plein air watercolour: Thames River Trestle Bridge

Yesterday was my first paint out with the Gallery Painting Group this season. The weather was wonderful and my husband found a wonderful place along the river where we painted. The trestle bridge, which crosses both Oxford Street and the Thames River was an interesting structure with lovely reflections. We were visited from time to time by pairs of Canada geese. It was a peaceful place to paint even though the sound of traffic crossing the Oxford Street bridge was continuous, and the thump thump thump of someone practising tennis against a wooden wall competed with the bird's songs and the geese honking. Occasionally something would jump in the river leaving beautiful patterns of concentric circles. I was unable to spot the circle maker, but just as we had packed up and were leaving, Brian saw a small mouth bass jump, so maybe it was the circle artist.

Anna's encaustic paints

What a great start to our season at Sunset Arts! This weekend we took part in the Grand Bend Studio Tour. The weather was perfect.
One of the gallery members, Anna Koots, demonstrated her encaustic painting just outside our front door. On Sunday, at our back door, a musical group entertained the crowds and us. All of our guests enjoyed the nibbles and the treats from Hayter's . I met so many interesting people and it was great to welcome back customers from previous years.

I'm looking forward to this weekend's studio tour in Grand Bend. Stop by for a visit if you are in Grand Bend. My work will be in Sunset Arts Gallery on 63 River Road during the tour and for the summer too.

Sweet Tea and Memories

Sweet Tea

This watercolour painting is called Sweet Tea. The tea pot shape is the silhouette of a very small tea pot, a salesman's sample of a royal crown derby tea pot, which belonged to my late Aunt Dorothy. The sweet peas are from the pattern on a cup and saucer inherited from my Mom. The black background with the green crescent shape is inspired by the saucer which was black with a white centre. Since the tablecloth is white, I made the centre green, repeating the green from the stems of the sweet peas.
This is a departure from my usual work, being more decorative in nature and certainly not a landscape or city view, or a traditional watercolour, but I enjoyed painting it and the memories of loved ones it engendered.

Busy Day

It was a busy day today. I drove to Grand Bend to pick up the Grand Bend Studio Tour brochures, prepared note cards for Sunset Arts Gallery, delivered the watercolour painting you see to the left to the framer's so it will be ready for the studio tour, finished my tracking sheets for the work which will be in the Lambeth Art Association Show and Sale this weekend, and packaged up the paintings and matted work for the LAA Show. I am now going to relax a little.

Sharing Studio Space

I am now sharing my studio space. My new "roomie" takes things without asking and doesn't put them back where he got them. He chews on my sketching pencils, walks on my work and chats away constantly. Frequently he decides the studio is a good place in which to groom himself or to take a nap in my designated painting chair. In spite of all this, his good looks and charm  make him hard to resist and I worry when he doesn't arrive at the same time I do. While he was napping, I made a quick pencil sketch of him, which you can see below. By the way, his name is Merlin. He is 2 years old. We adopted him from a rescue home.

Spring Cleaning With Tea ??

Tea With Tiffany

A few weeks ago, I was determined to get started on Spring cleaning. I began with the dining room sideboard, which, as it turns out, was a mistake. I found a forgotten little gem. It is a salesman's sample for china. From the tip of the spout to the handle is approximately 3 inches long and the pot is a little less then 2 inches tall. The pattern is Royal Crown Darby and the tiny teapot started me on a series of tea pot paintings that are still underway. This is the first. I placed the shape of the little teapot on an imaginary table and put that in front of my rendition of a Tiffany window, inspired by a placemat, also found in the sideboard. The medium used is watercolour. Some artists don't like the use of black in watercolour. I do. I am now working on painting number 6 in the teapot series. I don't know if anyone else will like them, but I am having a wonderful time with them. So many ideas and possibilities are really making me a bit giddy. Great fun.

  If you'd like to see more, the complete tea pot series to date can be found on my website .Just go to Galleries and look for Tea Pot Series. Some of these will be in the matted works section of the Lambeth Art Show April 26 to April 28 at the Lambeth United Church, Colonel Talbot Road and Main Street, Lambeth.

And, by the way, my Spring cleaning is still not finished.