2 new paintings added to the Spring Favourites Gallery. Left to right: Let's Get Lost, 2015 acrylic & mixed media on canvas, 30" x 36" & Rise, 2015 acrylic & mixed media on canvas 36" x 48". Do you have a favourite?
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I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to everyone who came out to support the opening of my 10 painting exhibition at Vive Juicery during Salt Lake City's Gallery Stroll. I couldn't have asked for a better venue. I couldn't have asked for more loving support. If you didn't have the chance to attend the opening, the show will be up until mid-December.

Consistently voted the #1 workshop daSilva Fine Art has to offer, I am pleased to announce the addition of another workshop to the fall 2015 schedule: Fearless Metallic Abstract Painting on Saturday, November 20 from 9 am - 3 pm. For more information and to register: Swinton's Art Supply in Calgary, AB.

Before the desert kicked my ass and I got a bad case of heat stroke (the entire trip was cut short on my account), I got to see the famous arches of Moab. I also realized it's no wonder I always reach for Utramarine blue and Yellow ochre to make a bold statement during my demos: They go so well together. Complementary colours at their best. Me? Not even close to my best.

I've never been to a place quite like this. I feel like I've landed on the surface of a different planet. Everything feels "other-worldly". The vast pools of salt, the seaweed made crisp by the harsh sun, the crunching of bones beneath my feet, the sound of strange birds, the near-solid foam on the beach. Inspiration is everywhere. All you have to do is look at each photograph as an abstract painting instead as "just another pretty picture". This is how you train your eyes to see beyond the obvious. This is how you train yourself to have the "eyes of an artist". If you spend enough time doing this, the world will never be the same again. You will never be bored. 

While everyone else is taking pictures of the pretty scenery, I am taking close-up pictures of rocks. The questions that go through my mind are these: How does nature put colours together? How does it use texture? Where does nature lay on the texture thick? Where does it spread it thin? How does is work with contrast? How does it make a neutral palette work? Where is it rough? Where is it smooth? Which products would I use to make the same effects on the canvas? This is why I tossed my colour wheel a long time ago: Nature does it best. The following are my 15 favourite abstract rock inspirations:

Painting isn't a hobby. For me, painting is a lifestyle. Wherever I am in the world, whatever I am doing, I paint because I love to paint. I paint because I have to. If I don't paint, my world just doesn't feel right. The truth is, if something is important to you, you find the time to do it. You stop making excuses. You stop allotting time to things that just aren't that important. You carve out the time and you protect that time like it's something precious. Because it is precious. We are all given the same amount of hours in a day. The way you choose to spend those hours, day after day, determines who you are. 

What is the difference between regular plaster and pink plaster? Is one better than the other? How do I chose?

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