Studio Work

Since I am restricted by a cast on my foot, plein air painting has ground to a standstill. While I am able to walk well on floors and sidewalks and anything flat, level and sturdy, walking on grass, paths through the woods, fields or rocky shores are off limits. Very frustrating, since this is the time that the Gallery Painting Group paints twice a week on location.
I have been working from sketches and photos in my studio and today I finished a 30" x 20" acrylic painting of Medway Heritage Forest in Autumn. I will take it up to Sunset Arts Gallery and hang it on Monday, when I am scheduled to work.

More Buildings

I spent the day sketching at Fanshawe Pioneer Village. The Gallery Painting Group held a workshop there today with most painters working in oil. I did two sketches of buildings, even though there were some wonderful vistas for landscape paintings. I promised myself that I could do landscape on Tuesday when we meet again, and so I completed two sketches of buildings using pen and ink with watercolour. The first is the Millar home and the second is the Peel residence.

Fanshawe Pioneer Village is a nice place to visit and sketching subjects are everywhere...lovely old buildings, cabins, gardens, antique farm equipment, people in period dress, lovely shop windows....an endless array of possibilities. I am sure to return here to sketch several times over the next few months.

Daniel's First Paint Out

The Gallery Painting Group met this morning at a farm on Westdel Bourne. My husband and I took our grandson, Daniel, who is five, along for his first paint out. We wandered around the property, visiting the cows, watching the sheep and horses and examining the farm equipment up close. Of course we took lots of photos too.The weather was damp, cold and windy, but Daniel and I hunkered down behind the car, out of the wind, and we were dressed in lots of layers so it was enjoyable for us both to do some sketching while my husband walked the property again taking more photos. Daniel did three sketches...two of clouds and one of the cow who had earlier seemed very interested in Daniel.We all three took a hot chocolate and windmill cookie tailgate break and then finished up our sketches. I did a pen sketch with watercolour added at home this evening.

Lily Field

When my Dad was a young boy living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, he would spend summers on his Grandfather's farm, Lilyfield. This year the Gallery Painting Group visited a lily farm near Chatham, Ontario, and I did a small painting on location. The painting above was done in my studio, and I have titled it Lily Field, in memory of my Dad.

GPG Komoka Paint Out

Yesterday the Gallery Painting Group went to Komoka to paint. The weather was hot and extrememly humid, but in spite of that many members were there. I chose to paint the woods by the river. I was intrigued by the way the river shone through the shaded woods and branches and decide to attempt to paint it as my subject. The humidity made working in watercolour a challenge, but I treid anyway. I began by blocking in the shapes as seen in the picures below.

The finished painting, completed at home in the studio, was not what I had hoped. It was too dark and muddy, but I will try the scene again, this time in a vertical format which should help to bring in some sky and light.

finished painting

photo in vertical format