au plateau des fruits (source)

Louise Gadbois (1896-1985), studied with Edwin Holgate, and John Lyman exhibited in Montreal and Quebec, interestingly she also did an exhibition with her daughter- Denyse Gadbois. She was best known for her portraits- which I think are very Modigliani-esque. I love her brushwork though, rough and choppy- I think it takes guts to let that much roughness into your portraits- most people prefer a more traditional look when it comes to that type of painting, landscapes are fine as rough as ever, but there's something about portraits that makes people yearn for a delicate touch.

Monday Inspiration 2014 is all about Canadian artists. Each Monday I'll pick a new one to profile- If you can think of any that you think I ought to look up- please let me know in the comments- I'd love to hear from you. You can find a list of the artists I've done so far here.

Monday Inspiration: Anna (Nan) Cheney

Anna Cheney, Portrait of a young Man, 1936, (source)

Anna Gertrude Lawson Cheney (1897-1985), studied at a bunch of different places, Newcombe Art College, the School of Medical Illustration, Johns Hopkins. She studied with Lilias Torrance Newton (whose influence is strongly seen here I think), Aldro Hibbard, and was a close friend of Emily Carr. She painted landscapes and worked mostly on the west coast of Canada.

I think this portrait is superb- I love that slightly off feeling in portraits. It's obviously not trying to capture an exact copy of the person- and though it's close to what he looked like I'm sure- you wonder if his neck was really that long, and nose quite so perfect. I think though- this style of portraiture is often much closer to capturing the soul of the person- or the feel of them- you get a sense of presence that you don't always get with a more exact image. It's terribly intimate, as I think a painting of another person should be, sometimes a technically perfect portrait feels cold to me- this exudes warmth.

July Photo Challenge: portraits

I just had to include four photos in this challenge- sorry! I'm always taking portraits-what mom isn't? They're my favorite (my thesis for my Fine arts degree was portrait based- an unfashionable thing to paint these days- but I love it). Any how last year I did a challenge the involved taking portraits of my kids weekly- and it did force me to get creative and think a bit outside the box- while also focusing on composition, and lighting etc. I noticed a huge improvement in my photos just from being mindful about things like that- and I see the same thing with this challenge. Of course it's easy to take dynamic portraits when your subjects are so...ummm...Dynamic?

I always take a ton of photos and sometime the outtakes are the best- the ones from that first flower crown shot are hilarious- they deserve their own post. If I only took one or two photos I would miss the best shots. Also if my kids are goofy (if! when, more like) I'll sometimes shoot between their poses instead of while they're posing- when they're killing themselves laughing about the thing they just did it makes for great genuine captures.

Posting along with A personal Photo challenge- check it out over there!

Monday Inspiration: Hannah Maynard

Hannah Maynard, Self Portrait- Trick Photography, 1893 (source)

Hannah Maynard, Captain Jack, chief of the Rupert Indians with his wife, 1868-78 (source)

Hannah Hatherly Maynard, (1834-1918), was born in England then immigrated to Ontario where she learned photography. After that she and her husband (also a photographer), moved to Vancouver Island where she opened up a portrait studio. I suspect this woman had guts, seriously, she also had four kids, which makes her one of the only female artists I've profiled to actually have children and a husband.

The Maynards did Landscape photography, but Hannah also did these wonderful 'trick-photograph' self portraits- in which there are several 'Hannah Maynards' all serving tea to each other and looking at art etc. They are really spectacular. These photos wouldn't be out of place in a modern gallery except we'd all be talking about post-modern ideas of the self, and service and motherhood, and a woman's position, or possibly mental health, or spirituality or something,  but because they're old you just sort of have the sense that they're really about the technical aspects of the medium, about exploring what she could do in the darkroom. They're probably really about both.

I think what I like best about these photos is that it gives a sense of who she was. That is so rare- to see people from that long ago and find a sense of kinship with them- that it happens with these photographs, that you feel as though you could sit down to tea and have a chat with this lady and it wouldn't be totally alien, like you get a glimpse of her as a real person, is extraordinary.



Monday Inspiration 2014 is all about re-discovering Canadian Artists. After completing a bachelor of fine art from a Canadian University you would think that you'd be well versed in Canadian art- but actually -not so much. Ask me about renaissance, or abstract expressionism, and I'm well versed, but beyond the Group of Seven or Emily Carr I'm a bit lost when it comes to my own countrymen- (let alone country women!).

 I'm not really meaning to do all women- but so far that's pretty much been so- I figure that the male artists are pretty well represented so I'll try to highlight more female artists than men- though I'm not doing only women. If you can think of anyone else you think I should look at leave a note in the comments- I'd love to hear from you! 

Photo Challenge: Colourful

Here is that last one pre colour editing- just for fun- to see what the difference is. 

I immediately thought of my girls when this months challenge came up, they are the bright spots around here for sure, literally and figuratively. The harder part is making the colours pop, and truth be told I did most of that after taking the photos- but boosting the saturation and in all cases lowering the gamma correction (lightness) in the bottom two, also bumping up the contrast a bit too. I usually take my photos on the light side- I prefer a more sunny look, and most of the time up here the sun is really bright, so a slightly overexposed look is closer to the reality. but it really did wash out the colours, and they popped so much more with a darker background, especially in the back lit photos.

Posting along with a personal photo challenge, it's a really nice way to prompt yourself into doing some camera work, stop by to check out the other's work too!

Monday Inspiration: William Brymner

William Brymner, In the Orchard- Spring, 1892 (source)

William Brymner, The Picture Book, 1898, (source)

William Brymner, The Vaughan Sisters, 1910, (source)

William Brymner, Lady with a Parasol, 1918, (source)

William Brymner (1855-1925), came to Canada in 1857, he studied in Paris, and then came back to Montreal, where he mentored and taught other Artists. He taught several of the members of the Beaver Hall Group. There was a wealth of info about him online- perhaps that speaks to a difference between Male and Female Artists (I've been sort off scraping up whatever images I can find for most of the females I've been writing about). They are wonderful paintings, detailed but still loose, and the later works are much more painterly in style.

It's interesting to see the style change in Lady with a Parasol and The Vaughan Sisters- two things likely make these two images so different in style- Parasol was painted 8 years later, but also The Vaughan Sisters was a portrait, and likely commissioned- which just goes to show that some artists (most even?) can change their style to suit the situation. Often when I'm teaching art to kids the subject of Picasso comes up- and they are mostly shocked to see his earlier works-in particular how realist they are- apparently they think that Picasso painted cubist works because that was as close as he could get to 'realism'???? Odd. But I digress...I really love the way you can see his style shift subtly between paintings, the beginnings of soft impressionist brushwork in the early works, and the bold brushwork of the later images.


Monday Inspiration 2014 is all about Canadian artists. Each Monday I'll pick a new one to profile- If you can think of any that you think I ought to look up- please let me know in the comments- I'd love to hear from you. You can find a list of the artists I've done so far here. 

Series

I see photos like this and I think- 'oh man- she is growing up so fast!', and then I see the next photo:

...and I think not so much...


It seems almost impossible to photograph these kids with just one photo- they almost always make series that are so much more compelling.

I was puzzling over a vivid dream I had of running with two lions- I wasn't scared of them at all- they didn't seem to want to hurt me- they were ferocious, and powerful and magnificent, and just wanted me to play with them.

Then I saw these photos and it sort of makes sense-

And Baby A is no different: it's almost impossible to photograph her in one go- they're always stories. 

Of all the bad things about digital cameras- no solid pictures- literally thousands of inane photos online, and thousands of photos on the computer- but only one or two bad printouts in frames- the fact that everyone thinks they're a photographer, the way that you can video something and photograph something and not actually look at it while it's happening in person- I love this ability to capture whole sections of time, and keep it on your computer. You'd never waste actual film like that, you'd never take forty photographs in one five minute session, or encourage your kid to make silly faces for the camera- over and over again. We may not have photo albums anymore- but we do have series of photos, and that's really precious. 

23/52

A: My beauty in the sunshine. This girl is mostly smiles, all the time, she is so funny, and she loves to be so, though her favorite joke is pulling my glasses off my face. Also she learned to clap this week, and will sometimes sit rubbing the palms of her hands together absentmindedly, which is just too darn cute.

N: Just enjoying an impromptu picnic lunch, lying on the grass "belaxing", she has such a sophisticated vocabulary, saying things like " Nothing like a picnic on a hot summer day!", though she still changes the "r" on ridiculous and relax to b, which is "bidiculously" adorable.

Posting along with Jodi.

This Week

:: a rare self portrait in one of my newly made spring tops- vintage cotton- that is perfect for working in.
:: lovely little juice glasses found at the local flea market.
:: mother's day flowers, in colours that make me want to mix new glazes.
:: the giant blank canvas that is the bare garden, this space seems to shrink as things grow.
:: planting N's garden.
:: the littlest potato digger.
:: our super gnarly leftover potatoes- which will hopefully grow- this year we will set them out in the sun after digging to induce dormancy- so they don't sprout so much.
:: the most essential gardening tool for anyone with a baby- a sling.
:: father-daughter onion planting- which is becoming quite a tradition.
:: hurrying to plant the Hazelnut trees before the rain- in the rain.
:: waiting out the sudden burst of heavy rain in the garden shed.