By the Fence

I get very mesmerized when painting with so much yellow - it just draws you in.

Breakfast Bunny

One more bunny painting that actually was really difficult to get the values....but the dish ellipse came easier than usual.

Nico Swimming

I was standing on the dock at my cousin's cottage, watching the kids swimming, and captured Nico in the water - reminded me of a Sorolla painting. This is my attempt at painting it.

Stillness

So I have been painting every day, just not able to post from the cottage. This was painted on a hot, humid and quiet/still morning. It was an exercise to get the values of the background trees, and to not niddle with the flowers or the pine boughs. I like the yellow sky - the more I looked, the more I saw that the sky truly had a yellowish hue to it.

Ralph

It was raining - I was tired of still lifes...so I painted my car from the kitchen window. Great exercise for drawing shapes!

Going to the Lake

It has been humid, misty weather and the hills turn so blue on the way to the lake. I have enjoyed this view all summer when travelling back and forth. It can only be seen from this one spot on the highway, and I could not stop, so I painted it from memory, simplifying the shapes.

Peekaboo Bunny

One more bunny painting - going for light as dominant value, blue dominant colour.

Lazy Hazy Day

It has truly been those lazy hazy days of summer lately, and this little painting was to honour the lake. I dropped all the learnings and just painted what was in front of me. The sun was shimmering on the water and blue was soft....nice way to end a wonderful August.

Together

These are two different varieties of sunflowers in my brother-in-law's garden. It was a challenge to get the darks of the upper one without being too dark. Am enjoying this subject a lot.

Hello!

It is sunflower season again and I am back at painting them. This time felt a lot easier and looser, even though it looks like lots of details. The leaves are just shapes of light and dark, the petals were modeled at the end. It was a very satisfying experience.
Frohe Geburtstag Claudia in Hamburg!

Time for Tea & Oranges

Mary and I painted together again - both on the same subject - and we struggled with our cup shape until we finally got them - such a simple looking thing took so long.

Brook at Wolfridge

My posts are coming in lots instead of days - that is because I am without internet at the cottage, but I am painting.

My husband brought me to see this creek at the golf course where he had just played. We had had torrential rain, so it was rushing and full like in springtime. I focused on simplification of the area, painting shapes and minimal detail.

A Hat for Me?

More of the rabbit......

My darling Clementines

The ceramic rabbit is a wonderful little project to paint because it requires me to pay a lot of attention to each stroke, and to get away from my love for blending.

Holding up the Watermelon

Where am I?

After the workshop, I have been working on the exercises that we came home with and therefore no posts. But one day while sketching, I noticed the shadows created by this ceramic rabbit that I had used as a paper weight on a road map in the wind - at the beach. Since then I have been painting him - he is my muse while I work through the exercises.

Rabbit & Tomatoes

I was thinking here dominant value and dominant colour, and getting the values correct on everything!

Workshop Mango

Just back from a wonderful workshop with Carol Marine. What a phenomenal teacher! Every step was well thought out and organized for maximum learning. Great demos and exercises really helped to experience the concept.....my brain was fried by the end. And with the handouts and exercises, there is so much to continue with at home. The three days were filled with tons of valuable information, delivered in her clear and lovely way. No wonder everybody is crazy about Carol! She is awesome. Thank you Carol.

Three on Lime

Tomorrow morning, Mary and I leave for a Carol Marine workshop in Hudson River Valley, New York. So I painted this with Carol's work in mind. We have been following her blog for at least two years and love the simplicity of her daily paintings. She really gets design, values and shapes. We are so thrilled to go ...... and learn lots!

Petunia

This petunia flower stem broke off during planting and was rescued. Flowers are a difficult subject, one that I return to time and again for the learning. It takes a lot of squinting to see the many variations of value in one blossom!

Yesterday and Today

The garage beside the old store - the ground in front looks wet, might be that I am blending again. Will go back and put in some solid strokes.

The Old Store

This used to be a busy little general store close to the lake. The now grown children remember the many trips for ice cream cones. It is closed now, the owners retired. It sits and waits. I wanted to paint it with simple strokes, not too much fussing.

A Quiet Moment

A quiet morning on the lake. I am still aiming for design and for simple shapes.

The Shed

The cottage shed - old and a bit leaky but still filled with summer treasures. I was aiming to simplify but my challenge became values as the light changed. Finally it came reasonably together and at the end, I added the blue stroke to enliven the inside of the shed.

Lazy Hazy Days

At the lake today, with the family therefore a bit distracted while painting. It was one of those leisurely days of summer. I wanted to paint strokes, shapes and not over noodle everything....in other words, stay simple. Then I decided to experiment with a shift in hues in the sky, after reading that chapter in Carlson's book. But I am guilty of "blending" those shifts - again. I have to go back to the rectangle exercise.

COPY of Lawren Harris "Baffin Island" c 1931

On our latest trip to the AGO in Toronto, my son Frederic asked if I could reproduce his favourite painting of the Canadian Group of Seven, Lawren Harris. I thought this was a wonderful opportunity for great learning and have been working on it since Ian's workshop - what a way to immerse into shapes! It is nearly finished, still some tweeks, and here is what I have discovered:

1. First drew in the shapes freehand, it looked perfect, and yet I have managed to get my own sizing in there, which only shows up at the very end - like today! Some good grid work next time. Which brings to mind,

2. How close can I manage to reproduce anyway? Even repeating my own paintings is never quite the same. Besides my drawing errors, there are variables that I don't know like...

3. what blue did he use for the sky? At the gallery, I did not think it was ultramarine. I checked and rechecked colours, of course from books and reprints which aren't fully reliable. I first painted the sky in phthalo blue, let it dry, then decided it must be cobalt blue, painted over only to get closer to the mountains and realized, it can't be cobalt. Maybe he had used several blues...? And to keep colour harmony, it would have to be one that mixes the lovely lilac for the shadows, so not phthalo.....so....

4. wouldn't it be awesome to paint in front of the original, to see it live, even if behind plate glass. I think copying masterpieces were a strong learning method in the past.

5. And then there is the overwhelming feeling of walking in someone's footsteps. I actually felt honoured to be copying Lawren Harris' work, and mused on what he was thinking, what inspired him, what he was translating onto canvas, how he did his brushstrokes etc. I found the whole experience very inspiring and exhilirating.


Of interest, the original is large and imposing and last sold for $2.2 million. The owner Ken Thomson bequethed it and his whole massive art collection to the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Three's company

It is cottage time and oddly enough, while preparing and packing, I managed to paint. The cherries are nearly black and I wanted to make them redder, but stuck to matching the colour - post Ian's workshop.

Daisy

What do they call this - a vignette? Maybe it would be better if the whole background were painted in....
After the structure painting, I had to do something real light....

City Hall, Kingston Ontario

While in Kingston for Victoria's graduation, I had taken a photo of this structure for the shapes and for the light effects. My aim for painting was to keep it simple and just focus on shapes and values. Structures are demanding - a slight shift and they are off balance, crooked, leaning or just wonky. So when I say simple, I did not mean easy, although ultimately, wouldn't that be a lovely goal.

Simplicity

Coming home from Ottawa today, along the Laurentian foothills on the Quebec side, I was looking for simple shapes to do a quick study tonight. I just have to keep up the momentum from the workshop, and the only way is to paint.

Susy

Today was so hot, the water was beautiful. I am still working on simplifying and painting shapes. My brain pathways are very sneaky - they quickly go to curves and roundedness. So much for small rectangles.

Back to Step #1

Funny how it is coming home from a workshop - all of these great ideas and momentum to just paint, paint, paint....but instead it's house guests, birthdays, holidays....etc. I did put things in order, hauled out exercises from past workshops, compared...and then repainted the Driftwood Park one, as just shapes. I think the back hills need to be bluer, but the idea of simplification is there.

Workshop Day #4

Was too tired and wet to post last night. Yesterday was our final day of this wonderfulworkshop, and we were out on an old bridge painting SHAPES....only shapes. When Mary was finished and packing up, her painting flipped and fell into the water. The river was deep, moving, had no access and impossible banks, it started to rain ....so we watched as this white canvas floated under the bridge and down the river. Alas...detachment....we went to lunch and let all of our learnings sink in. The afternoon was filled with critiques and slides etc.

We have learned so much, have lots of exercises to take home with us, and have some very different understandings of the process. Hurray for painting with Ian again!

Day #3 Afternoon

We spent the afternoon in a little town called Aubern. The street were absolutely empty. We literally had the town to ourselves until about 5:30 when everyone came home. We were to walk around and find a design with a lot of overlapping shapes, and just paint it as shapes. Mary and I did many sketches first, which was highly constructive learning as to what worked and what didn't.

IAN ROBERTS Day # 3

Today we painted more shapes, layered shapes, to create depth and guide the eye. It rained in the morning and luckily we were in a park pavilion. The photographs are poor today - sorry. If only I could create instant brain pathways and remember and implement all that I learned. The sad part is that I have been told this information before...so I am learning it in layers. Seems like the mind knows one thing and the hand does something different.......

IAN ROBERTS WORKSHOP

Day two of the Ian Roberts Workshop in Goderich Ontario. It has been hard work, lots of critical exercises to match colour for value, intensity and temperature, painting by rectangles only in order to leave out all unnecessary detail. Left brain overtaxed, right brain tries to cope. This was my rectangle study this morning. The afternoon painting started strong, then showed signs of tired and finally areas of exhaustion. All wonderful though, and so powerful for improvement.

Train Trestle

Aiming to paint boats today, Mary and I went to the local Marina but opted for a shady spot under a big willow tree. Our aim was to come up with a composition that was design driven....especially since we are going to a workshop with Ian Roberts in a few days. Since it was a last minute decision and all of my supplies were already packed, I took minimal - and quickly grabbed only one brush - a filbert. What was I thinking! It was a challenge to get the roof lines. A flat brush and a palette knife are essentials.

Driftwood Park

Today was one of those days that Mary and I just hit the road, investigating new painting locations. We had ideas that were closer to home, but ended up following the Ottawa River all the way to Stonecliffe. There were a lot of beautiful vistas, but they were either along the highway or private. We did find a wonderful provincial park and painted by the boat launch.

A friend had asked me what I had learned from repeating the last painting on location. I thought about that while away to Victoria's graduation. The answer really came while painting this one - I learned that I fiddle and fuss too much, and really want to paint more shapes with just definite simple strokes. So that was my aim for today.

Turtle Eggs

It was cool and windy today, and Mary and I set out to paint clouds. But we gravitate to a little river that we had seen last week, and decided to paint it, with cloud reflections. We painted the same scene twice, for the learning of what we would do different.

Humming

My excuse list is long as to why I have not been painting much lately, but it does not feel good to be away from it. My easel and brushes feel silent. A void forms. And then I even catch myself a-voiding the studio. What is with that? So tonight I just activated this emptiness and got it all humming again. Intention, focus...GO

Hemp Field Edge

It was hot and humid today, pre thunderstorm, and Mary and I drove along some back roads in search of a spot to paint. The sun was strong and the distance hazy. The owner of the fields told us that hemp was planted here. Later a deer crossed the field, and then a bear and her two cubs came out of the trees. Everything was very green, and I wanted to capture some variation in the greens, from the blue green distance, the clump of trees in shade, to the fresh yellow green of the young shoots lit by the sun.

Incoming

Yesterday while driving, I saw a storm coming in. Lightening was flashing and rain was on the way. It was a fascinating scene of opposites. When Mary came by to paint today, I decided to give it a try - John Carlson says that it is good to paint from memory, and since my memory fades fast, it was now or never.

Bursting

The early morning sun is a brilliant orange for a short time period, and burts through the trees to quench our soul. And I wanted to burst out the colours and paint this heat coming through the cool forest.

Muskrat River

Mary and I went out in the late afternoon, to make use of a perfect painting day. We were positioned on a knoll overlooking a little river. A fox was leaping through the dried grasses. It was idyllic. We wanted to do a simple composition, with simple strokes.....and then it got complicated......or we got complicated.....or lost in the scene....or just had too much fun!

Pink

Still from our day outside, a little sketch of trees with what I find irresistable....a flowering bush. Mary gave me some Winsor & Newton Genuine Rose Madder to try - it makes lovely pinks.

Tree Island

Mary, Victoria and I went out in the late afternoon, in search of a painting spot in beautiful evening light and found one where we could park, spread out and yet not trespass. It was a glorious day....bugs and all. My first attempt was a wipe down - so I added thalo blue and got a bit more adventurous.

SPAWNING

Did I mention that I had the good fortune to acquire a beautiful handcrafted cherry wood studio easel from my friend Mary's husband Phil. It is huge next to my little plein air easels. My logic is that with a big easel requires larger canvases....and then came the second requirement - a lot more time. I have been working on this painting all week!

I took a rather colourless early spring scene and decided to see every nuance of colour possible. Gordon MacKenzie, a wise watercolour teacher had once told me "learn all of the rules well, then forget them and just paint". The time has come.

Apple Tree in May

Worked on the blossoms and shadow - needed more depth and contouring.

Many years ago, we planted an apple tree from a seed in a commercial Granny Smith apple. It was a school project for my youngest daughter, and grew to be a large tree. A few years ago it had three blossoms, the next year five, last year ten, and then this year there are thousands of blossoms.