Winter Watercolours IV
January 17, 2022
This snowscape was commissioned by Ellen for her newly-acquired home some years ago. Some commissions can be challenging simply because the painting the person who does the commissioning visualizes in his/her head may or may not mesh with the painting the artist ends up producing. At that moment when ‘the big reveal’ happens, one can always tell in an instant whether it’s elation or disappointment.
It is always less stressful to have one’s available work displayed online or on gallery walls, and the viewer can either choose one, enjoy seeing them but decline doing any purchasing–or, in some rare cases, enter into negotiation over the price. Personally speaking, if we’re allowed to negotiate over big ticket items like houses and cars, why not artwork? After all, few of us have the ability to waltz into a gallery and say, ‘I’ll take that one…..and hmmmm, yes, that one, also…..and, can you hurry, please? I have my driver waiting.’
And yes, Ellen loved it.
Winter Watercolours III
January 14, 2022
It seems to be just a very human thing to anthropomorphize whatever we come across–give everything from fish to insects to birds to apes to dinosaurs to pets a human personality. We even do it with cars and ships. Growing up, I was read the Thornton Burgess stories, like “The Adventures of Grandfather Frog” and the adventures of “Sammy Jay”. You may, rather, have been read “Winnie The Pooh” or “The Tale of Peter Rabbit”. Every animal in them was cast in human likeness.
And then came along the biggest anthropomorphiser of all time, Walt Disney:
There’s a downside to creating animals in our own image–they don’t get to be entities on their own terms, self-definers of their unique life force and world and surroundings. One filmmaker who decided to take it to extremes was Alfred Hitchcock, whose film ‘The Birds‘ cast them as human haters who couldn’t wait to swoop down and become feathered masters over anyone walking around on two legs. Seeing all those crows on telephone wires, silently waiting for the signal to begin wreaking destruction was the very definition of creepy.
All these ravens want in this painting is whatever can be gleaned from a long-before harvested crop of corn:
[still available for purchase, contact weisserlance@gmail.com]
Winter Watercolours II
January 8, 2022
Seneca Park in Rochester, New York, was sledding paradise in the 1950s. Only the James Dean wanabees–cigarette-flaunting attention-starved teens–did Dead Man’s Hill: a rocky, tree-stumpy, pretzel-twisted cliff-face down into oblivion. The story went that some guy ripped the Red Flyer from a little kid and went down it standing up and got squashed against a blue spruce. What we all did was the one right beside it–Pine Tree Hill–with its rollercoaster steep drop, and triple-humped finish, ending nearly at the edge of Seneca Park Pond.
“Come home when the snow turns blue,” was our only caution before heading off–that magical time when the sun turned orangey-gold and dropped just below the fir tops, the shadows going from light grey to a rich cobalt. By the time we schlepped home, there were yellow lemon reflections over the deep violet yards beneath everyone’s dining room windows, and we knew we were just in time for supper.
Winter Watercolours
January 5, 2022
One of Kamloops’ older homes, the Fort House at the corner of Fortune Drive and Fort Avenue, is so named because it is on land formerly part of The Hudson Bay Company’s fur-trading post.
“. . . According to a listing of heritage buildings published by the Kamloops Museum and Archives years ago, the fur-trading post was located there from 1843 to 1862, at which point the Hudson’s Bay Company moved its post to Mission Flats.
However, the company continued to use the land for agriculture until B.C. Fruitlands bought it in 1906 and subdivided it into lots of five or so acres.
The Fort House was built about 1907 for Archie Davis, a railway employee. ‘The house, a foursquare design with a cottage roof common for that period, was originally located on extensive acreage’. . . ” [source: https://armchairmayor.ca/2014/05/24/answer-man-reader-wants-to-know-the-story-behind-the-old-fort-house-on-fortune-drive/#prettyPhoto%5D
….waiting it out
December 28, 2021
Don’t you just love this little seasonal week-long swale coming between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, when that over-filled helium balloon of a holiday finally bursts and we’re left sitting in our bathrobes and pajamas, watching anything other than ‘Home Alone 2’ and Alastair Sim doing ‘Scrooge’, and don’t have to dress for dinner or anything else?
However, at -27C (-17F) and winds carrying blasts of drifting snow against the windows, this is exactly how it looks out there:
I have to dress our little dog ‘Ashton’ in his insulated jacket, carry him to his chosen spot near the shed in order to do his duty, and, as soon as he’s finished, snatch him back up in my arms and carry him back inside. Even then, he’s shivering in my arms.
Wishing you and yours a very Happy New Year!
The Last of this year’s Christmas Cards
December 22, 2021
With all the pop-up Christmas cards sent, a different hand-painted option was chosen for the remaining and final card to be mailed off:
Thank you for following my blog, and I wish you and those you love and care for a lovely yearend, whether having celebrated Hanukkah, about to celebrate Christmas, or dancing under the full moon, Yule log blazing in the fireplace, quaffing something hot and spiced, celebrating over another Solstice!
Pop-up Christmas card progression, con’t . . .
December 16, 2021
….with the final design carbon traced onto a cream-coloured, blank notecard, the image is completed in watercolour —
…..and Christmas trees added, cuts carefully made with an x-acto knife, and scored folds added to then oh-so-carefully make the folds and the cuts pop out. And once a successful Christmas pop-up snowy cityscape with Christmas trees was successfully done, it was time to then make fifteen more of them . . .
The biggest surprise when doing this was discovering how well a dollar store package of six blank notecards with envelopes received watercolour. Painting on them was almost as forgiving and receptive as my go-to Arches Hot Press #140 watercolour paper — and, a package of 6 is $1. Even the envelopes could be festively painted over and made to look handmade.
Pop-Up Christmas Card Progression
December 13, 2021
Designing a hand-painted watercolour pop-up card for Christmas began in August because there were going to have to be seventeen of them in time for mailing.
Here is a look at the process and progress:
Try A Little Tenderness
January 1, 2021
Daring to re-write Otis Reading’s hit song for this brand spanking New Year:
“A word soft and gentle makes life easier to bear,
You won’t regret it, people won’t forget it–for love is our whole happiness
And it is all so easy. Try a little tenderness.”
by Lance Weisser
Wishing you a more tender, gentle, and forgiving 2021.
True Lovebirds
February 14, 2020
It is only the adolescent Ravens who gang together in raucous, food-finding frat parties. Once they find their true love, Ravens are almost always seen in pairs, and stay paired with their one-and-only for life.
watercolour, 7″ x 10″, Arches 140# Hot Press Paper
by Lance Weisser
Maybe no box of chocolates for his soulmate, but one of those shrivelled crab apples would be at least a stab at making a Valentine’s Day gift.
The Long Wait
January 17, 2020
Two days ago I left the house at 9am. Between then and returning at noon, our pipes had frozen. It was -23C (-9.5F). On the coldest day so far in 2020–with pipes freezing all across Kamloops, B. C.–the search for an available plumber was on. Four tries later, I snagged one just finishing up in our neighbourhood, and an hour-and-a-half –and $165– later, we heard that lovely sound of water bursting out of multiple taps.
“The Long Wait”, 10″ x 8″, watercolour on art board
by Lance Weisser
Seeing our rescuing plumber to the door, I saw we’d gotten some mail. It was our first-of-many, colourful Spring Seed Catalogs.
Forest Eve
December 13, 2019
Growing up, our house fronted a very large and treed city park in Rochester, New York, a city which has always received a great deal more of its share of snow than most due to what is known as lake-effect snow, when moist air over Lake Ontario contributes to great snowstorms, and, to our delight as children, ‘snowdays’ and their resulting school closures.
We’d head to Seneca Park with our Flexible Flyer sleds in tow for entire days of weaving down between the pines and firs, avoiding known rocks, stopping just before plunging down into Seneca Park pond.
The admonition from our mother was, ‘just head home when the snow turns blue’. Blue snow happened around 4 pm, and we’d make it just in time to change out of frozen snow suits and hit the dinner table, our cheeks bright red, our legs and fingers still tingling.
‘Silence Broken’
8″ x 10″, watercolour on art board by Lance Weisser
part of ‘The Small Works Show’, Kamloops Arts Centre, Kamloops, B. C., Canada
Our Kind of Winter
December 3, 2019
Having lived nearly 20 years in Vancouver and Victoria, B. C., Canada, where snow is a novelty and rain is the norm, it is a delight to then have restored the four definite, uniquely-blessed Seasons which we have here in Kamloops, B. C.
I’m a winter and cold month lover. Let me count the reasons: sweaters; hot spiced drinks; hearty stews and bread; cold room/many blankets; blue snow at dusk; birds at the feeders; bare-branched trees; lights under snowy pine boughs; woodpeckers at suet blocks; snowdrift patterns; long purple shadows; pre-dawn owl hoots; snow-muffled dog barks; pink-cheeked kids with sleds; fired-up logs; the music of the Season.
 watercolour by Lance Weisser
Arches Hot Press 140# Paper; 5″ x 9″
Small Works
March 15, 2019
In my city of Kamloops, British Columbia, our Kamloops Arts Council hosts a number of different painterly events throughout the year. One of them was called ‘The Small Works Show’, an annual fundraiser whereby the artist gets half the proceeds and the Arts Council gets the other half.
Unlike most art shows, this one allows patrons to walk out the door with their purchase rather than wait till the event is over. No little red dots on title cards here!
Participating artists are allowed up to fifteen pieces, and if/when one piece is purchased, another is immediately put in its place. So I contributed twelve paintings, and was pleased to have sold seven of them.
This little piece (rather crudely photographed before being matted and framed) was given a new home, and as time goes along, I’ll post others which were also purchased.
I am very grateful for the commitment and dedication of those heading up our local Kamloops Arts Council.
Life Partners
March 7, 2019
Ravens take around two to four years to mature and before finding their mate, hang around in teenage gangs according to some research, but once they do mate, they are monogamous and establish a territory for themselves.
I most often observe Ravens in our Interior British Columbia setting in pairs, unlike their crow cousins which gather in huge numbers.
by Lance Weisser
“The raven is symbolic of mind, thought and wisdom according to Norse legend, as their god Odin was accompanied by two ravens: Hugin who represented the power of thought and active search for information. The other raven, Mugin represented the mind, and its ability to intuit meaning rather than hunting for it. ” [https://www.whats-your-sign.com/raven-symbolism.html]
Here a ‘chuk’, there a ‘chuk’
March 2, 2019
Sometimes our guests awaken in the morning and come in the kitchen looking confused, ‘what is that strange sound coming from the back of the house? It sounds like a bunch of chickens being strangled.”
There are a number of birds named after their call–for example, the Whip-poor-will, Bobwhite, Killdeer and Chickadee. Now add to those the Chukar Partridge, which populates our back mountain ridge and does this: “Chu-Chu- Chuk-Chuk-Chuk-Chuk-ChukCHUKCHUKCHUK!!!!”
This is always the male progenitor of a brood (known as a covey) of some dozen or so chicks who often is announcing their collective descent down the ridge to wreak havoc in our vegetable garden. All one needs to do then is saunter down the back steps to suddenly frighten them to death as they go up in a giant, dreadful whir of feathers and squawking, after which the male will scold at me from atop the biggest rock, his ego bruised.
Native to Eurasia and Asia, including, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, along the inner ranges of the Western Himalayas to Nepal, Chukars were also introduced to Europe and N. America. [wikipedia]
Lance Weisser
They are to me one of the strangest creatures I’ve ever come across.
They are either brazen as hell, or scared out of their freekin’ minds. Their markings are as odd as their call, their mannerisms are as odd as their habits (in our garden their choicest morsels are the tops of our onions–I mean, who eats the tops of onions?)
When you google them as a subject, you usually find sites generated by hunters in the ‘Lower 48’ who are on the prowl for ‘the illusive Chukar Partridge’ all decked out in camouflage. I’ve yet to hear of any hunters in our area on the prowl for them, but believe me, we’ve got Chukars and they ain’t illusive.
Here’s one in action, for your listening pleasure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q09GNpev6sk
Winter Corn
February 26, 2019
Yes, it is probably apparent by now that I have an ongoing fascination with Ravens. I’m not alone. There’s a woman in the historic house section of our city of Kamloops not-so-affectionately known by her neighbours as ‘the crow lady’, whom I depicted in an earlier post entitled ‘Where The Heart Is’:
She is known as ‘the crow lady’ because starting in late autumn and all through the ensuing winter, ‘crow lady’ fills a number of her vintage bird baths with cat kibble as corvid bird food. Her historic home then becomes wreathed in a continuous flight of ascending and descending crows, ravens, and starlings, and their distinctive din of calls and caws as they attack her bird baths.
I do believe there’s even a by-law ‘crow lady’ continuously violates, but it doesn’t seem to dint her enthusiasm for ensuring her lovely noisey visitors are kept fed and satisfied.
In tribute to my friend Joan (aka ‘crow lady’), I offer up today’s honouring of local ravens, these few trying their best to find themselves a few kernels of corn.
No doubt when they’re through scratching away here, they’ll give up and head over to Joan’s.
A Winter’s Eve
February 23, 2019
It snowed yesterday, the kind which floats down like sifted icing sugar, giving the impression that it can’t possibly amount to much, except it simply stayed that way for the entire afternoon and into the evening. And as I was cooking dinner, I glanced out and saw a van spinning its wheels, barely able to crest the top of the hill just below our house. That icing sugar now lay a significant number of inches deep, making the mule deer tracks under the bird feeders in our red maple appear as quilted dimples, leading off across the whited bedspread of the yard.
The mule deer–a party of three–come down from our backyard mountain ridge and go to town on the neighbourhood’s cedar hedges around four in the morning. Now, I’m not one to get all soft-hearted and nostalgic over having deer around, simply because they dine on just about anything except what mother nature provides in ample supply up beyond our neighbourhood: emerging tulips in the front–all manner of vegetables in the back–and everyone’s cedar. The other morning around five one of them confronted our little dog Elmo in the predawn pitch dark as we did our morning walk. Neither of them moved for a great while until the young buck got bored and sauntered off with its two pals to see what other landscape deconstruction they could manage before daybreak.
‘School’s Out’
April 9, 2018
Not far from our Kamloops, B. C., home is the village of Pritchard which used to have an original one room school occupying a corner of a farmer’s pasture–a school he himself reputedly attended as a boy–that no amount of seeking to have it lovingly restored bore any fruit with historical groups or municipalities.
Fearing its derelict floors and frame would be responsible for causing trespassing children accidental injury, he reluctantly tore it all down some five years or so ago. But fortunately I managed to capture its classic image with my camera while it was still part of this farmer’s horse paddock, and I’ve painted a series of watercolours using it as a focal point.
Since it no longer exists, I choose to place this old school in settings that depart rather dramatically from where it actually had been (on a rather non-descript flat field right beside Duck Range Rd).
‘School’s Out’, watercolour by Lance Weisser, 14″ x 16″
Arches Hot Press 140 lb. Paper, Sold
The ‘how’ of ACEOs
April 6, 2018
To gain more know-how about the way ACEOs are collected and acquired, just go to eBay and view the huge number of them being sold/auctioned:Â Â https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=aceo+original+painting&_sacat=0&_from=R40
You’ll see the quality contrasts, the styles, the subject matter variety, the variety of mediums, too–as well as price, with some going for $40/ea to $1/ea.
Below are examples of how I personally approach doing ACEOs:
‘A Westsyde Winter’, ACEO by Lance Weisser, Arches Hot Press 140 lb Paper, sold.
Once one of mine is matted and framed, it is generally priced at $25 to $30US. Unframed, $20US. But I’m not beyond letting interested people barter for them because what is most pleasing to me is having a person get an original watercolour that is within his/her means. As painters, we really just want people to enjoy what we do, and know our work is being appreciated and displayed.
If interested, please just email me at weisserlance@gmail.com.Â
I can work from an emailed attached photo, or your personal subject matter ideas. It can be mailed to you wherever you may be — postal costs will be built into the final price 🙂
ACEO #2
April 4, 2018
Here’s another 2.5″ x 3″ art card–the same size as a baseball card. My experience with them is that watercolours simply have to have protection from the elements, so the only way I’ve ever sold ACEOs is matted and framed behind glass.
I find 3″ x 3.5″ metal frames and cut mats to fit, and sell them that way. The notion that they are to be traded and sold in the same way baseball cards are is to fail to take into account how a miniature original watercolour needs to be treated in order to be acceptable for the buyer. IOW, they may be the same size, but they aren’t baseball cards, lol.
‘Lone Pine’, watercolour by Lance Weisser, 2.5″ x 3″, Arches Hot Press 140 lb Paper, Sold.
Pinantan Country
March 5, 2018
Pinantan Lake is about twenty minutes from Kamloops, British Columbia, where we live. It is a small community spread around the little lake’s perimeter and prides itself on being independent, artistic, and avant garde.
Although this painting is not of an actual barn or photographed scene, it attempts to capture the spirit of what the area looks like under a snowy mantle when viewed from the road leading towards the lake. I’ve done it from my collective memory, rather than choosing to make use of photographs or while on location.
‘Pinantan Country’, watercolour on Saunders Waterford Hot Press Paper 90 lb., 9″ x 12″ Sold
Finished Painting: ‘Raven Winter’
February 16, 2018
It is snowing again, and is likely to continue through today and tonight and into tomorrow. As my friend Shiela says, snow today is water tomorrow, meaning we live in a characteristically arid part of British Columbia (our backyard mountain ridge has many cacti plants) and so every source of water is cherished. The snowmelt from the mountains is crucial to ensuring our lifeline, the Thompson River, is of normal size.
Around here, many people kind of roll their eyes and sigh when learning we’re getting another ‘dumping’, but I’ve always delighted in snow and can now sadly envision a day when there won’t be any. Our living situation is such that I can handle clearing the driveway without much effort, otherwise I might be joining one of the eye-rolling crowd.
Here is the painting ‘Raven Winter’ that is now framed and ready to be presented to my friend Patricia Kellogg as a possible choice in our painting exchange deal:
‘Raven Winter’, watercolour on treated art board, 9″ x 12″
Stage Two: ‘Raven Winter’
February 14, 2018
The painting for my friend Patricia Kellogg is taking shape. The treated surface of the mat board I’m using to paint on was/is achieved by applying a product by Daniel Smith called ‘watercolor ground’. It comes in a jar and is painted onto any surface one desires, instantly turning it–once allowed to thoroughly dry–into one which can be painted on using transparent watercolour. So, glass, metal, wood, masonite, anything of the kind can basically become a surface with the characteristics of watercolour paper.
Stage One: ‘Raven Winter’
February 13, 2018
My watercolourist friend Patricia Kellogg [https://www.facebook.com/Patricia-A-Kellogg-357357001050096/] and I are doing a painting exchange. I acquired one of hers of an artichoke plant in late autumn–that expressive form plants take when frost renders them lifeless, yet beautiful even so. And because she has a couple of mine with ravens in them, she wanted one more and so here’s the first stage of it.
The surface for this painting is treated mat board and the medium is transparent watercolour. It is a 9″ x 12″ piece. Once it is finished I will enjoy taking it over to The Red Beard Cafe where we have our monthly coffee and seeing if she likes it. I’ll also bring a couple of others with me to provide a choice.
weisserwatercolours 