Reviewing January 2025

Happy New Year – a month and a bit late! I’ve been a bit preoccupied – thus the lateness in getting the blog going.

The year began with sadness as we celebrated the life of my dear brother, who passed at the end of 2024. Through most of January I’ve been caught up with planning a milestone birthday party for several family members.

All that’s past now, life has settled into a routine and I’ve been thinking about what to do with the blog this year. At this point I’ve settled on monthly posts featuring recent learnings and paintings to go along with them.

Paint Canada Tutorials

Late last year I purchased, through Acrylic University, the set of Paint Canada tutorials taught by Brian Buckrell. That means that every Friday of 2025 a new 30-minute tutorial is available to me.These tutorials are all landscapes, inspired by reference photos taken by Brian Buckrell or his late wife Cathy as they RV’d across Canada. We’re working our way across the country starting on the west coast. I can hardly believe I’ve already done six!

Things I’m taking away from Brian’s instruction:

Layering. He doesn’t believe in blending but painting in layers — a great method for fast-drying acrylic paint.
He encourages us to paint quickly using a large brush and in this way avoid getting bogged down in detail.
His abstracted landscapes are full of surprising colours.

I so enjoy the lighthearted attitude with which he approaches each project. Some of my favourite expressions and takeaways from the lessons so far:

“Commit” – after penciling in the subject, finalize it with acrylic marker.
“Bang it out” – quickly get something down on the canvas.
“Best average” – calculate a starting choice of whatever—shape, colour, value.
“.. you can change it; it’s acrylic” – be inventive; try stuff out; if you don’t like it, paint over it – it’s acrylic!
“Make it interesting.”
“The sky is the place you can play with colour.”

Here are my January paintings. If he graded them, I’m not sure I’d do well because I have a hard time being as loose and abstract as he encourages us to be. I am having fun with colour though and really enjoy painting scenes of my beloved BC!