Tag: #Canadianart

It’s been a while

Posted on by evebarbeau in Uncategorized
A Dan and his Horse

I haven’t done much writing of late, and that includes blogs. I’m not sure if I’m suffering from writers block or just tired of trying to sort out a recalcitrant time travel novel.

But I’ve been busy. My daughter and I are doing Inktober19. Check out our work at @Michelification and @evebarbeau on Instagram. Our styles are quite different, and somehow similar.

Above is a painted version of a digital drawing I did some time ago. A Dane and his Horse, is digital art made in Krita, an opensource software that is excellent! Check it out too, if you’re interested. By the way, I used a still from The Last Kingdom as my source for this image, and followed it fairly slavishly because this was a practice in digital painting more than anything else. Check out The Last Kingdom Twitter feed and watch the series on Netflix. Or better yet, read the book by Bernard Cornwell.

Better Than You Thought

Posted on by evebarbeau in creativity, Painting, Studio, Uncategorized

Time distance makes such a difference to your perception!


When I received a gift of a new laptop for my birthday, I was left with a perfectly usable but older laptop with some USB issues. That laptop made me feel guilty because though I love new tech, I hate rampant materialism. I wanted to give that laptop to someone who would be happy to have it.


I found that someone, but it required me to mail it to another city. Okay, no problem. But how to protect it while Canada Post had their way with it. Surely, I had some bubble-wrap somewhere.
I found some, wrapped around a roll of old paintings. (In my house, almost every bedroom closet and all available spaces are filled with paintings.)


I unwrapped the roll of paintings labelled Lilith series part II and found the above works. I created them circa 1995-97. Two of them each measure 31″ by 96″ and the other is 31″ x 108″. All are acrylic and collage on canvas.


I’m surprised to find that they’re quite good. Amazing what a little time and emotional distance can do. I’ve had a couple of experience like that lately. Not long ago I read an old story and thought. Wow! That’s pretty good.


So, don’t be hating the stuff you made. It isn’t fair to you and to the creations. Keep working, it’s the only thing you never run out of, the work. And the work is really where it’s at.


Mind you it’s nice to be a little surprised, now and again, at how you nailed it.

Making Lemonade

Posted on by evebarbeau in Age, Learning, Painting, Process, Uncategorized, Working Hard

2019-05-16 08.44.14
Old Woman #1, 2019, oil on paper, 5 x 5″

Some time ago, someone gave me sheets and sheets of fabulous d’Arches watercolour paper. This is seriously expensive paper: deckled edges, cold pressed texture, and thick. It has to be at least a 250-pound paper. Bond paper, the kind you use in your printer, weighs about five pounds per ream (500 sheets). This paper is 56 x 72 centimetres. If paper weight is measured is the same with all papers, 500 sheets of this paper would weight 250 pounds or more. The paper does not buckle or wrinkle when you get it wet.

And did I mention, that it is very expensive?

The thing is, I don’t like it. I don’t like how it takes water mediums. And I don’t like its rough texture. It’s been kicking around for ages. I’ve moved it from one studio to another and used very little of it. It occurred to me, recently, that if I gave it a good coat of gesso I could practice oil painting on it.

Years ago I painted in oils—when I was a kid really—and I didn’t have much of a clue on how to use oils. It seemed like a good time to learn.

The gessoed paper works well for this purpose.

2019-05-16 08.15.54
Old Woman, #2, 2019, oil on paper, 10 x 8″

I’m continuing with a foliage motif in my egg-tempera paintings, but on this paper, I decided to do portraits of old women. Above you have portraits of two colourful ladies whose photos I found on Pinterest.