October Sky by Canadian Artist Bente Hansen

October Sky 30x40 Oil on Gallery Wrapped Canvas  (Currently on Hold)

This painting is rich with thick paint and strokes of complimentary colours to make the painting stand out.  It is painted on the sides so that no frame is required.

The subject is the west coast of British Columbia with the great skies, mountains and rock walls.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Surfacing, Mixed Media by Canadian Artist Bente Hansen

Surfacing 24x24 Mixed Media by Bente Hansen  SOLD

This painting is done on a gallery wrapped canvas painted on the sides so that no frame is required.

When I started with this painting it was truly abstract. I used a very large brush and paynes gray acrylic paint.   I was adding paper and cheesecloth when suddenly the whale image appeared.  It grew from there.  I do not usually add people or animals in my painting unless they show up of their own accord.  That is what happened here.

In the image below you can see my pastel scribbles over the image trying out different ideas before applying more paint.  The beauty of the pastel is you can wipe it off if you don't like it or you can spray a fixative on if you like it and keep it as part of your image.  It is recommended that if you do spray it you then put a coat of clear medium over it to make it permanent.

There were many steps and coats of paint after that but I think you get the idea.

Feel free to send me an email if you have questions.

bentecreates@gmail.com

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Coastal II Mixed Media by Canadian artist Bente Hansen

Coastal II  12x12 Mixed Media on board
This mixed media piece has many layers of transparent paint and different papers. It had a life of its own.  I dropped some paper onto it and when I looked at the board the start of a bird appeared.  I worked on it from there.  It took many transformations with pastel and paper added.

The size is a standard size so it is easily framed.  It arrives varnished.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Rock Solid, mixed media, by Bente Hansen, Canadian Artist

Rock Solid  18x18 Mixed Media on Wooden Cradle Board  $395.00

Nicholas Wilton speaks of Value, Differences, Color contrast and more.  These are some of the things that we strive for in what is called CVP. It's been a mind twister of a course but I am starting to see that some of the things that the team is speaking of is rubbing off.

This painting was done with acrylics and thick gel medium using mostly a palette knife.  This is the closest I have come to using acrylics in the same manner that I use my oils.  It'll be interesting to see what happens when we get to texture.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

mixed media on wood panel by Canadian Artist Bente Hansen

Mixed Media 12x12 on wood panel $175

There are many many layers of paint, paper, gauze, glazes and scribbling.

I am learning not to give up and keep doing layer over layer with glazes and collage.

The Nicholas Wilton team of many many coaches are great encouragement to be ourselves.  I love my environment, province and country and it keeps showing up in my work.

Blessings for a great day

Bente

White Night 10x10 Mixed Media on Watercolour paper

White Night 10x10 Mixed Media on Watercolour Paper

Its been interesting times.

I enrolled in Nicholas Wilton's online class called 2018 Art2Life program.  There are about 500 of us from around the world.  What the program has done for me so far is turn everything upside down and totally confused me.  I think the stretch is good in that he wants us to do what is totally ourselves and not be influenced by others.  The stretch is also that we are using acrylic paint.  This is not my favourite medium.  I do love my oils.  When the program is over I will go back to my oils but for now its too confusing for my brain to keep switching.

White Night is a result of one of the black and white exercises. It is done on paper.  It has many many layers of paint so there is lots of texture.  I have added some collage and the line work was done on clear plastic with acrylic medium.  I then removed the film when the whole thing was dry.  That way I could cut out what I needed and leave the rest for another time.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Abstracted Landscape by Canadian artist Bente Hansen

Abstracted Landscape 11x14 Mixed Media on Canvas SOLD

This piece started with a poured acrylic painting.  I then added a coat of clear gesso and painted with transparent and opaque oil paint.  There are areas of thick paint and there are areas of transparent paint.  I think it is a good combination.

The painting is in the Dancing Tree Gallery in Powell River so if you are interested in the painting please contact me.

Happy creating.

Bente

Indigo, 6x6 Mixed Media on Wood Cradle Board by Bente Hansen

Indigo, 6x6 Mixed Media on Wood Cradle Board    Sold

I have taken a bit of a break.

With the anniversary of my sons birthdate and then the one year anniversary of his death it was a difficult time.  I did spend a lot of time painting papers as a distraction. This process is simple and keeps my hand in the colour mode.  The papers tear unevenly and give off little baby threads which I like.  Added texture and colour value.

This painting uses some of that paper.

I have also enrolled in a three month online course with Nicholas Wilton.  The course helps us to delve deeper into what makes us paint and why or why not.  My goal is to bring me closer to the larger abstract paintings that I have always wanted to do.

There is a huge international group taking the course together so the feedback and inspiration will be ongoing and meaningful, I am sure.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Collaboration 2018 with Karen Kroeker

Collaboration Oil on Gallery Wrapped Canvas 24x24x1 1/2 $625

This painting is a result of a collaboration with a University friend that I took art classes with. Karen Kroeker continued in the area of fibre arts and I continued in the area of painting.  What we have done is Karen received from me some preliminary sketches of Brew Bay.  She is going to make an 18x24 fibre piece with the sketches as an inspiration.  In return Karen has sent me photos of two of her fibre pieces which I have turned into the painting above.

You can see her two photos below and my sketch to the right of them.  I am sorry but you have to turn your head to the right to see it the direction in which I painted it.

You can find Karen's inspiring work on Instagram under karenckroeker  you can also find me there under bentecreates

Blessings for an inspiring and creative day.

Bente

Exuberant 24x24 Oil on Gallery Wrapped Canvas by artist Bente Hansen

Exuberant 24x24 Oil on Gallery Wrapped Canvas $625

This palette knife painting is painted on the sides so that no frame is required.


Blessings for a great day

Bente

Stronger 8x10 Encaustic on wood cradle board by Canadian artist Bente Hansen

Stronger  8x10 Encaustic on Wooden Cradle Board  $120

When I am painting I usually have either the TV going in the background or music.  Depends on my mood.  If I don't have either quite often a song will pop into my head which I take as a message for a title or meaning for the painting.  Since I am painting intuitively I pay attention to these messages.

With this painting the song "Stronger" popped up.  If it doesn't kill you it'll make you stronger.

The painting needed to be stronger which is where the green gold came in.  Without it the message just wasn't there.  I also rubbed in some jewel tone powders on the feathers so that when it is in the sunlight the feather glistens.

I hope that some of these explanations help in understanding some of the processes that I go through.

Blessings for a creative day.

Bente

Brew Bay 8x10 Oil and Cold Wax medium by Canadian artist Bente Hansen

Brew Bay  Oil and CWM on Wooden Cradle Board  $80

This piece is very much an experiment.

It started as a demo for photo encaustic which turned out fine.  Just not very exciting.

I had been reading of people using cold wax on top of their encaustics so I thought I would try that.  It worked just fine.  As for how many years it will last I really don't know.  Maybe someone out there will be able to tell me.

After that I thought I would see if my pan pastels would work on the CWM.  The white really didn't show but the rust colour that you see in the bottom left hand corner is pan pastel rubbed into the wax. That seems to of worked great.  I have tried buffing it off and it is in there quite solidly so this is something I will definitely continue to pursue.

We had quite a storm here yesterday.  Today it is a balmy sunny day so time to head out into the bush to walk with my dog and his doggie buddies.

Blessings for a great day.

Bente

Winter Day Mixed Media by Canadian artist Bente Hansen

Winter Day 20x20  Mixed Media on wood cradle panel  $450

This painting started as CWM in deep reds with gauze imprints of dark turquoise.  I couldn't work out that puzzle so the painting got turned upside down.  If you look carefully at the image you will see the texture of the  gauze.

The revised image was done by brushing, scraping and using a brayer and spatula.  I thought of calling it "spatula painting". The cold wax medium is an interesting medium that dries quickly and allows you to mix your oils and allows you to scratch into it.

Blessings for a great day.

Through the Trees Oil painting by Canadian Artist Bente Hansen

Through the Trees 12x9 Oil on Gessoboard $110.00

Happy New Year to everyone.

I hope the upcoming year will be satisfying and bring many rewards.

2017 was a ying and yang year for me.

The great things were many and I won't go into the bad. We all have these times and I find that they allow us to appreciate when the times are good.

I enjoy painting on Gessoboard.  It seems to bring out the luminosity of the oil paint.  Its like a gem shining through.  The downside is that I can not purchase these boards in Canada and with the US$ exchange that makes it very expensive.  On the plus side I had purchased some a number of years ago when visiting Oregon so I do have a small supply of them on hand.

If you can get easy access to these boards I highly recommend them.

Blessings for a great day and a satisfying 2018.

Bente