Lily S. May–Life with Art
Here's what I'm working on now--a variation of the piece I showed in Learning. This time, I've used only the watercolour crayons, both wet and dry. I'm slowly building up colour and texture and paying attention to shapes. I believe the piece is a work in progress--the more I contemplate it, the more aspects I see… Continue reading Learning 2
This week, I happily received the copy of Clive Hicks-Jenkins' book, Hansel and Gretel. In it, he has brilliantly reimagined the fairy tale. I ordered it last week from the U.K. and it arrived faster than some packages from other parts of Canada! Clive Hicks-Jenkins is one of my favourite artists. He shows a wide array… Continue reading Hansel and Gretel
Last week, while I was home with a cold, I began experimenting with an old water soluble crayon set I have. I find painting/drawing on an easel a lot easier physically than printmaking with the pain of repetitive strain I've acquired from lino and woodcutting. So, I'll return to the latest print after a break.… Continue reading Learning
In honour of summer and the Pride Parades here in Toronto and around the world, here's a hot pink and rainbow coloured gouache painting I made several years ago. It's called The Swimmer.
I have kept journals--diaries--on and off for the past 40 or more years. In the 1990s and early 00s, I hand wrote a huge amount in dozens and dozens of lined notebooks--mostly recording my dreams and feelings but also world events and my activities. I've been working on a big project, going through my journals… Continue reading The Nature of Making Art
Here's 2 photos I took today at the Art Gallery of Ontario of David Milne's Black Waterfall. This is the painting I love that I wrote about in 2014 and included in my last post, A Poem for an Old Woodcut. David Milne lived from 1882 to 1953 and as far as I can tell it appears that 50 years… Continue reading Black Waterfall
As I continue turning some of my early prints into booklets, I'm playing around with words I might include with the prints. This last print I've been working with (the one that's also in my previous post) has a lot of black ink in it. And that got me thinking about some writing I did a… Continue reading A Poem for An Old Woodcut
I have loved this autumn. Last week, I was on the grounds of Todmorden Mills Heritage Site to see an art exhibit and enjoy the still colourful day before the more muted part of autumn arrived. A few years ago, I started experimenting with black and white photography in the fall just to see what would arise in… Continue reading Captivated by Autumn
It's federal election day in Canada. In honour of that, and after voting earlier this morning, I'm posting this portrait I painted of our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, in 2009. It was autumn then, as now, and I happened to have some ornamental gourds in my apartment. I placed one of them on his head… Continue reading Election Day in Canada
Here's another painting that I don't have hanging up at the moment that was good to see again as I was organizing the art give-away I held. I'm keeping this in my collection. I painted it in 2009 with water soluble oil paints on canvas. It was one of several expressive works I did--meaning that I allowed… Continue reading Revisited Oil Painting
Arts of May 