Thursday 23 April 2015

Sometimes Not So Much.

Yesterday was a great day.  Leah was the model for our Wednesday sketch group and she is great to work with.  This is another 12" X 18" pastel pencil sketch done in about an hour and a half.  It was fun to do and Debbie thinks that I should do a solo show of my sketches but I am a bit bummed out because I would have preferred to use my oils.  I was told that because the Art Gallery of Burlington is a nut free environment I cannot use my walnut oil based paints.  If I want to do portraits in oils I will have to either change from the M Graham paints that I love or find another group that I can paint with.

Tuesday was one of the not so great days. I was painting a great scene in Catherine Gibbon's landscape class.  The sky was an even grey, then it broke up and then there was blue sky and then great clouds and then grey and then blue sky. The light kept changing very fast and I made the common mistake of chasing the light which made for a very over worked painting.  Then all hell broke loose.  The sky got very dark with roiling clouds.  It started to pour rain but I wasn't concerned because I was after all using oils.  A huge gust of wind came up and plastered my painting, still attached to my easel, to my chest.  When I pulled it free and was carrying it to my car it came free of the easel and dropped face down in  some fresh loam.  I think that mother nature was sending me a message.

It was suggested that I sign and frame my coat.

Monday 20 April 2015

Dramatic Sky

The Monday painters were supposed to paint at Copetown Marsh today but the weather forecast wasn't good and the sky looked very threatening. I live about ten minutes away so I decided to give it a try.  Only three of us showed up.  It started to rain but not hard enough to bother my oils so I kept painting.  The light was very subdued and the sky was very dramatic so I was in my glory. I am not happy with the foreground in this and the bushes on the hill are a bit too large but overall I am very pleased.  The rain was falling the clouds were roiling and the red winged blackbirds were singing away.

I was humming along with them.

Thursday 16 April 2015

Happy Dance Time

Stormy Paradise shown here was accepted into the Burlington Fine Arts Association Annual Juried Show.  The Association has many many fine artists and only thirty three pieces were selected so I am very honoured that one of them is mine.

What is really exciting is the fact that I feel that I have been really struggling of late and I was not at all happy with the painting that was accepted but I felt it was the best of what I have done in a while.  Maybe I am just totally losing perspective when it comes to my own art.

Here are my last two landscapes painted at La Salle Park.  The first is the pavilion as seen from the bottom of the hill and the second caught my attention because the two trees appeared to be embracing with their two little progeny standing under and protected by them.  I appologize for the poor images but since I have no working camera they were taken with my iPhone.

Monday 13 April 2015

Busy Times

What a fantastic week it has been.  I decided to get more involved with the Dundas Valley School of Art's annual auction.  I spent four days with a fantastic group of volunteers hanging about 1500 pieces of art by over a hundred artists.  It was hard work but a great experience.  I also acted as a room monitor for four hours and chatted with many of the patrons wandering through.  I am only sorry that I didn't get more involved years ago.

We went to the live auction Saturday night and the school was jammed.  Debbie bought a ceramic serving plate and I bought a wonder little painting of Desjardins canal painted by Ann Kelly Walsh.

I had two paintings in the silent auction.  I sold one of the two and in hindsight the second was not one of my best paintings and probably shouldn't have been submitted in the first place.  The one that sold is shown here.  It is always sad to say goodbye to a painting because they are all snapshots of my life and there are many memories wrapped up in each and every one.

 I am submitting two paintings to the Burlington Fine art Association annual juried show.  I would love to have a painting in this show again this year.

I am off to paint this afternoon.  It is a warm fall day and sunny with cloudy periods so it should be perfect.