Swamp on Barron Canyon Road

This is another sketch from my trip up Barron Canyon Road on Tuesday. The swamp is full of trees that have been drowned and are left standing in the shallow water. The sun was raking across the tops of the trees on the distant bank, the wind had died down and the reflections on the pond were unearthily beautiful.

On Barron Canyon Road

A very quick sketch of a stream that has been dammed up by beavers. I used a large filbert brush and painted on a Raymar panel. Marina lent me her Solteck easel to use while she is in Germany. Some how I messed up my camera AGAIN so that I can't use the aperature priority, which I was so happy with on the last post. Today the camera would not put the image on the card so that I could load it on to my computer. I ended up using one of the preset functions, which actually worked very well for this sketch. I know eventulally I'll get it.

Last Day of Summer

I have been away from my blog for the past while working out some technical problems, both in photographing my images and working with the images on my computer. My nursing job has also been taking a fair amount of my time so far this month. Monday the weather was gorgeous so my friend Marina and I decided to take a road trip up the Ottawa Valley to Mattawa. On the way north we scouted out some promising painting locations and ended up painting in two of them. This view is at a small park near Mackie, Ontario. It was late in the day so we had to paint fast to finish before the sun went down. We were joined briefly by two friendly truck drivers, Dallas and Gord, who gave us the location of a park on the Ottawa River where we can paint. Looking forward to that, thanks Gord!

White Cup # 2 - with Cherry Tomatoes

Another session with the white cup, same technique but the drawing is more accurate, especially the centering of the cup in the saucer and the relative sizes of the cup and saucer.

White Cup # 1 - with Cherry Tomatoes

From both of my workshops this summer I learned that I need to work on my drawing skills - especially with the brush, so I have decide to take on a project of painting this white cup under many circumstances, to see the correct proportions of its shape. My friend Marina told me that in a workshop by Jack Reid she once attended he told her it is sometimes necessary to repeat a subject as many as 25 times to really learn how to paint it. The above painting is a value study in Burnt Umber and White.

Late Summer Reflections

The colours of autumn are slowly replacing the greens of early summer, finally. I adore the the fall with it's cool, crisp days and cooler evenings. I always feel more energetic and wanting to get out and do things after moping around the house or at work in the hot humid days of mid-summer. The landscape comes alive with brilliant colour, each day more glorious than the last. I'm really looking forward to getting out and doing some paintings in the next few months.