Having a barbecue over at our place with all our best buds from Toronto.. always fun to have the gang over.  Looking forward to moving on to our life in Ottawa with access to Quebec and different culture, new friends, etc.  With the move will come a much larger studio, and my commitment to my art moves up a notch or 2.

Toronto will be my number one place of business though, and I’ll be sure to be running back and forth every 2-3 weeks..

Great viewing of some Abstract Expressionist paintings on at the Art Gallery of Ontario.  My buddy Dan Ryan and I went out for a viewing and lunch today and enjoyed both the show and beers.  I found myself drawn to the work of Klein.  His strong black on white graphic images resonated with me.  Afterward, flipping through a book on Klein, I was knocked out by his coloured works as well.  I also enjoyed Rothko as always, especially when looking up at his work from close range.  The colours resonated, and for me that’s always the bottom line.  80% of painting is mixing the paint.

It’s always fun to meet up with some of the folks on my mailing list, and it was great yesterday to meet up with Nick and Russ from Niagara Falls, NY.  Super guys, and Nick, hope you have many years of enjoyment with your new painting, “Swirl”.  We’ll have to keep in touch.

I’ve got a temporary studio going while we renovate our house, and the studio there.  Currently I’m sharing a space with 2 ladies who run a boot camp, located between Kipling and Islington, just north of the Queensway in Etobicoke.  I’m going to be back at it this week after taking a couple of weeks off for home reno duties.  I managed a trip up to Ottawa a couple of days with my buddy Dan Ryan.  We did a painting run for my Gordon Harrison Gallery and his galleries, Koyman and Wall Space.

My galleries are doing quite well so I’m going to be doing more of the painting thing for them, a lot less of the exhibition thing.  I’m easy to find, though, and I can always point the way to any gallery in terms of many of the paintings on my website.

Wow.. so that was the Toronto Art Expo.  I thought I’d give it one more try but this show was, in truth, a shadow of its former self.  I did enjoy the experience but I can envision myself doing far fewer of these shows in future years, and I think we can put a fork in this one, it seems to be done.

One comment I received was from Patrick Donohue of Dillettantes’s Diary, who wrote about the Art Expo and offered this: “Peter Colbert’s abstracts still have remarkable appeal with their serene expression though broad swatches of colour.”

I’ve moved to a temporary studio in Torontos west side as we’re doing some major renos at our house located further west, near the Mississauga border.  I love the huge ceilings and natural light so hopefully it will work out.  We’re making the move to Ottawa in a few months but I’ll be making commutes to Toronto, by far my biggest market, a couple of times a month.

Someday I’m going to get better and more consistent with this blogging thing but for now, I’m just going to toss another one out there.

I’ve decided to enter the Toronto Art Expo once again, which is actually going to be my 5th year in a row.  It’s worked out to be good timing, more than a full month after the Arstist Project which was in early March.  Likely it will also be my last trade show exhibition this year.

I’ll have some of my smaller matted pieces on the floor for sale as well as my usual abstract landscapes, with a dash of figurative paintings this time around, an accumulation of work from some of my Tuesday night drop in sessions at the Neilson Creative Centre out here in Etobicoke.

Wow, I got some great feedback from the Artist Project last weekend.  Turned out to be for my benefit that I took a 10 x 20′ corner booth as it showcased a nice one I had on display.  Thanks to David and Caroline for their patronage, and to Leigh for getting to another large one of mine, “Cornerstone”, at the Canvas Gallery.  I’ll have to look into getting better at lighting the paintings I had at the lower levels of my booth as they weren’t being showcased as much as I’d like.  Otherwise, hope everyone enjoyed the solid and creative work at the show, and onward to the meat of the year as we move bravely forward into 2011.

Having a lot of fun at the Artist Project, where I think the quality of the work in general is outstanding.  Really a lot of creativity here on display, excellent fine art, something for everyone.  If you like variety get out of the rain and come on down.

I’m featuring some large pieces which have been getting an excellent response, and so things are great.  My booth is number 200, at the far right corner of the building…

I’m just getting to update my website in a more thorough way, apologies for the neglect on my part.  I also hope to do much more regular blogging, especially once I get the hang of it.  I’ve just put some more of my figurative on the site, and I’ll be adding to the other sections also.

I’d like to reach out to my small audience of followers and communicate more regularly with you when possible.  I’ve been having some problems making changes to my petercolbert.com web site and so have added the petercolbert.ca name to my repertoire.  I’ll have to see if this will be the one and only or just and alternative to the other site.

I’m willing to discuss my paintings in a fairly oblique way, generally, because I think that, there really is more to my paintings (and many other artists paintings as well) than the types of paints used, the implements used and so on.  I operate on more of a subconscious level, my art has more in it which I notice after the fact than I care to admit.  It almost seems we have our inner selves governing our actions, and I like to let that side of me, the spiritual if you will, dictate my actions.  Hope that doesn’t sound too silly, but there you go.