Highlands East Plein Air Arts Festival.

The Highlands East Plein Air Arts Festival ran from September 10 to the 13.  We painted for three days, attended a great bbq and then had a show and sale on the closing Sunday.  Eleven artists attended this year which is very disappointing but I am sure that it will grow.  We had a blast painting at wonderful locations and socializing with locals and other artists. About a dozen paintings sold which is fantastic for a festival in its second year.

We went to paint the Irondale church but when we got there it was encased in scafholding with most of the paint stripped off the front.  The sunlight was coming just over the top of the trees causing the steeple to glow so I decided on a macro.  I think that it worked and I am very happy with this painting.



The painting right is of Gooderham Lake from the "Old Parish Place"  It was a huge treed property that is being protected by its owners.  The only downside was that it is heavily treed and I was in very dark shade painting this.  I could make out the values but colour was mostly guesswork.

This painting was painted at Greenmantle Farm which is home to a rare mineral called fluorrichterite.  It is also a property that is being protected by its very friendly owners and they go an extra mile.  They lead eco tours on their property.





This last painting was painted at Centre Lake.  It is favourite location and I have painted this scene numerous times.  This was our third day painting and I was exhausted but I can't think of a better location to finish three intense days of painting.

A weekend like this is definitely good for the soul.

Manorun Farm

The Monday Painters were invited to spend two Monday afternoons on Manorun Organic Farm in Copetown.  This is an organic co-op and a great example of sustainable farming.  They are a family farm with interns helping and learning.  Everyone was smiling and friendly.  Add to that the fact that I could paint here every day for a month and not run out of subject matter and I was as happy as a farm pig in its pen.

They had a big and very old silo that I think was made from ceramic blocks.  We didn't go in it but one of the interns is calling it home.  I became a bit fixated on it because it was so unusual and ended up painting it both weeks.  This first painting was done from very close to the car in the shade of a huge willow tree.




I discovered that if I hiked down the farm lane a bit, climbed a rather steep embankment and avoided the electric fence I could stand in knee deep grass and get a view of the entrance to the silo/guest house.  I lost my coffee mug in the grass somewhere but it was rather worth it.


One would think that being inspired would make things easier however I find that it often means I get frustrated and overwork my painting.  There is simply too much pressure to get it right. That happened with both of these to a certain extent.  I am happy with both of them more because of the wonderful memories than because they are great paintings. 

Love this weather

I have been painting lots but not posting much.  Here are a couple of my latest efforts.



This first painting was painted from the top of Rattlesnake Point.  It was a fantastic day with fish scale clouds and no haze.  Perfect for this kind of vista.  I have never painted here before but I will be back.  My goal with this painting was to capture the perspective.  We are a long way up and can see forever.



I have been sketching more.  These watercolour and ink sketches are just plain fun to do.  The first one is of an artist friend at one of our paint outs.  The second one is of the Rails End Gallery in Haliburton.  I had two paintings in an invitational plein air show there and Debbie and I drove up there to retrieve them. Nothing breaks up seven hours on the road like half an hour sketching.

Debbie and I are driving to British Columbia this summer so I can see some paintings and a ton of sketches in my future.

Yeah! I have a camera again.

I haven't posted in over a month because I didn't have a camera and images from my phone are terrible.  That was corrected with the purchase of a battery charger for my camera.  I have been busy painting up a storm but I am so far behind in my documentation that I may never get caught up.  Here are a few of my recent attempts.


These first two were painted at my parents home on Paudash Lake. The horizontal painting is the view from the front yard and the vertical is the view from the back yard.

 I love painting skies despite the fact that they extremely challenging. Painting outside means dealing with constantly changing light however usually your subject is relatively static.  Clouds on the other hand are constantly moving and the more interesting they are the faster they move.

It is very easy to fall into the trap of painting what you think clouds should look like rather than looking at them and painting the way they actually appear at that given moment in time.

This last painting was painted in Crooks Hollow at the site of the original dam.  It was on a very damp and humid evening. This is one of my favourite places to spend time working because it is so peaceful.

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.

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.

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.