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“I Think I Might Be Dreaming, no. 5″; 48″ x 48”; oil & collage on canvas Several years ago I read that Michelangelo on his deathbed said: “It is a pity I am dying when I am just beginning to know my craft.” He was not young, had been working at his art for a long time. I have an old, worn paperback book about him and his sayings, yet I still wonder how so many pithy statements managed to be saved in print. I am grateful they were. It is all so pertinent to the mind of an arti

A couple of days ago a friend asked, via text, what my favorite color scheme is. She is poling people and wouldn’t tell me why. So I’m left wondering. Color scheme? For what? My response would be too lengthy to go in a text, although I think it will anyway (exercise my thumbs). Currently, for my house, I am preferring whites. But I do have intense color accents on the stairwells. All the places I lived in New York were like this, mostly white with a bright red, blue, green wa

(Coincidentally, no. 1; 38″ x 46″; oil &  collage on canvas) I had an exhibit up for three weeks in Halifax at the Secord Gallery. They have a wonderful way of hanging the work. It consisted of mostly large paintings (several at 46“ x 46” and 60“ x 72”) and some small pieces (5“ x 3” and 8“ x 8”). The range of color was different from last April’s exhibit at Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery where the tone was more limited. Here I played off on the colors of the Saint Mary’

Lately, I’ve been struggling with blue. Again. I have several blue paintings on the go and each of them seems to have a different problem to solve. My main issue with blue is that it can be too pretty and I don’t want that. But then, if I make it dark and brooding, sometimes there is just nothing to see. So I suppose I could say it’s how to put the spices in the mix. Not just struggling with blue, but what will make it more than blue. I’ll take one more kick at it today. #Non

Yesterday, when painting, I had a major insight about how to work with the color field. I have been working on some blue paintings, not my easiest color choice. But I like the challenge and when they work, at least in the past, they are very strong. These were giving me a hard time. I was about to throw in the towel. I had been thinking I needed to limit the marks I make in order to get closer to the impact I created with the more limited palette (for the exhibit at Saint Mar

I’ve been obsessing a bit recently about the painting hanging over my piano now for about three years. I didn’t want to sell it for a long time; now I do. I’m ready to let it go. Especially after this morning. I realize what it is I needed to learn from it: first, it has a dramatic edge I have been avoiding recently. Not just avoiding, but actually unable to allow to stay even when I was able to make it happen. So, I was thinking: “Leya, you have mastered the art of subtlety.

IMG_3592, originally uploaded by leyaevelyn. A little over a week ago, some people contacted me to say they really liked my work, especially the large pieces, and especially the blue paintings. I didn’t have anything in blue, large, at that point, but that comment did set me off. I had three, five by six, triptych panels (translation: nine panels to make three paintings) ready to work on. All the preliminary collage and silkscreen done, ready for paint. So, I decided now was

When I was painting the walls of my house recently, I put together chips of the various colors I wanted to use: various grays, light and dark, dark blue, split pea green, robin’s egg blue. My friend, Sylvie, said “If this were a painting, what color do you think it need?” Red, of course. But I had had so much red in my house, I was trying to avoid it. I kept saying no, no red. But eventually, the red had its say. Now the wall going down into my studio is a deep tomato red. It

The ice breaking up on the lake, originally uploaded by leyaevelyn. All I see is paint. Big slashes of paint. In all the colors I’ve been using for the past few days. After weeks of reworking older pieces, this week, finally, I’ve been starting some new paintings. Quite a few, actually. Completely virgin canvases. It takes several weeks of preparation to get to this point: stretching, priming, collage application, and silkscreening. By the time I finally do put the paint to t