Forest Tales

I love the forest. For me it’s a mysterious and nurturing place that soothes my mind, body and soul. As a child I loved stories of fairy-tale forests, trolls, myth and magic, and it’s this subject and symbolism I wanted to explore and to visually express through my art.

View fullsize

Midsummer Forest

Forest Tales is a project that began as a series of paintings with a story to tell, each painting taking the viewer on a fairytale journey into the land of their imagination. In the large scale canvases the detailed shapes and vibrant colours bring the forest to life. When looking closely at the painting, one discovers the suggestion of a fairy, a bird, or other creature… seemingly hidden within the painting.

While creating this series, it’s brought me back to my childhood love of fairy-tales and the mythical beauty of the forest and nature...

Trees are seen as wise and ancient beings and in many cultures and religions of the past, the forest was a sacred place for worship. In stories and legends trees are symbols of wisdom, strength, endurance, protection, secret knowledge, life and fertility. In fairy tales the forest symbolises the unconscious and is a place of initiation. Entering the dark forest and the unknown, one confronts hidden aspects of the self in order to experience a re-birth and gain a new understanding and knowledge of life.

View fullsize

Dream Catcher

You can read a fairy tale HERE that I wrote while painting Dream Catcher.

As I’ve painted and created Forest Tales, I’ve become more aware and more conscious of the importance of trees and the forests of our earth.

Where I live, I’m surrounded by the huge, grandfather trees of the rainforests in British Columbia. Whenever I can, I make my way into the woods for a run, a hike, or simply a leisurely walk. Not only is it healthy fresh air, but it’s also therapeutic! In Japan this is a practice called shinrin-yoku. Shinrin means forest and yoku means bath, so it translates to forest-bathing. You don’t need to exercise to receive the benefits of the forest, you only need to take in the atmosphere of the forest through your senses, so just taking time out from your busy life and going into the woods brings positive health benefits.

Here's a little video I made last year when I was in Norway. It's a beautiful, tranquil place and it really is therapeutic!

With all the recent wildfire devastation we’ve experienced in British Columbia and other parts of the world, I wanted to do something positive for the environment, and to help replenish our beautiful and much needed forests. So... (I’m excited to say!) I’ve partnered with One Tree Planted and will donate $1.00 for every product sold (that's one tree planted!), and for every large painting sold, I'll donate $100 (that's 100 trees planted!!). 

My goal with my art has always been to bring more beauty to people's lives and to the world. Now I can also help, in my own little way, to give back to the earth and help to keep it beautiful.

Here are a few more reasons why trees are so important to the environment: 

View the Forest Tales Project

A Happy Mistake

Forest Floor Detail

I've made mistakes and I have some regrets... And if I could go back, I'd do some things differently... But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that sometimes what is thought to be a mistake, often opens up a whole new way of doing things. Sometimes a bad thing turns out to be a good thing (or vice versa!).

In other words, there truly is no such thing as good or bad. Mistakes are really just experiences. It's how we learn, grow and create...

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

— Scott Adams

What I'm painting now is because of a mistake I once made. When I painted Norwegian Woods I had a deadline to have it finished and dry, so I used a fast-drying medium that I mixed with my paints. This caused the paint to be much thicker... Normally I paint a grey underpainting and then add layers of colour, but this time I couldn't do that. The paint was too thick. 

So instead of wiping the paint off and starting again, I thought, how can I make this work? I took a chance and tried something new... 

And it worked! 

So I'm doing another :) This painting is also part of my forest series. I'm just using five tones of grey, black and white. With lots of abstract details, I'm working my way up from the bottom in one, thick layer of paint. 

Creativity and new ideas come from taking chances on doing things differently. So, as it turns out, I'm quite happy with that mistake!
 

“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”

— James Joyce

Dream on...

When I was very young, in elementary school, I was often called out by the teacher for daydreaming and not paying attention. I’d be gazing out the window, lost in the reverie of another time and place, when I’d hear a voice... far away at first, then louder and louder, until I’d hear the teacher’s voice saying sharply, “Anne!” and I’d be shocked back into the reality of the classroom. I got the message that daydreaming was bad...

And so, eventually I adapted to the primarily left-brain world.

Thought is the labour of the intellect, reverie is its pleasure. ~ Victor Hugo

The left brain brings your mind into sharp focus, one thing at a time. You pay attention and your mind contracts.

The right brain allows your mind to soften and expand... bringing awareness of many things all at once. You play with attention.

But it is this lightness of thought and energy that opens you to creativity, inspiration, sudden insights and inner knowing.

Daydreaming is actually good for you.

So, dream on...

Daydream: To have dream-like musings while awake.

“I live in two unique worlds, travelling between both with just the opening or closing of my eyes. ”

— Richelle E. Goodrich

Dream Catcher, a Fairy Tale

A few years ago I lived in a little cottage in the woods. The cottage was surrounded by trees… Great, big grandfather trees. It was very dark in the winter evenings as I made my way home through the woods (with the help of the light shining from my cell phone!). Inside the cottage I felt safe though, nestled amongst the trees and listening to the rushing stream that ran past the cottage and the occasional owl or chattering raccoons.

It was during this time that I began my forest series of paintings. My painting Dream Catcher is of the forest near my cottage in West Vancouver. While painting Dream Catcher, a little story began to form… and so I wrote it down. It’s called Dream Catcher, a Fairy Tale.

You can read along in my blog here, or flip through the shortened version I created on Steller.

Dream Catcher is the first in a series of paintings that explore the forest as a place of fairy-tales, myth and magic. In stories and legends trees are symbols of wisdom, strength, endurance, protection, secret knowledge, life and fertility. In fairy tales the forest symbolises the unconscious and is a place of initiation. Entering the dark forest and the unknown, one confronts hidden aspects of the self in order to experience a re-birth and gain a new understanding and knowledge of life...

Read Dream Catcher a Fairy Tale on Steller

Read the full story on my blog

View the Dream Catcher Collection

Creativity and Happiness

I’m working on a large new painting and just beginning the drawing process. A large painting like this will take weeks to complete, but when I put pencil to canvas I start to lose myself in my work… I move into a state of “flow” where time disappears… And I’m one with the process of creation itself.

The outside world with all it’s timelines, deadlines and pressures disappear. In the moment they don’t matter.

Having a creative activity, or any activity that puts you in this state of flow, brings meaning to life from the activity itself. You feel happy.

We use our skills with the belief that the outcome is the reward. We get paid for our work… A job well done.

But then, the more money we make does not necessarily make us any more happy. The true reward for the work we do comes from being in this state of flow… Where the reward is not in the outcome, but in the happy and positive feelings that are generated by the activity itself.

So as I sit back and look at these new lines I’m putting on canvas, I feel this happiness... There’s a sense of eager anticipation, for what I’m creating, but at the same time a feeling of contentment.

Because in the moment, this is all that matters...

Home and Hearts

“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

In honour of mothers... On Mother's Day

Home is our sanctuary, where we:

relax into being ourselves,

play with our inner child,

paint the walls green and pink,

dig in the dirt,

grow something,

love somebody else,

love ourselves even more,

snuggle with a warm blanket on a Sunday afternoon,

hang "go away" on the door whenever we want,

clean and tidy often... or never,

launch from and return to,

are truly ourselves.

~ Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Freedom and Creativity

“Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.”

— Gail Sheehy

What is certain is what’s known and what is now past.

It’s what’s in the box.

Outside of the box is where the possibilities are. It’s the great unknown... the Land of Uncertainty.

Creativity comes from this place.

Freedom is in the Land of Uncertainty... A place where all possibilities exist in any moment...

In the uncertainty of each moment is pure freedom and creativity...

The heArt of the matter...

Today I'm resting and thinking about what matters most...

“You are never more essentially, more deeply, yourself than when you are still.”

— Eckhart Tolle

When the whirlwind of life threatens to take me away... my studio is my sanctuary.

I can gaze out the window and watch the busy world go by, but inside it's quiet and still.

To create you first must be inspired. But inspiration doesn’t come from busy-ness. It doesn’t come from pushing hard to reach goals or left-brain thinking, planning and analysing... It cannot be forced.

Inspiration comes from the right-brain, feminine, intuitive way of being. When you are in this state, you're open and receptive to insights, new visions and ideas... Inspiration comes when you're relaxed.

What we create in this world comes from the non-physical realm of the imagination. To create requires the feminine energy of intuition and insight as well as the masculine energy of action to give it form.

It's a fine balance.

Too much action without rest and we can easily become depleted.

Too much day-dreaming without action and we'll never see the results of what's possible.

It takes inspired action to create.

So, after a flurry of activity, today I'm resting. No matter what happens out there in the world, I must always stay connected to my Self (my heArt).

It’s the heart that matters most. 

Finding my way home...

I love my early morning walks, before the world gets busy and I still feel partially in another realm... It’s almost as if I’m walking a bridge between two worlds. With so many thoughts swirling in my head, walking helps to sort them out, each step giving direction and focus... creating a path for my day.

Today I'm going for a walk to the sea. It's a cool morning and the sky is just becoming light...

As I walk along the ocean an eagle flies overhead... and it feels magical. The sea is calm and the sky is overcast. Everything feels grey and enclosed. Life is still... Every sound amplified... my squeaky boots, the gulls, the gentle lapping of waves on the shore... The rain is lightly falling and feels like soft needles on my face.

I’m in the moment. 

In the present moment all our senses are open. We are one with nature and the flow of life... 

In an instant now I'm five years old and gathering shells on a beach... turning rocks over to discover pretty little yellow and rainbow coloured shells among the seaweed. I can hear the seagulls calling as they fly to their nesting island close by... and it’s windy.

I love the wind.

I put my favourite shells in my pocket. I’m not sure what I’ll do with them... but in that moment I feel as if I’ve captured the beauty of nature...

And in that moment I experience my soul. I am home. 

I still have those shells. They’re sitting in a little dish on a shelf in my room... A reminder of home.

A reminder that... whichever path I take in life, I can always find my way home.

Inspirational Art Quotes

I love quotes, so here are 52 of my favourite inspirational quotes to celebrate a New Year... Enjoy!

Have a Vision, a Dream. Believe in that Vision. Live that Vision with every fibre of your being. ~ Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To create one's world in any of the arts takes courage. ~ Georgia O'Keeffe

Everybody has a creative potential and from the moment you can express this creative potential, you can start changing the world. ~ Paulo Coelho

True art is characterised by an irresistible urge in the creative artist. ~ Albert Einstein

I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do. ~ Georgia O'Keeffe

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. ~ E.E. Cummings

Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing. ~ Georgia O'Keeffe

Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees. ~ Marcel Proust

Art is not a thing, it is a way. ~ Elbert Hubbard

Art is when you hear a knocking from your soul — and you answer. ~ Terri Guillemets

How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and with that one, is what we are doing. ~ Annie Dillard

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

To be an artist is to believe in life. ~ Henry Moore

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. ~ Anaïs Nin

You cannot find happiness by chasing after it. Happiness comes from doing what you love to do, and from being who you truly are. ~ Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. ~ Oscar Wilde

The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. ~ Leo Buscaglia

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. ~ Emerson

Do not compromise yourself. You are all you have got. ~ Janis Joplin

‎If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path. ~ Joseph Campbell

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are. ~ Kurt Cobain

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones. ~ John Maynard Keynes

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. ~ G.B. Shaw

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.  ~ W. M. Lewis.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

No artist tolerates reality. ~ Nietzsche

There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth… not going all the way, and not starting. ~ Buddha

Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect. ~ Alan Cohen

Patience is also a form of action. ~ Auguste Rodin

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about. ~ Joseph Campbell

The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable. ~ Robert Henri

Be faithful to that which exists within yourself. ~ André Gide

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. ~ Steve Jobs

Success in any endeavour depends on the degree to which it is an expression of your true self. ~ Ralph Marston

Your best work is your expression of yourself. Now, you may not be the greatest at it, but when you do it, you're the only expert. ~ Frank Gehry

At the end of your brush is the tip of your soul. ~ Andrew Hamilton

The goal of art was the vital expression of self. ~ Alfred Stieglitz

We express our art in everything we say, everything we feel, and everything we do. The creation is ongoing, it is endless, it is happening in every moment. ~ Don Miguel Ruiz

The beginning is the most important part of the work. ~ Plato

The chief enemy of creativity is good sense. ~ Pablo Picasso

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~ Thornton Wilder

To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive. ~ Matthew Arnold

The things that make me different are the things that make me. ~ A. A. Milne

Creativity is intelligence having fun. ~ Albert Einstein

Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. ~ Albert Einstein

Expression is the essence of thought. ~ Tony Caldero

Everything you can imagine is real. ~ Pablo Picasso

A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown. ~ Denis Waitley

Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder. ~ E.B. White

When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be. ~ Patanjali