Up Ahead

Here is another painting that I just finished for my backroads series. I have been wanting to paint telephone wires for a while now - ever since I saw work by artist Angie Refro. I love her wires (and her birds rock too). Check it out.

Drifting

Ok - so I have totally broken the number one composition rule of putting your centre of interest smack dab in the middle of the canvas. But I think it still works because of the turbulent sky, the fence and the value change in the foreground to guide your eye around. What do you think?

Fall Birches Study

I was looking through my Fall photos this weekend, and decided to paint this one. Our property is filled with birch trees, and they were beautiful when they changed colours this fall.

Still Life Study

Here is another one from my workshop on the weekend. I like the colour palette that I used - more warm pastel tones. I think that I will incorporate these colours into an upcoming landscape.

Streets of San Francisco

This is a painting that I just finished for the blog Different Strokes from Different Folks by Karin Jurick. It was a lot of fun. I rarely painting buildings (to this extent anyways) so it was a great learning experience for me. Now I am ready to tackle the many century homes in our area that are ripe for painting!

Garden Fence

Here is another one from the workshop. This one was done using primarily blues and oranges. It is a pretty muted colour palette for me!

Haliburton House

I just finished a wonderful weekend workshop taught by artist John David Anderson. (a link to his website to come soon). It was great fun. The theme was "Painting with the Impressionist Palette". I learned a lot, including the proper way to hold my brush. That is going to be a hard one to re-learn. But I will give it a try!

John is a fantastic teacher and artist. The bonus is that he also manages the local Curry's art store, and has an extensive understanding of various art supplies. He is an excellent resource for that sort of information.

I will post some of the paintings I created over the next couple of days. Here is the first one. I am not that crazy about the colour palette that I used, however John was pushing me to incorporate more warm tones into my paintings (but I love the cool ones!). This is the result.

Long Road Ahead

I have had a busy week of painting. Feels great to be doing it again on a regular basis. There were definitely a few bombs, but a couple worth salvaging. It takes a while to get the cobwebs out! Here is one of my latest in the back roads series.

Country Road II

Here is another version of the same scene.

Country Road

Sorry about the long break... major house renovations were underway here this Fall. Anyway, to make a long story short, not a lot of painting was getting done over the past three months (but I do have lovely new floors and a kitchen to show for it!). However I am back at it again, with no more excuses.

I was doing some experimenting this week. I really enjoy line as a component to paintings. It is something I would like to incorporate more into my work. Colour, shape, light and line - my favourite elements. I am not in love with this one, I still think I could push the values more. I was experimenting with acrylic paint in a more transparent way (using Golden acrylic glazing liquid). It was fun, though a little out of my comfort zone (isn't that the way it should be?).

August Fields

I had fun painting this one. Sometimes I really struggle with skies - all of that loose open space.

It is a rainy miserable day here today. Perfect for painting!

Back Road

This one may be the beginning of a series that I am interested in doing, focusing on the back roads of Ontario. I am enamoured with them. Especially with the fact that most of them are totally straight. My father-in-law once told me that the roads of Ontario were designed by the British Military, and they wanted to build them completely straight (no matter what natural obstacle was in the way). This seems to ring true in my travels around the countryside. It always makes me smile. Amazing how we humans like to force our will on nature.

Pastel Abstract

I have been wanting to delve into the pastel colour spectrum for a while, and I did so with this one. I don't paint many abstracts, and though I have a loose style, I like to have my reference material!! So relaxing and painting freely from my imagination can be a little difficult. This is another painting on a black ground, which I think provides a nice contrast from the pastel paint colours.

Grey Barn

There is something about old buildings that I love. Is it the neglect, the patina, or the stories they have to tell?

I am trying out working on a black ground instead of my typical red one. I am enjoying it. I like how the strong black lines come through.

Lily Pads

Our pond has grown the most amazing water lily's this summer. I am no Monet, but I sure had fun painting them. I can't believe how many of them there were. The bull frogs and painted turtles love to sun bath on the lily pads.

I have been having some computer problems recently, thus the lack of postings. But now I am using Mark's computer so things are getting better. I am off to Saskatchewan to visit my family for the next two weeks.