I am in the rain forest in Costa Rica, next to the volcano Arenal. It is of course humid and warm, so I brought acrylics, thinking that this is the best medium for here. Must be true because that is what is in the galleries.
In October I managed to get some photos as the sun was setting over the last of the red sumac at Shaw Woods near Eganville. Need some critiques on this painting - not sure about it yet.
My dear friend Heidi brought me a birthday gift, and the wrapping was so beautiful that I had to paint it before opening. It will be opened on the weekend when she is here again. In the meantime, it is being enjoyed as is.
These shiny red pomengranates were asking to be painted, with a pear to set them off, and a dark background for drama. It is the mood of the day....
Happy New Year!
Fierce little nutcracker......looks like he is on a mission. Victoria and I painted nutcrackers today, listening to the music since we are going to see The Nutcracker performance in Toronto this weekend.
Now that the weather is getting grey and cold, I am resorting to photos taken throughout the summer and fall. This is behind our house, in my favourite cornfield. Mary and I gleefully got together to paint this scene this afternoon.
The cornfield behind us at sunset, shortly before the last rows were cut. Now the field is ploughed with a thin layer of snow on it.
Today, Mary and I decided to do this week's DPW Challenge, which to paint something in the style of an artist we admire. Since the challenge is based in the US, we decided to give some Canadian input and picked the Group of Seven's Lawren Harris, whose work we both love and admire. His work has such clean simplicity, his colours are so joyful. I often go to the AGO in Toronto to visit the Group of Seven collection and have copied one of his Arctic scenes for learning purposes. This scene is from my summer visit to Tofino, Vancouver Island.
When I came home, there was so much to do and catch up on, but it was Indian Summer - the last of the warm days. Mary and I went out for a plein air sketch by the river. We had great ideas of doing a second one but that was dashed by the early sinking sun and therefore cold fingers and stiff paint. Ahhhh, the joys of northern plein air!
This was my last quick little painting that I did at the end of the workshop. As I painted, a little deer came out of the dark thicket, walked around and disappeared again. There is always something magical here in the south!
Just came back from a workshop with Ian Roberts in South Carolina. We did a lot of powerful exercises to increase our skill at temperature....plus always hue, value and intensity.....hard work!
Cranberries grow very close to the ground, so picking becomes an interesting exercise. When I looked up, this is what I saw in front of me.
In the last few days, went out with some friends painting. I am still enjoying the cad orange/ultramarine blue/white combo and will stick with it for now.
It has been a busy week, and today an overfilled day but the weather was too beautiful to miss so I parked the easel on the driveway and did a quick orange/blue/white study....which is teaching me some great things. I think that my most enjoyable subjects right now are trees, paths/roads and the three colour scheme.
Today I went to the field behind our house to paint the tree line while the cornfield was still standing. It is a pleasure to paint with just orange, blue and white because it helps me focus on values and temperature.
Yesterday was a gorgeous warm day and I went out to the Shaw Woods, 120 acres of old growth forest, to see if the sumac had changed colour yet. I found a patch that was half way there, with the sun slanting in on the front trees and a nice dark backdrop of forest. I really zoomed into the scene for the light effect, but might paint this again with a wider angle....maybe when the sumac is fully red....
Went outside to paint a value study for this week's DPW Value Challenge. Instead of black and white, I used ultramarine blue and cadmium orange (and white) for this week's DPW Value Challenge. We were to simplify a scene using only 4 values, but I got a bit carried away and have far more than that. The blue and orange helped me with the added aspect of warm/cool relationships. I think I will go out more often with this very limited palette.
Sometimes I have to express jubilant passion and painting something large and unusual, like this big seastar at Chesterman's Beach in Tofino. I was told that it was not a starfish but a seastar....sounds good to me. These fascinating colourful flower-like creatures come out of the sea for a peek during low tide, and then disappear again.
Finally no bugs or heat....so Mary and I went out to paint along the Ottawa River. We wanted to find a simple composition - horizontals, verticals, not just green etc. It was overcast and a bit cool but wonderful to be out, and to be painting together again.
Outside of The Empress Hotel in Victoria BC, flagging the sidewalk are these two weeping sequoia trees, that look like afghan dogs. I just had to paint them - in cerulean and orange - to stay with the surreal effect.
It is wonderful to paint mountains - shapes and values are big and definite. This is from crossing Vancouver Island from the east side to the west.
The Pond - Ian was amazing, again. He teaches such strong basics and pushes us to really see. He goes out of his way to find perfect locations, like this pond on private property. The owner was delighted, as were her dogs. There was a lot of green....
We were outside from 8:00 am until about 7:00 pm with a break at lunch. The sun was hot, the days were gorgeous and our brains were working overtime in order to get it all - shadows were too warm or too dark, colours were too saturated or too dull..or too light/dark, edges needed to be released, where is the focal point? what are we looking at? what are we saying? how does it read? And shapes.....keep it simple! It looks so easy.....
Just back from a week long intensive workshop with Ian Roberts in the beautiful GREEN Georgian Bay area in Ontario. We started off with exercises that need repeating....this one is seeing shapes, so we painted only rectangles.
Last painting of this fabulous workshop - we used a lot of turp to draw and "coax" the figure out, so the paint is a bit light and faded looking, especially in the photo. All of the paintings are unfinished....the point was to get it down quickly without fussing, then go onto the next painting. Ellen was great for explaining things, demonstrating and then making sure that we experience it. She was full of sayings and analogies that were so funny but also hit the mark and were therefore easy to remember.
Today Ellen started with a demo and then we painted....and so much was learned. My painting did not photograph well, and I think I attempted too big a project with a horse AND a figure which became a portrait. I see that the hand is still off....but it was a very good day.
