From slow to fast

Do you feel like time is speeding up?

At this time of year it seems to me that everything is accelerating after the stillness of winter and the slog of mud season. Seasonal businesses have been opening, farm fields are being plowed, the lobster fishery season has just begun, and ferry service is starting May 1. The ferry between PEI and Nova Scotia docks about 15 minutes from where I live, and I am surrounded by busy fishing wharves, so it makes a big difference to local traffic.

While the world around me is speeding up, I don’t have a lot of capacity to keep up with everything I would like to participate in, but I am trying to paint more often and more quickly, so here’s another time lapse for you:

This is the fourth session of approximately 30 minutes on this painting. I know it’s about 30 minutes because I have been trying to get in the habit of setting a kitchen timer, because if I forget to take breaks my hand-eye coordination starts to deteriorate, I get frustrated, and often end up undoing what I had already accomplished before I quit in exasperation. Much better to stop myself too early than too late, while things are still going well.

I hope you enjoy watching my creative process. I am working on feeling more confident about having people watch me paint, to get ready for a few opportunities for painting in public, in real time, live, and on a time limit:

1. I have applied to be a participant in the Charlottetown qualifier for Art Love/Éclat d’Art, a live speed-painting competition. The finals will be part of the Festival Hom’Art in Shediac, New Brunswick, in September.
   • The Charlottetown event will be at The Guild on Saturday, June 7, but applications are still being accepted until May 12, so I won’t know if I’m chosen to participate until later. I will keep you updated. Tickets are available to purchase to be in the audience, and I hope to go watch if I’m not picked to compete.
     
2. Cape Bear Lighthouse and Marconic Station and Lorraine Vatcher of Red Cliff Gallery will be hosting a Plein Air Painting day on Sunday, July 13, at 42 Black Brook Rd, in Cape Bear – the scenic south east corner of the Island.
   • All are welcome to come make art, or to watch the artists at work. Free admission to the Lighthouse grounds and Signal Shop (and tours of the Lighthouse for a small fee). Chef Cesar’s Wood Islands Cafe Express food truck will be on site! 
     
3. There will likely be a Plein Air Painting day this summer at MacPhail Homestead, too – details to be determined.

Meanwhile, I’ve also got a newly finished painting I am very excited to share, but I haven’t had a chance yet to take good pictures and colour-correct them to show you. Next time!