Behind the scenes - studio notes

30 x 40 x 3/4 "

as yet untitled, Pure Abstraction Series

(c) Deb Chaney 2009

wired and ready to hang.

Mixed Media, Acrylics, Sand and Oil on canvas

$1200 USD Original Available at date of this post 11/3/09

inquiries debchaney@live.com

Feng Shui Recommendation: Placed anywhere in your home/office this piece supports your inner health and vitality. To further amplify this area of your life, place this painting, with the intention to support your health & vitality, in the center region of your home/office.

I had a nearly two hour tour of Emily Carr University last Friday. As my close friends know and many of my artist contemporaries, I have never had any art school training and have always been curious about the "other side", that is, academic art school. ( I hold a B.Sc. in Earth and Ocean Sciences)

The art school tour was inspiring in that the one very cool thing about art school is that you get to learn a little bit about so many areas - wood work, metal work, sculpture, photography, digital design and so on with access to tools, equipment and technology that would otherwise cost you bundles if you were to pursue it on your own. The sheer enormity of their lending "library" of equipment was staggering - everything from video equipment, cameras, and things I have never heard to to make, record, edit, copy and do your art in whatever form it may be.

The tour ended by a little talk from one of the admissions staff who talked about how the main criteria for getting into this art school was based on your portfolio. I always thought a portfolio was simply a collection of your finished work - in my case- th epaintings I'm done and I'm proud of, not so.

Apparently, what the portfolio examiners are most interested in are your notes, sketches and process that are behind the finished the art that you make. I came home and got inspired to organize the notes I've been keeping for over a year now on this Pure Abstraction art series.

Below is one of seven pages of journal notes - my process behind the scenes - what goes on in my mind - in creating this series of paintings entitled Pure Abstraction.