Hello again

2022 is off like a flash!

Hello again,

The theme for 2022, so far, is Woosh! The month of January flashed before my eyes. I swear it was only a week long, not a month like regular months. We have some catching up to do.

First up, your chance to win a painting — I’m going to randomly draw a name of one of my subscribers for a small painting at the end of next month (end of March 2022). So, if you’re on my subscriber list, you’re eligible. Not sure which painting yet so stay tuned. Some people claim a free painting is better than free beer. (They’re my type of people).

Painting a scene from along the Atlantic coast, February 2022.

Plein Air Project 2022 — We’re all searching for ways to escape the pandemic. For the past few years, I’ve been poking holes in pandemic life in a number of ways, escaping through a monthly book club, a writing group (both meet via Zoom) and especially by painting from life in my personal sketch book.

This year, I’m upping my plein air

¹

game by busting out my oil paints and pochade box

²

. It feels soooo great to get outdoors in the fresh air, hunt for the perfect spot and just paint. Plus, I stand when I paint in oils (unlike painting in my sketchbook, where I’m always seated) so there’s a physicality to painting in oils that I like. You could almost call it a sport. Maybe someday, it’ll be part of the Olympics.

But seriously, it’s exhilarating. In the past week alone, I’ve stood on the edge of the Atlantic, watching brilliant sparkling water crash against ancient rocks and boulders, watched the tide go out and leave layers of ice glistening on a beach and painted scenes from a small fishing village that I sketched twice in my sketchbook two summers ago. There’s a real satisfaction in that and yet another escape route from pandemic life.

CBC Radio — And speaking of finding ways to break up the pandemic, I was interviewed recently by a local radio host about the book club and writers group mentioned above. CBC Radio’s Vanessa Blanch, is doing a series of stories about people doing interesting things to help manage the challenges we all face during the pandemic. Her series kicks off on Tuesday, February 15th on radio morning shows across the Maritimes. First up? Our book club, so tune in to hear from me.

www.MaryAnn.ca — My website, www.MaryAnn.ca is almost done (although websites are always a bit of a work-in-progress). Last year, I had a fancy smancy website that squished my images (deal breaker). So I switched to an easier to manage website that doesn’t smoosh images of my paintings. The transfer for my domain took from November (around the time I signed up for Substack) until the end of January. My goal in all of this is to reduce the time and effort of updating a website so I can do other fun things (like paint, read, write etc.) Happy to report that digital frustrations are decreasing and I have more time to enjoy life as a result.

Fireflies — And lastly, a poem called “Fireflies” from my book, From the Wild: A collection of original poems. I animated this poem about 5 years ago. It’s my humble contribution to the amazing animated poetry world out there. I have long admired Billy Collins’ The Country and How to be alone by Andrea Dorfman. The only poetry book that’s come up in our (previously mentioned) book club (so far) is Lesley Choyce’s In Praise of Small Mistakes (Ekstasis Editions), which I thoroughly enjoyed. Choyce has a lot of animated poetry on YouTube.com you might enjoy those ones too.

1. Plein air is a fancy French word for painting outdoors.

2. A pochade is another fancy French word for sketching (paint) box. Click here for the pronunciation of pochade.