Oil Painting

I have been taking oil painting lessons for a few weeks now. This is my most successful effort to date. It was done from a reference photo taken near Sault St. Marie on my first visit to the area. I am enjoying working with oil, more so since my husband installed a ventilation fan in my studio! I am currently working on three more paintings and hope to have something to post soon.

Two More

Missing The North

Distant View

 Circumstances were such that I have been unable to travel "north" this autumn. To alleviate my sadness about this, I have been going through photographs from previous painting trips. I decided to do some sketches with pen, brush and ink.
Distant View was done directly with a brush and ink with no preliminary drawing. The sliver of lake in the distance is a sight that always makes me happy and hopeful.

Tumbling Water

For Tumbling Water I did a preliminary pen sketch and then completed it with brush work. It is based on a photo taken near Sault St. Marie.

Reflections

Reflections was done directly with brush and ink. The photo for this is one I used to make a watercolour painting several years ago. I find the line of the tree tops very appealing and will likely paint this again sometime.

Doing these sketches has helped me to remember wonderful painting trips to the north with good friends, to be greatful for those opportunities and to look forward to future painting trips.

Random Splatter and a Stick

Poppies

I pass through Birr on my way to work at our co-op gallery,  Sunset Arts, in Grand Bend. Earlier this summer, just outside of the general store, there was a large bed of poppies. I returned the next day to enjoy them and to take some photos for reference as sketching them from the busy road or the parking lot didn't hold much appeal. I sketched poppies from memory when I got home and have been working on this painting ever since, using my sketches and reference photos. It is a watercolour but I used watercolour with very little water added to the paint from the tube to do the random spatter and I scraped some on here and there with a stick. I left a band at the bottom free of spatter to give allow for depth.

Landon Library: watercolour, pen and ink

I've been walking through Wortley Village with my friend Cheryl Radford, sketching and taking photographs and looking for inspiration. Along with my friends, Len Hughes and Amelia Husnik, Cheryl and I will be having a show of Wortley based art in November of 2013. It may seem a long way off , but time has a way of flying past so quickly these days, that it seemed like a good idea to start looking for ideas.The piece above was done in the studio and is based on one of the photos I took. I drew the scene and then washed it with several layers of watercolour and finished it with pen and ink.

The second sketch was done on location, around 5:30, sitting on the steps at the front door of one of the churches in Wortley Village. It's a sketch of a house on Elmwood Ave. The view of the house was partially obstructed by trees, but I enjoyed sketching it anyway. This time I used watersoluble ink and water.

This painting is of a house on Princess Ave here in the Woodfield area of London. I have been looking at this house for a couple of years now, wishing I had the time to sketch or paint it. I finally got the opportunity to do so this summer. This painting will be in The Gallery Painting Group's show in October at the Byron Memorial Library. The information about the show follows.

Blackfriars Estate Revisisted: A Quiet Corner

An earlier post featured pen and ink drawings of some of the architectural details which attracted my attention while on a paint out with the Gallery Painting Group. Yesterday I finished this watercolour painting of a quiet corner of the garden surrounding the building. I use a limited palette to convey the quiet, almost dreamlike atmosphere I found here. I loved the morning sunlight and the shadows it produced on the wall near the structure of the fire escape.