A Great Day to Be Outside

But not such a great day to paint.  About half a dozen of us decided to brave the -10 C temperatures and 60 Kph winds to paint at Princess Point.  I managed to find a wonderful view of the high level bridge with the snow swirling across Coote's Paradise and a great tree in the forground.  About five minutes in it started to snow.  Boy did it snow.

The scenes around us were amazing but the snow piled up fast.  I went and spoke to Gloria for about two minutes and when I walked back to my palette it was buried and I had to blow the snow off to see my paints. We likely would have packed up and left except it was such a great day to be outside.

This painting is horrendous because the snow flakes turned into large crystals and mixed with the paint.  The paint takes on the consistency of play-do and it would rather stay on the brush than adhere to the icy board. The whole painting has a rather gravely finish. Fine lines are out of the question.  It is quite simply a frustrating but funny exercise in futility.

Repairs

I didn't have much time to paint today but I decided to use it to repair two paintings.  I have found that a wonderful way to paint and to learn at the same time is to take old rejects and play with them.


This firs painting was painted on a cold December day and it was the second to last painting that I painted.  Like the last one it too fell over and was damaged.  I wasn't concerned at the time because I didn't like the painting.  It had the sun hitting the top section of the castle but no highlight on the lower floor.  It was the way it was in reality but in the painting it looked wrong.  I added the highlight to the bottom and like it a lot more.



This is the painting from yesterday mostly repaired.  I eliminated most of the scratches and smudges and removed the big chunks of debris.  The smaller pieces will brush off once the painting is dried.  I look at this painting and I am happy with it and the next time I look at it I think reject pile.  I will have to look at it for a while.

I need to spend more time painting in my studio.  Most of what I don't like about these paintings is the sloppy brushwork, mostly from the cold.

Ouch!

I am embarrassed to say that I am not even sure when the last time was that I held a paint brush.  It was at Dundurn Castle in early December.  The good news is that I went out and painted with the Monday Painters today and I am re-inspired.  Not a day goes by that I don't think a lot about my art and painting but that is meaningless if I don't pick up a brush and actually paint.  I am going to attempt to do a painting a day for at least a month. Most will be watercolour and ink sketches but I need to paint.

Today went great until disaster struck.  I was happy with my painting but ill prepared for the cold and got too numb to continue.  That was at first a good thing because the painting was done and it was time to stop.  Unfortunately while I was chatting with other equally cold artists a gust of wind came up and blew my easel over.  My painting ended up sliding face down on a gravel path.  I may attempt to repair it in my studio tomorrow when my fingers have thawed.

I do love painting this time of year but I need to remember to eat a high energy breakfast and to put on my snuggies and heavy socks in non tight fitting boots.

What was I thinking.

 

 

I volunteered to do a demo in the hallway at the Art Gallery of Burlington during the Christmas Show and Sale.  The idea being to let the public see an artist at work. 

I have only done a handful of portraits in oils and since I am no longer allowed to use my walnut oil based M Graham paints in the gallery I purchased four tubes of Winsor and Newton oil paint (Anders Zorn palette).  Unfortunately I mistakenly picked up a tube of very cool transparent yellow instead of a nice warm cad yellow.  I always do portraits from a sitting model but since there wasn't room I decided to do a portrait of a friend from a very bad black and white photo so that I wouldn't be tempted to become a slave to the two dimensional photograph.  After all I know what this friend should look like.  I kind of forgot that this experiment would be done while answering questions and chatting with dozens of people walking by me in the hallway.

The portrait is terrible but it was a fun experiment.  I chopped off the back of his head and I made his ear much bigger than it really is but with those issues fixed and a warmer yellow this wouldn't be all that bad.

On a brighter note I am happy with the next two portraits.  I have been offered the chance to do a solo show in St James Church in April and Debbie thinks that I should hang my sketches.  I certainly have enough of them so I think that I may do that.  Etienne and Joanette were as usual great models so these were just plain fun to do.

I do need to work on my photographic skills too.  These are about 20" by 16" and look much better in real life.

What a day!

The normal highs for this time of year are 8 C if we are lucky.  Today it was 23 C and sunny.  I painted for two hours in a tee shirt and then came home and fell asleep in a lawn chair in our yard.  To top it off I have a painting that I actually kind of like.

This is looking downstream from one of the bridges in Lowville Park.  Most of the leaves are on the ground but there were some oak trees making a perfect backdrop for an old maple with no leaves.  The oaks reflected off the water in the still part of the creek turned the water a very rich brown.  There was just enough of a breeze to create movement in the dry leaves. 

I love my job but on days like this I feel especially blessed.

Cassandra is fun

I almost didn't go to the sketch group today but I had to drop a painting off for the Art Gallery of Burlington "Small is Beautiful" show so I decided to stay for the sketch group.  Why is it that when I am not really in the mood that I do some of my best work.  I have sketched Cassandra many times but today I think that I got my best likeness yet. Maybe I should only paint when I am looking for other things to do.

Hidden Valley again

Yesterday was another perfect day to paint.  A clear blue sky and warm enough to paint comfortably without gloves.  The fall colour is well past its peak but the colour that is left stands out against the grey background and the orangish yellow leaves were brilliant against the bright blue sky.  I should have made the sky more blue however I wanted a smooth even hue for the cloudless sky and was concerned that I would end up with too much texture if I went back in.