::VERONICA FUNK::
  • Journal
  • Portfolio
    • Curriculum Vitae
    • Portraits >
      • Woman's Work
      • Extraordinary Women
      • The Grandmothers
      • Wunderland
      • Nasty Women
      • Heroes
      • Ahead of Their Time
    • 52 WEEKS >
      • Wildlife
      • Wildflowers
      • Storytellers
      • Gratitude
    • Fashion Plates
    • Sacred Vessel
    • Simple Pleasures
    • Altered Books
    • Free Art Resources
  • Galleries
  • eCourses
  • Login
    • Painting Animals
    • Painting Art Journals
    • Painting Backgrounds
    • Painting Bees
    • Painting Canoes
    • Painting CityScapes
    • Painting Flowers
    • Painting Hearts & Houses
    • Painting Landscapes
    • Painting Portraits
  • Contact

Looking back...

12/29/2017

 
It's been an incredible year...so many changes and though transition can be difficult, it always comes with beautiful growth.  So much has happened, from the graduations of both our daughters and a family celebration trip to Mexico to a change of workplace for me.  I have taught in-person and online, spoken, exhibited and shared my work in many venues in southern Alberta as well as continuing to support local arts and culture through continuing to be involved with the Mayor's Night of the Arts, exhibiting and painting in my community and painting the annual bowl in support of the Empty Bowls fundraiser for the Airdrie Food Bank.  I feel blessed when I look at the highlights:

  • continuing my 3rd year Bachelor of Fine Arts
  • travel with our girls
  • our girls' high school & university graduations
  • teaching with 21 SECRETS again
  • beginning my role as the Visual Arts Instructor with Bert Church Theatre
  • finding homes for all 52 WEEKS::Heroes series
  • three Naked Leaf tea tinsthenakedleaf.ca/
  • completing 52 WEEKS::Storytellers
  • being included in the 'Gathering In' exhibit at Lineham House Galleries
  • exhibiting, speaking and teaching at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium
  • contributing to the Canada150 Mural Mosaic project and to the Sketchbook Project
  • exhibiting with the Art Gallery of St. Albert 'Dreaming of Canada'
  • exhibiting at Sorso, Genesis Place, Airdrie Public Library, Evanescence Gallery, Inglewood Fine Arts, Effusion Art Gallery, Vernon Public Art Gallery and Mukluk Magpies
  • speaking and/or teaching for the Federation of Canadian Artists, Airdrie Public Library, Lakewood Elementary, Muriel Clayton & Meadowbrook Middle Schools, WH Croxford High School, and Torchlight Theatre
  • finally, contributing to several fundraisers including the Alberta Society of Artists and Empty Bowls and adjudicating for the Airdrie One Act Play Festival

Another 52 WEEKS Complete!

12/27/2017

 
Picture
I cannot lie...this one was a tough one.  I don't know if it was the subject matter or the fact that this was my fifth year of completing a painting a week.  But...seeing them all together makes my heart sing!  I wasn't certain if I would do this again because it was so difficult.  Then I realized that this was a year of great change, in career, in my children growing up to become young women, in the direction of my work, so I decided to give it another chance.  I'm taking a huge leap, based on watercolour landscapes that I played with last year, though this time I am adding texture and oils to the mix.  So here's to another year down and one more ahead.  The 52 WEEKS::Storytellers can all be viewed in my portfolio here (links on each photo to the complete post).

Something Special...

12/27/2017

 
Picture
This was a piece I was asked to create for Christmas which happens to be for a very special person.  These pieces which are filled with so much meaning can often be the most challenging but also the most rewarding.  Each layer of paint and pattern is selected with a purpose and each feeds into the final painting and require specific hand-cut stencils to embody imagery that is important.  As difficult as a piece like this can be to create, especially with the thought of the response of the recipient, as an artist it is also a very great pleasure.

52 WEEKS::Wuthering Heights

12/25/2017

 
Picture

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

​~ Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights


A somber tale of consuming passions and vengeance played out against the lonely moors of northern England.  The turbulent and tempestuous love story of Cathy and Heathcliff spans two generations — from the time Heathcliff, a strange, coarse young boy, is brought to live on the Earnshaws' windswept estate, through Cathy's marriage to Edgar Linton and Heathcliff's plans for revenge, to Cathy's death years later and the eventual union of the surviving Earnshaw and Linton heirs.

"Lake Louise"

12/21/2017

 
Picture
Lake Louise / 36x36 / acrylic on canvas
I had rushed to complete this painting before my daughter & I headed into the mountains to spend a couple of days taking photographs of her sewing projects (visit her blog here).  Now that I've lived with it awhile, I realized that it felt a little flat since I hadn't had the time to darken the darks and lighten the highlights.  Each time I go back into a piece that looks interesting, it can be a bit nerve wracking, but I'm always glad I did it...and I'm glad now, too.  There is a beautiful sense of light that was missing before.  It makes me happy.

Be you...

12/20/2017

 
Picture

It's a funny thing...

12/19/2017

 
Picture
The funny thing about inspiration is that it strikes at the strangest moments.  The past couple of weeks have been a busy time with completing a few commissions and generally just getting my year-end art affairs in order like taking care of deliveries and finances.  But, the other evening my husband took me to a hockey game in Calgary and I was inspired by the Calgary Tower.  So, not only did I begin another piece, but also adjusted a painting and am much happier with it.  It's interesting how working on one piece also inspires work-in-progress (or even pieces that I initially thought may be complete).  In any case, I feel like I'm actually getting somewhere and feel so much more orgazined than I usually am at this time of year, which is a wonderful thing!

52 WEEKS::Lolita - SOLD

12/18/2017

 
Picture

And the rest is rust and stardust.

​~ Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita


Lolita, Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.

52 WEEKS::Wild Rose

12/15/2017

 
Picture
After the challenge of deciding whether or not I will create another 52 WEEKS project and also flip-flopping about the subject matter and media, I have finally decided to do this for a 6th year and I'm actually beginning to look forward to it.  Instead of working on stretched canvas, I will be working on 6x8 canvas panels for two reasons:

1.  They don't require so much storage space.
2. They fit my Judon's plein air pochade perfectly which means I can travel and work anywhere much more easily.

My good friend gave me a copy of this lovely little book titled "50 Truths Worth Knowing" which is filled with positive inspiration to kick-start me and I think that I've decided to incorporate words from each week to use in the title of the works.  I'll have to add two more truths of my own but I think I'll do that at the end of this project...maybe by then I will have gained more wisdom.  I've also decided to use Winsor & Newton water miscible oils since I haven't worked in oils in such a long time, but with the option of being cleaned with water might make it easier on myself and my family.  And, finally, I want to incorporate heavy impasto texture, which I have always adored but struggled with in my day-to-day work (even though I wrote an article on adding texture for Cloth Paper Scissors magazine a few years ago) so I think I'll focus on applying colour with palette knives. 

This year's title "52 WEEKS::Wild Rose" was gifted to me by my daughter.  First, I want to focus on the landscape around me, Wildrose Country, as it gives me such joy.  Second, I feel like we are each a bit of a wild rose...which is where this lovely little book comes in.  We often need to remind ourselves of the simple truths in life, including nuggets of wisdom such as "even small steps are important" and "work can be sacred".  We are all perfectly beautiful in our imperfections but there are times we need to focus on the little things and remember that even our small contributions are beautiful.

So, if you have photos that you would like to share with me, I would love to see them and perhaps they can work their way into this little jewel of a series.  And I have to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has supported me on this journey these past five years and those who encourage me to continue.

Best 9 of 2017

12/14/2017

 
Picture
One of my favorite features of Instagram is the annual Best 9 collage for the year.  Not only does it make me happy to see such a colourful collage, but also reminds me of some of the things I have accomplished throughout the year.  This year I was reminded of the Amazing Airdrie Women Awards and my project which all live in new homes; of the 21 SECRETS: Tell Your Story online workshop which I have been privileged to take part as an online workshop instructor with Dirty Footprints Studio again; of incredible friends I've made through commissioned artwork and exhibits, such as the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium and Lineham House Galleries; and of trips to beautiful and inspiring places such as Whitefish, Montana and Banff, Alberta (my absolute favorite place on the planet!).
<<Previous
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Journal
  • Portfolio
    • Curriculum Vitae
    • Portraits >
      • Woman's Work
      • Extraordinary Women
      • The Grandmothers
      • Wunderland
      • Nasty Women
      • Heroes
      • Ahead of Their Time
    • 52 WEEKS >
      • Wildlife
      • Wildflowers
      • Storytellers
      • Gratitude
    • Fashion Plates
    • Sacred Vessel
    • Simple Pleasures
    • Altered Books
    • Free Art Resources
  • Galleries
  • eCourses
  • Login
    • Painting Animals
    • Painting Art Journals
    • Painting Backgrounds
    • Painting Bees
    • Painting Canoes
    • Painting CityScapes
    • Painting Flowers
    • Painting Hearts & Houses
    • Painting Landscapes
    • Painting Portraits
  • Contact