My solo gallery show opens in 5 weeks from tomorrow, and part of me is cursing the timing (that it’s also GARDENGEDDON season) but most of me is really, really enjoying the motivation to paint my butt off.
Carpenter Ant (Camponotus herculeanus, Hymenoptera: Formicidae). This is a queen post wing-drop. 11x12 inches, acrylic, watercolour pencil and charcoal on pine.
Fore-and hind- wings of Aeshna juncea, the Common Hawker Dragonfly.
Acrylic on 30x10" canvases, diptych, will be hung horizontally when completed.
The light in my studio is pretty awesome for working but pretty shitty for no-flash photography. I have an aversion to flash, btw. Oh well, it looks a lot better in RL, and will be even better-er when I’ve finished details in the wings.
*WIP=Work In Progress, something I plan to update regularly and get me to finally get off my ass with this site.
It’s about time for an update, methinks! The Holiday Season insanity (which included a week of an entire household of sickoes) is now finally dwindling away and I am back on my feet. Thank goodness because I have some very exciting news to share about things that I am going to be working on in the coming months!
First of all I have been offered an exhibit opportunity at the Marjorie Wood Gallery at the Kerry Wood Nature Centre here in Red Deer from June 20-July 27!! My first solo art exhibit! I am so very excited! Not only to have a venue to show a large number of paintings for several weeks and to see what kind of feedback I receive, but to have it at the KWNC. It’s the perfect, logical place to show a series of large insect portraits.
Secondly, through the grape-vine I have been introduced to an addictions researcher in Edmonton who is looking for a local artist to illustrate a human brain for the cover of a textbook he is collaborating on! HOW COOL IS THAT?! (Answer: So, so very cool.) We are hashing out details and the deadline is in March.
So, both of these exciting endeavors have made me realize that I really DO need a proper functioning studio. I’ve spoken to a friend about possibly renting a room in her huge, beautiful old home (which is far too big for her family). We’ll see how that turns out, in the meantime I have very graciously been given a van’s worth of potential building supplies (and/or art supplies?) from a local business and the rest of January (hopefully not ALL of the rest of it) will be spent revamping my existing ‘studio’ into something much more functional.
And then? It’ll be time to get to work!
Ah. What can I say. Right now, it’s so near the equinox and I’m up to my eyeballs in boiling apple snot and drying prune plums in the oven.
As far as keeping up to date with my Work, a person can feel free to check in on my Facebook page, where I (generally) keep things up to date.
There will be some tweaks and tinkering going on here for a bit while Mike and I get this site set up and ready for OMG REAL PORTFOLIOS! Please stand by (and don’t hesitate to give me feedback about usability and readability).
School starts tomorrow for T (Grade TWO) and next Tuesday for L (Preschool!!) and I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to getting back to work. It has been The Best Summer Ever as far as I’m concerned, a lot of swimming and camping and hiking and gardening and treasure hunting and dragonfly watching and even more glorious nothing but I think this fall holds a lot of potential for me and I’m so eager to get the ball rolling.
First off, I’m having prints made of my biggest & best acrylic paintings made. I’m going to have the listing up in my Etsy shop right away and because I’m new to the prints thing and I’m not sure what sort of demand there is, I’m offering a limited time pre-order option with free shipping!!
Secondly, I’m re-thinking my approach to large-scale insect art and am eager to try huge watercolours instead -or perhaps stick to acrylics with water-colourish application onto large sheets of illustration board. They make it that big, they must do it for a reason, right? Acrylic on canvas certainly is fun, in a wild sort of way, it feels luxurious BUT I don’t feel like I have the control that I’d grown used to while using watercolours and gouache on illustration board. And, the more I think about it, the more I really, really want to to massive, morphologically correct, gorgeous insect illustrations. Partly because I don’t think anybody else out there does it and we live in a time which craves niche-markets, but mostly because I feel like that’s where my path lies (all hippy new-agey star-gazey stuff aside, I do feel my Muse prodding me not-so-gently in that direction).
And, third, I’m dying to do a HUGE (oversized queen?) quilted bedspread of a cherry-faced meadowhawk (common dragonfly around here) -with the wing venation all hand-quilted/embroidered. How beautiful is that going to be?! Yup. I’m either nuts or ambitious or, quite possibly, In My Space. Mostly the latter, I suspect because I’m so excited to try it all, I wish I didn’t need sleep. Or food. Or have such fantastic children. That require sleep, food, bandaids and string bridles for their horse stuffies*.
Fourthly, I need to make better use of this site. The fabulous help from Mike of Those DeWolfes Creative is a chat-thread away, it’s time for me to park my butt and figure out what kind of knob-tweaking and code fascism I require of him.
So, the Stagnation Of Summer is coming to and end and the pot is starting to simmer. Hold onto your butt, let’s see where this ride takes us.
*Re-reading that it sounds like I’m wishing I didn’t have children and I felt I should clarify that that is total blogshit (like bullshit, but in blog-terms). In case anyone is wondering.
As it will be each summer, I will feel obligated to apologize for my lack of Work, but not feel too terrible about it, because I am instead spending most of my time doing things like this:
I will have some time to myself during the last week of July, at which point I will be certain to have my Etsy shop updated.
I haven’t got my paintings up onto my Etsy shop yet because I gave myself a week to wind down PLUS I’m looking at shipping options -not only because of Canada Post’s strike, but also because CP shipping costs can be nasty. Once I am done figuring out options, I’ll get everything up.
The Artwalk was.. well, *sigh* it was insanely wet. It poured, hard, the whole time and the wind was crazy-gusty. I handed out a few business cards and met some really cool people but didn’t sell any works. I’m not to worried about it, though, it was a pretty mellow first showing for me and that’s just about the sort of pace I like. 
Until things get rolling more here, my Facebook Page will be a good source of news and artwork.
As the Red Deer Artwalk approaches (3 days!) my excitement and, yes, anxiety grows. I’m feeling pretty positive all around, though, I hope it lasts.
Thank you for popping into explore charitybriere.com
This site will house my artists portfolio as well as share news & events. At this time, the site is under construction while I focus on getting as much done and prepared for the Red Deer Artwalk (on Saturday, June 18) as I can.
It also does (or doesn’t, depending on the situation) help that I am an avid DIYer and prefer to tinker and tweak as much as I can on my own, so things may change a lot around here for the first while and I’m likely to make a mess of things once in a while. That said, I am extremely grateful to the very helpful Mike DeWolfe (of Those DeWolfes) for his assistance, advice and excellent geekery while getting this going.
