When Previous Work Informs Current Creations

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The other day I found myself sitting in the meditation corner of my room, looking at two paintings I have displayed there: Kindness and Perseverance. Both have dominant yellow tones, but Perseverance was speaking to me today. It's this soft, subtle butter yellow that feels incredibly calming and alive at the same time.

Something that often happens in my artistic practice is that previous work begins to gently guide the new series. I'll look closely at an earlier painting and suddenly notice something that wants to continue forward into the current series.

This morning, in addition to the colour itself, I started noticing the smaller details inside Perseverance—gestural chocolate coffee-brown marks, earthy textures, and hints of ultramarine violet in layers that are grounded and organic. It felt deeply connected to the direction of the paintings I'm working on now.

I became really excited about letting this soft yellow become the dominant tone in the next pieces.

I went straight into the studio and began experimenting with coffee grounds to create a warm light-brown foundation for four new paintings. Once this first surface dries, I'll slowly begin building upward with translucent yellows, earthy textures, and inspiration borrowed from past work.

I love when previous work informs and inspires the current work.

If you're interested in collecting an original painting, explore my available works here.

P.S.: This is the latest in a series of posts about my new painting series. Read the previous post here if you missed it.

Painting Tools at the Heart of the Process

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I want to share a little about the tools I’ve been using in this series—because they are what help me bring these ideas into form.

You can see a number of palette knives lined up in the photo, and they are by far my most-used tools right now. I use them to mix paint and apply it directly onto the canvas, building up the surface and creating those layered square forms.

As the paintings have grown in size, the tools have too. What started with smaller knives has expanded into larger ones to match the scale of the work.

Something else that’s been really important is having everything organized and within reach. When I feel the impulse to adjust something—to add, subtract, or shift—I can respond right away without breaking that creative flow.

I’m not using brushes very much in this series. It’s mostly palette knives, along with a few other tools I’ll share more about soon. I find this to be a very tactile, hands-on process—and I’m really enjoying that.

If you're interested in collecting an original painting, explore my available works here.

Follow Your Yellow Brick Road–A New Little Gems Series

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A room is brightened by Follow your yellow brick road ii of iii, 9” x 12” Acrylic on Paper, © Deb Chaney Prints available on Saatchi Gallery.

I’m excited to share a series of three paintings I created earlier this year called Follow Your Yellow Brick Road. Each one is part of my Little Gems Series—multi-layered 9” x 12” original paintings created with acrylic (both heavy body and liquid), ink, pencil, and tar gel.

The inspiration for this series came while developing my upcoming course, The Illuminated Artist in Business. In both art and business, I’ve discovered there is no single, prescribed path. Instead, each of us must find our own “yellow brick road”—a path shaped by exploration, trust, and authenticity.

Art and healing are deeply connected

Research has shown that engaging with art can reduce stress, promote well-being, and even improve health outcomes. In creating these works, I layered texture and color as a metaphor for life’s unfolding journeys.

“At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity.”
– Kimberly Hetherington

Follow your yellow brick road ii of iii, 9” x 12” Acrylic on Paper, © Deb Chaney Prints available on Saatchi Gallery.

The 3 Follow your yellow brick road paintings drying in the studio.

The original paintings are available, as well as prints in a range of sizes through Saatchi Art:

I hope this series reminds you to trust your own unique journey. If you're interested in collecting an original painting, you can explore my available works here.

Just for Today: A New Series of Little Gems Inspired by the Reiki Precepts

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Just for today, I will Surrender my plans to God, 9” x 12" x 0.1” Acrylic on Paper, © Deb Chaney Prints and original available on Saatchi Gallery.

Over the summer, as I continue developing a new large-scale series in the studio, I’ve found joy and renewal in creating smaller works. 

These 6 new pieces here belong to my Little Gems Series, and I must say that they felt especially juicy. They emerged from a quiet, contemplative place within me and I’m delighted to share them with you now.

Each painting was inspired by the Five Reiki Precepts, a set of daily reminders traditionally recited before Reiki practice:

Just for today... I will not anger. I will not worry. I will be grateful. I will do my work honestly. I will be kind to every living thing.

Some modern practitioners also add: Just for today, I will love myself and others. Just for today, I will live in harmony.

These timeless phrases became the spiritual foundation behind each piece. They are daily invitations to return to the present moment, to choose calm, gratitude, kindness, and trust.

To mirror this inward stillness, I chose a circle as the focal form in each composition — symbolizing unity, focus, and the conscious decision to see through the lens of love. Surrounded by visual layers and beautiful distractions, the circle becomes a reminder to gently return, again and again, to what truly matters.

Rendered in shades of blue and turquoise, these paintings offer the emotional resonance of spirituality, inner peace, and intuition. Each one was created using mixed media on paper — including local beach sand, heavy body and liquid acrylics, water-soluble pencils, and graphite.

Just for today, I will Surrender my plans to God, Original 9” x 12" x 0.1” Acrylic on Paper, © Deb Chaney Prints possibilities available on Saatchi Gallery.

Just for today, I will Surrender my plans to God is part of a new series of 6 paintings in may larger, ongoing Little Gems series. See all 6 new paintings on Saatchi Art Online Gallery.

The process behind the FULL MOON FROG POND paintings

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Presenting ...the making of the three original paintings inspired by Gregory Rosa's deep listening CD release: FULL MOON FROG POND. In this blog I'm taking you 'behind the scenes' into my studio to see the process of creating the pond triptych paintings..enjoy!


I started this triptych of paintings with a walk with Greg around the Frog Pond near Jericho beach where he originally recorded the frog sounds that inspired this compilation. During this walk we formulated the idea of creating original art work to go with the CD release as a special edition for collectors and also to raise money for the Wilderness Committee.

I began by asking Greg for any paperwork on this music project that I could use to formulate the content of these paintings. He gave me images for the CD cover and back as well as an aerial view of the frog pond, a sketch of his music score notes "FMFP thinking", an image of a frog and a copy of the music itself. My content was clear: frogs and my focus the frog pond - both interlaced with the music that Greg created from this.

My next step was to get clear on my colour. I chose to follow the greens used in his album cover along with an analogous suite of colours including green shades, blues, whites and blacks.

I began by laying out the three Arches 300 pound water colour paper and sketching out in pencil the layout of the frog pond, based on the aerial view and through it the lines noting where Greg made the recordings of the frog sounds. I used a T-square ruler to make the lines and drew triangles where they intersected.


I drew an outline of the pond and I then used clear tar gel to outline the pond and for later when I would put in the "water" so it wouldn't go outside of the pond borders. I used white gesso around the pond to prime the marshland for painting of the analogous greens.

I wanted to keep the aerial image of the path around the pond where we walked and talked bout this project to begin with. I used Artist Safe Removal tape and GAC 500 to delineate the path around the pond.

I used wet on wet india ink for the ground layer of the pond and its black edges. The effects created where similar to what we saw in the aerial photograph which was exciting and gave the pond some nice features and characteristics. The ink and water stayed within the boundaries because of the clear tar gel surrounding it.

The black and white painting really resembled the aerial photograph!


This part was so fun! I love wet on wet india ink on paper!

I then painted the green marsh land - the frog's homes- surrounding the pond.

After the india ink layer was dry I began to layer the lake with liquid acrylic paint mixed with gloss medium polymer to give the lake its glossy sheen. I applied several layers like this, allowing each one to dry after the next one. when the paint began to puddle or pool in one area I used a large sea sponge to remove excess paint and the action of moving the sponge over the lake reminded me of frogs hopping around which was fun and resonance of the theme.


Once the lake and the marsh land were dry, i took the papers Greg had given me and reverse transferred them into the painting. Look closely and you will see image of frogs, the album cover, the music score.




I then added scratch marks denoting the foldable surrounding the pond with pencil and lyra pencil crayons within the green marshy area and also did some loose sketches of frogs…as well as writing in with india ink (PITT pens) the titles of the scores on this album. These markings are all hidden beneath a final wash of titanium white i used over the green marshy area.





To complete the paintings I painted them with a gloss medium water mixture isolation coat and varnish them with museum quality archival varnish. greg and I will then have them photographed as their full 3 pieces and then tear them into 27 individual abstract pieces of the pond which will be available to collectors as a limited edition with the FULL MOON FROG POND CD.

To buy a piece of the pond, and own an original limited edition copy of FULL MOON FROG POND CD click here to see what's available, please note that CD's are only available for art collectors:

Come and see the paintings in the flesh and party with us all weekend long, here are ALL the details: /debchaney/2010/11/its-comingcanadas-biggest-open-artist.html

You want the music but you don't want to buy any art...no worries.. you can download the CD here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/gregoryrosa

Yes, we have a facebook page: click here to join us: http://www.facebook.com/pages/FULL-MOON-FROG-POND/104171339656435

You want to interview Greg & Deb because you think this is so way cool! Please contact

Press Contact:
Naomi Dayneswood

Naomi_Thomas@shaw.ca

604.322.37057