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Here are a few of the latest pieces from our snow encrusted studio. The first is of a view from Machine Gun Johnny’s old school house on Scenic Caves Road atop the escarpment. This was our view out the backdoor and I enjoyed it very much for a couple years while living there. Through those foggy trees is Georgian Bay. This piece is 30″x40″ and is oil on board.

The second piece is 12″x24″, oil on board and is a simple composition of the autumn woods outside our living room window. Pret’ sweet, eh? Better than T.V.

The third is also 12″x24″ (oil on board) and is the 501 Bathurst car to Roncy. When it dries I’ll get a better photo without the glare.

All three piece are available. Contact me for details.

We are doing well with sleep training the girls. We never thought we’d resort to letting them cry it out, but self preservation can shift ideals sometimes, and this is one of those times. We are more sane and feeling more stable now that we are getting to actually be in bed for most (if not all) of the night. Very exciting. It is amazing how the interior landscape shifts with just a couple extra hours of sleep every night. Hallelujah.

I have some exciting show news to announce as well. I’ll be part of a two man show this summer in Flesherton at Local Color Gallery and the other artist is.. Wait for it…. Harold Klunder! I am very excited to have to opportunity to show with Harold and plan on making hisincredible work look very good. Heh. It will be a good juxtaposition in any case.

Anyhoo. Come visit us in the North if you have to inclination. We love having company and have a nice guest room. The babies are growing fast and sleeping well enough. You probably won’t even need earplugs.

D

Season’s greetings from Kimberley, where it is finally starting to look a lot like winter. Our twin girls, Hanneli and Ineke are now 6 months old! Wow. He have been in an alternate universe, it seems, where days and weeks blur into months of growing and changing babies. Sleep is still at a minimum but our hopes are high for slumber in the weeks to come as we finally face the need for ‘sleep training’. As we remind ourselves from time to time, sleep deprivation is very real and effective form of torture! Who knew our tormentors would be so cute though? Soon, we realize, this will seem like a blink of a weary eye and spring will bring a whole new set of baby challenges that we will happily face together. All props go to my lovely wife Sarah and her positivity. She floats my boat and keeps me level and on course. As I say almost constantly, I married well. And Wyn, who is now nearly three and a half, has proven himself to be a caring and very sweet big brother. His early morning cuddles with the girls allow me just enough time to make coffee and eggs while Sarah gets a couple hours of much needed sleep.

As for new work, studio time is hard to come by right now, but still I have managed to eek out some work that I am very ahppy with. I spent about two months finishing the Greenland piece (Kangaamuit, 30″x60″, oil on  board) which is now available. There is a new Scenic Caves Rd. piece (3rd in a series) in progress and I have included an image of it in progress. It is 30×40 and can be spoken for before being finished. Also, I recently finished a commission for a good friend as a present for his wife. I’ll have to drop by their place and get a good shot of it to post here. I do not have a show on the books right now as finishing large bodies of work for galleries seems unrealistic until the demands of parenting new twins is lessened a bit. Sarah and I are happy to receive studio visits with a only a little notice. We got our new sign at the bottom of our driveway, so you can’t miss us if you are driving through Kimberley.

Speaking of Kimberley, we are loving it here in our new home. It is an amazing little community full of creative and inspired people. It is a warm and tight knit little spot in the Beaver Valley and we feel so lucky to have found it.

This is my first post that I will be linking directly from Facebook, from which I have pulled all my images due to my discomfort with their policies. I do miss the daily interaction with  loads of great people, but hopefully this post will get some peeks and comments. This blog of mine got something like 1400 views last year and I hope to boost that by posting links on F-book.

So, I hope everyone had a great Christmas, a happy Hanukkah and a great New Year’s party to ring in this year.

Come see us in the Valley anytime.

Best to all,

D

Hello again,
It has been awhile since I’ve made a post here but I am determined to do so on a more regular basis. I’ve decided to back away from facebook slightly and will now post links to my blog and website instead of posting images directly on the FB behemoth, so I thought there had better be something here to see that is not several months old.
We have settled into Kimberley in a big and comfortable way. The Beaver Valley is an incredible place and Kimberley has a community that someone should make a documentary about. A vibrant and close knit place that surprises on many levels. The summer was full of outdoor events attended and supported by locals and was capped with an incredible wedding/party of epic proportions.
Our studios are up and running as is our massive vegetable garden. We are happy here. And more so since we installed our amazing Vermont Castings wood stove (best art trade ever!).
The summer also brought the birth of our twin girls Hanneli and Ineke. They were a surprise indeed! Yes, surprise twins. A legendary story that has made its rounds. People keep remarking “In this day and age?”… Well, yes. We are essentially hippies with computers. No ultrasound unless necessary is our way of thinking and the universe called us on that one, big time.
I’ll post the all the work I have been able to get done since the girls were born. Studio time is harder to come by but I am slugging it out when I can. I actually did two whole paintings with sleeping babies in slings, but alas, they have become too heavy for that endeavor. Even typing for this long is a rare treat. Twins! Wow. I look up to parents of triplets as if they were gods!
More soon.
D

Hi from our peaceful yet vibrant new digs here in Kimberly, Ontario. We have moved into the shadow of Old Baldy.  It is one of the most spectacular spots in Ontario, replete with natural wonders galore. Just west of Collingwood and south of Owen Sound, we are now in the beautiful Beaver Valley in the Grey Highlands.

We are almost finished with our studio renovations. The old double workshop has nearly been converted into its new purpose as  mine and Sarah’s new art studio. We are truly excited to be here and even more excited to get back to work. And there is certainly a backlog of images floating around in this painter’s head.

I traveled to Greenland with Adventure Canada aboard the Sea Adventurer in my role as artist in residence (with fellow Drawnonward member, Rob Saley) in June. I am now bursting at the seams with images of icebergs and Greenlandic village arrangements. It was another amazing trip to the Arctic and although we were unable to get into Canada due to the abundant ice left from a very cold winter, it allowed us to see more of Greenland than we ever had before. It is an amazing place with no shortage of scenery to inspire and landscape painter.

Here are a couple shots of what is in my head right now.. Ice and the studio.

More new work coming soon!

Enjoy the last bit of summer and get out into nature if and when you can! It is good for you.

D

Megan and Mark at Canvas Gallery run a great art ship up on Dupont. Check them out.

http://www.canvasgallery.ca/

Here is their blog too…

http://canvasgalleryblog.blogspot.ca/2013/03/beautiful-cityscapes-from-david-marshak.html

Hi Everybuddy,

It has been a super busy few months getting work done for two shows this winter. The Drawnonward show was another resounding success with a huge opening night crowd and lots of red dots on the walls. Bills will be paid and art supplies will be bought. We are now in the planning stages of a trip to NWT, with debates raging about where to go and how to get there. We are truly excited about getting into this part of Canada that we have yet to paint. Drawnonward’s 20th anniversary is looming large and we really want to do something special to celebrate, so keep an ear out for our shows in 2014 and 2015 (20 years!!!).

The Artist Project was another success with their biggest crowds yet (apologies to clients who came and waited in long drink lines on opening night), This was my 4th time participating and I have already signed up for next year’s show. 4 days of being around other artists and their wares is a wonderful experience. we tend to forget how large our community is and how many amazing artists there are around us who can inspire and engage us.

My new work will be a bit of a change for me in the sense that I have been doing very academic and fairly realistic painting for some years now, always paying attention to my inner voice who says ‘this is great but you should loosen up a bit soon’.

I am including some pics of my newest work which are all fairly small forest paintings which I will now start translating into much larger pieces. I can already see into my future, and there is a lot of bright chroma-rich colour coming out soon. My palette knife is my new best friend. Good bye brushes, we’ll see you next season.

Hope everyone is making it through these Feb-

blah days. Spring is just around the corner and will provide all the bright colours we need to awake from our sleepy winter slumber.

Best to all,

D

This February 14th (Valentine’s Day) marks Drawnonward’s 18th annual show of collected works. I have been a member for nearly twenty years now! It has been an amazing and rewarding experience to be able to keep working with this great group of artists who just happen to also be my best friends. We will show at Arta gallery in Toronto’s Distillery District from Feb.14th. to to 24th. Opening night is on Thursday, Feb.14th from 6-10pm. There will be beer, wine, some great cheese and some great live music.

We are proud to keep these winter shows up as a traditional night out for friends, family and of course our loyal patrons who have kept up with us over the years.

I am very proud of my newest body of work that concentrates on my favourite city, St. John’s. Once again I have done a body of work that explores the play of light in the hours before sunset and before sunrise. The ‘witching hours’. These oil paintings on board are meticulously and repeatedly glazed with a 3 color process over grey scale or ‘grisaille’ paintings. Please come out to opening night for an always fun and inspiring evening of art and celebration.

Half way through the Drawnonward show is the Artist Project (phew). This takes place for four days (Feb. 21-24) at the Better Living Centre, Exhibition Place, Toronto. It is a great show every year and should not be missed. I can be found in booth 741 (oil/acrylic). Here are some of the works I’ll be displaying there. It is more ‘witching hour’ material, but this time it is the streets of T.O.’s east end.

http://www.theartistprojecttoronto.com/gp_artists/david-marshak/

And of course my website is davidmarshak.ca

Check it out to browse some my past and current works. It is worth a visit.

St. John’s Dusk to Dawn