I had a blogspot blog before I started my blog on my website so I kept copying from one to the other and kept them both going as mirrors of each other.  As I got busy the Blogspot one fell behind.  I have updated the Blogspot blog and I have linked it to my website so from now on there will only be the one blog.

Stress? What stress?

I didn't like this at all when I finished it but it is starting to grow on me. I am still not especially happy with it but I have been struggling lately so I am okay with it.  It was a gorgeous fall day and I was down by the water at Cootes Paradise looking back into Westdale Inlet.


I have been very busy getting ready for shows lately and I haven't been very focused when painting. Usually when I get outside with my paints nothing interferes but shows are always stressful and I guess four at once is just too much.


I found another jurried show but I think that I might just pass on this one.

It is great to be busy

Lots of great things happening but I am starting to get a bit overwhelmed.  I was at a reception on Friday at the Capital One offices in Toronto.  The Ontario Plein Air Society currently has a jurried show in their offices and I have two paintings hanging in it.
This Saturday I am headed back to Toronto for a reception at the Hangman Gallery.  OPAS is having a members group show there and I have four paintings hanging in it.
The Burlington Fine Arts Association juried show is coming up and I need to get two paintings framed and ready to submit to it by November 3rd.  It will be tough to get juried into that one because there is limited space and some very talented artists vying for it.
Finally the biggie.  I have a solo show at St James Anglican Church in Dundas for the month of December.  I need to get thirty paintings framed and ready in the next couple of weeks.  I am going to make the frames so I have a bit of work to do. I am really excited about this one,  It is a great venue and the curator was my art teacher in grades 7 and 8.

I very rarely work on a plein air painting after the session because they can very quickly lose their freshness.   However, this painting had a glaring problem.  I didn't like it at all before but I am actually quite pleased with it now.  The difference in colour between versions is my poor photography.  The original posting is closer to the correct hues.

I am looking forward to painting tomorrow.

I am feeling better now

Last Thursday and this Monday were both disasters.  For the first time ever I produced a painting that I was too embarrassed to show anyone.  I scrubbed it off before I came home.  Monday's wasn't much better and I was getting really frustrated.



Wednesdays sketch group model was Leah and she had a great face to paint so I was inspired.  This painting has some problems but I like to think that I would have fixed most of them I hadn't run out of time.  I do feel and I was told that I managed a great likeness and in portraits that is important.
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This morning we were in Hidden Valley Park.  It was cold.  It was 4 degrees C but there was a cold wind and we just aren't acclimatized to this weather yet.  I wasn't prepared for it either .  I will be next time.  I debated putting the three maples standing equally spaced like a row of soldiers but that is the way they were planted and part of the charm of the scene.

I haven't decided if I like this one but it is much better than the last two landscapes so I am happy.

Gordon

I went to my first Burlington Fine Arts Association meeting last night and it just happened to be their critique night.  The critiquer was Marla Panko and she told it like she saw it.   Constructive criticism is what helps us grow so I was looking forward to getting some "educated" feedback from someone who doesn't know me. I received more positive and less negative comments than most of the other artists so I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.  I fully agreed with the negative so it was a good night.
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This mornings BFAA studio time was with a model and I love doing portraits so it was another good morning.  Gordon was sitting reading a book on his tablet.  I probably should have done a full figure painting so that it would have context.  Because he is looking down the head and shoulders painting makes it look as if he is sleeping.

This was completed in about two hours so I am quite pleased with it.

I need to find a way to get better photographs of my oil paintings.  It is hard to eliminate the glare when they are wet.

Kerncliff Park

This was our second Thursday at this old quarry which has been turned into a fantastic park complete with a boardwalk through a marsh.  I was so unhappy with my paintings last week that I didn't post them.  I was once rejected by a gallery because I wasn't in their minds consistent enough.  I think that consistency would be death to me as an artist.  It is the failures that I learn from and grow from.



This was my first painting.  It is actually almost the exact motif that I failed miserably at last week.  This is much better but I am still not happy with the rocks.  I need to learn how to do the stone faces in the escarpment.
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This was my second painting.  It was done in about a third the time of the first and I like it much better.  I think that there is a lesson to be learned there.