A Great Day to be Canadian

Yesterday was as close to a perfect day as it gets.  I went out and voted in the morning, painted in shirtsleeves in the sunny afternoon, had a wonderful turkey supper with Debbie, watched the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Kansas City Royals and then watched the very divisive Conservative party get removed from power. I love being Canadian.

About a dozen of us gathered at Hidden Valley Park in Burlington to paint fall colours.  The colour was past its peak and not all that impressive however it was sunny and very warm so a great October day to paint.  This pine tree seemed to be dancing in the park and I thought that it could be a very dramatic composition.

I always start a painting by putting a thin layer of a mood setting colour (in this case cadmium red light mixed with transparent iron oxide) on my board using oil paint.  I then wipe out the highlights and add some darks to get a sense form.  This under painting usually gets almost completely covered with more paint however in this case when the painting was complete except for the sky four different artists (all of whom I respect) came by and told me that they loved the sky so guess what. No blue sky.

I kind of like it.  What do you think?