Thursday

What -Altered Books?

These are two more of my spreads that I did in my Altered Book -themed Four Letter Words. The image on the right was in the book already. I got Heidi to write Pink Buds in calligraphy for me. These are really not flower petals, but some cool moths! Love the pink with the yellow green. On the left side, I stamped over the text with Ultramarine blue and gold acylic paint -for the stamp I cut a piece of styrofoam packing that held a computer -it had some symbols embossed into it, and I thought, "I wonder what this would stamp like?" ALWAYS answer the 'what if?' question with trying it -that is how you learn all kinds of great stuff, and also what works and what doesn't. I then attached another distressed photo of one of my paintings -just wet the photo, and scratch at the edges with sandpaper -the LEAF was scratched out with an awl. Just wait to see what else you can do to alter photos!

This spread is actually a series of pockets. On the left hand side there is one pocket made by folding back one of the photo pages from the book. This is secured with eyelets. The back page is another image from the book. Inside this pocket I have placed a paper doll that I made out of papers I had previously painted and decorated (see post Jan 24/09) which I backed with cardstock. I added a skirt made out of lace -the movable arms, head and legs are possible because of the brads joining the pieces. The PLAY was cut out of the collage papers as well.
On the right side there are 3 pockets of differing depths, secured at the top edges with eyelets through which red and yellow cording was strung, and tied with bows. Inside each pocket are three tags -each person was to decorate 2 of the tags. I have clipped one of my tags to the front of that page just to show you an example. The tags gave us a small format to try new things on I did have a problem holding the tags in place which I thought I had solved with some double sided tape, but it has since released so will have to come up with another idea. It is too deep into the page to use staples, which would be easy. Suggestions? I will post a photo of the tags and the doll tomorrow.

Enjoy!

For more information on this project, feel free to email me!

Wednesday

Altered Book Again

I did these two spreads after the exchange was over. I had removed many of the less interesting pages, primarily text pages, from my book as it was way too thick after all the altering was done. I did this with a craft knife, cutting very close to the seam. On the left side there was a photo of an ugly looking snake thing (YUCK!) so I camouflaged it with transparent glazes of Jenkins Green acrylics. I put another medallion that I made (see post Dec 26th for directions) on top. On the right side I stuck on a Canada sticker as the forest looks so much like the forest at our cottage. I then stuck on the HOME that I cut from a magazine. I still might do something else to this spread -any suggestions?

This is another spread where I had removed pages between the two image pages. I loved the little blue moths on the right, and BLUE has four letters, so it was game. On the left side I collaged on a blue jay feather I had found, which I had kept in my treasures box. It is a great idea to use your found treasures in your altered book!

Enjoy!

For more information on this project, feel free to email me!

Monday

Still More Altered Book Project Pages

These 2 spreads I did after the round robin exchange was finished -I still have half a dozen spreads left to do! The image of the fossil on the right was in the book. I liked the colours so decided to work with that palette. I painted a shell over top of the text on the left hand page, highlighting some of the words from the book. I made an origami envelope which I collaged onto the page. Inside it says "LESS is MORE". Playing off the theme Four Letter Words, I let the numeral represent the word FOUR. On the right hand page, I took a photo of one of my finished collages, distressed the photo by wetting it and then giving the edges a scrub with sandpaper. I then collaged it on the fossil. To finish the spread, I spritzed it all with my new favorite, apricot coloured Glimmer Mist. ( see a video on how to use this product)


This spread had a photograph on both pages. I thought for a long while about what to do with this, and then I saw where someone had written text around an image, and voila, the idea was there, and I proceeded to write steam of consciousness ideas about what it would be like to live on this island. What fun! I used a silver Sharpie on the dark parts and a blue Sharpie on the light parts. I had fun with the lettering of LAND, following my renewed interest in scripts and calligraphy.

Enjoy!

For more information on this project, feel free to email me!

Sunday

More of My Altered Book

This is a spread that Heidi did in my book. She took off on the image of the jelly fish that was in the book. She worked on a black piece of card that she had made packing tape transfers to look like windows and placed them behind holes she cut in the card. Heidi is an amazing calligrapher, and she wrote the words in an opaque white pen "Jelly fish swim in the deep blue sea. They swim, float and even glow. Their legs help them to flit and dive, on through the sea they go." She added the black page to the book using brads. The text page behind shows through under the images, kind of like seeing the page through an aquarium. Cool!

This spread was made by Lindsay. In this case the original pages were totally obliterated. I had previously painted them with gesso, which I then stamped into when the gesso was still damp, using hand carved stamps with tree themes. Lindsay played with the tree theme and on the left hand spread printed out and collaged a great story about a lonely tree in the desert which had been hit by a drunk driver -too much -click the page to see it larger and read the story. She then stuck on some stylized leaf stickers on top. On the right page she painted a lovely picture of a tree being held by loving hands. She surrounded it with a polka dotted frame and cut out the letters for TREE out of magazine, typed the word root, and collaged them in. I like the way Lindsay played with different fonts in this piece.

Enjoy!

For information about this project, please feel free to email me or comment below!

Saturday

My Altered Book -2 more spreads

This is one of the spreads that I did in my book. I photocopied a stencil sitting on top of a piece of newspaper and collaged that onto the left hand page. Then I tinted it with Quin gold and Perm Violet Dark acrylics, painting inside some of the letter forms. I cut a strip of that and collaged it to the right photo page. I stenciled the words with opaque paint and outlined them with markers. The center element is medallion that I made on mat board with several layers of thick embossing powders, painted between layers with red and green ink. When the last layer was still warm, I pressed a rubber stamp in the shape of a frog into it, revealing the colours underneath. Then I rubbed some gold Rub-and-Buff over the top to highlight the frog.

In this spread (also one of mine) for the background, I applied crackle medium to the left hand page, which had been painted a dark brown, and then tinted the medium with a transparent blue glaze. I then collaged the photos and puzzle shaped ladies on top, along with the text. I cut out the ARTS word and painted each one before collaging them. The right hand side held a microscopic photo of cells, which began the idea of the spread relating arts and life. For the image of the baby, I cut it out of a magazine and then made a triple mat for it before collaging it on. The quote is from Henry Moore, and I thought it was most appropriate.

Enjoy!

For any information on this or on any of my work, please feel free to email me.

Wednesday

My Altered Book Project

As I am not painting now (my four kids are all home for the holidays -yipee!) I thought I would entertain you with pictures of my altered book project, along with some of the techniques used. This was a project that I began in the spring, collaborating with 4 friends/students of mine. The idea was that each person was to choose a book to alter and a theme. Then each person would do 3 spreads (2 facing pages) in each others book per month and then we got together to have a play date (the most fun part of the project -we would share ideas and techniques we had learned) and then we would exchange the books. This lasted from May to November when we had our final wrap up party and got to see all the books completed.
My book theme was 'Four Letter Words' -the idea was not my own, I saw it on my travels through the wonderful world of the net. I choose a book called "Life On Earth" by David Attenborough to alter. It has great pages with a bit of sheen and tons of full page photographs. It was fun to see how each artist bounced off the images in their spreads.
This is my book cover. The numeral is done with light modeling paste pressed through a number stencil and then over painted with acrylic paint. The "LETTER" is made from some dimensional scrabble letters I picked up at a scrapbooking store. The "WORDS" is some fun foam letters that I painted gold. I spritzed the cover with a new favorite called 'Glimmer Mist' in an apricot shade. I put grommets through the cover with Cheryl's punch and hung an earring in one hole for a decoration. I decided to add ties to keep the whole thing together. At the ends of these gold chords I attached a gold painted acorn and a carving of a duck that my oldest son did when he was very little, both relics from our cottage in Ontario.

This is the title page of the book, in keeping with the word theme. I altered it by first painting the pages with Quin gold and red, and then painted it through a dye-cut letter stencil (again from the scrapbook store-got to love those guys!) with red and black, masking the Life and Art so that it wouldn't get covered. The silhouette was an image cut from a national geographic magazine (I have a PILE of oldies that I go to for neat images and text).

Enjoy!

Thursday

"Tree Patterns", acrylic abstract painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Tree Patterns", acrylic abstract painting, 16 x 16"
$575 framed, FREE S&H

This is another painting done on a textured ground. This one was textured with light modeling paste and gel medium, both of which were stamped into with a hand carved stamp and carved into with a credit card while still wet. After the ground dried I layered transparent washes of my favorite combination of colours: Quin Gold, Quin Burnt Orange and Permanent Violet Dark (Golden Fluid Acrylics). I also applied a float of watered down Irridescent Bronze which settles into the crevases in a lovely combination of gold and a startling green colour. Once more, calligraphy played a huge role in the development of the painting. This time the grid structure happened at the beginning in the shapes that I put my texture down in. I took the idea for the moon from my last painting, and the painted lacy edging pattern completed the theme.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Tuesday

"Roses Return", semi-abstract acrylic painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

This is an 'in process' photo of one of the paintings that I did for my Mixed Media class. We were exploring making surface texture with Golden mediums. This piece was initially coated with Soft Gel Gloss and then various things were imprinted into it, then it was left to dry completely -actually this was a start from several years ago, that I didn't have a clue what to do with : ) Then I put layers of transparent colour (Quin Gold, Quin burnt sienna and Thalo turquoise) in a random fashion all over the place. I 'saw' what could be the centre of a rose, so I developed it that way. Some calligraphic marks state 'roses'.

"Roses Return", mixed media painting, 12 x 16"
$425 framed, FREE S&H

I did more calligraphic brush strokes with paint and then played around a bunch, trying to find an armature/understructure to hang it all on. I think the grid is a nice foil for all the rounded shapes in the painting. The calligraphic lines move throughout the painting, leading the eye. I took these photos in my studio where the light was coming from above, so it really picked up the imprinted textures. Click on the images to see larger versions.

Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or to commission your own painting, please email me.

Friday

"Kenesis River Reflections", watercolour landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Kenesis River Reflections", watercolour painting, 7 x 11"
SOLD

This is a demo I did for my beginner/experienced beginner class but forgot to post. This was their introduction to painting reflections wet-on-wet. The secret is to puddle in the colour while the paper is slightly wet so the colour holds. The reflections above the rocks were done in one go, softening the bottom part so that no hard edge would form. After the top part was done, the rocks were painted, adding texture by scraping with a credit card on its edge, sort of like a squeegie. Then the bottom part of the water was wet and the reflections continued, mirroring softly the colours in the rocks above. The white trunks were lifted out of the damp wash, and the water marks were lifted out when dry.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Thursday

Christmas Card w/c demo

This is this year's Christmas card! I did this as a demo for my beginner/experienced beginner watercolour student as a paint along. The lessons covered included negative painting (trees in distant forest), wet on wet reflections (neat that the water feels like it is covered with ice!), masking fluid (foreground deciduous trees), puddling darks (evergreen tree) and bleeding back edges (soft shadows on snow banks). That's a lot to learn!

"Tecumseh Fall", watercolour landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Tecumseh Fall", watercolour painting on watercolour paper, 16 x 12"
SOLD

This is a painting of Mt Tecumseh in the Crowsnest Pass, that I did as a demonstration for my advanced watermedia class. I have painted this view many times, and this time I chose to do it in a non-representational colour scheme to express the warmth of the fall colours.

Tonight was the opening of Charles VanSandwyk's wonderful illustration work, and my small show. It is incredible to me that when certain artists meet certain other artists, a lasting friendship is built based on mutual respect of each others work. This happened this evening. I was fortunate to have acquired two of Charles' amazing books, and as it turned out, he has acquired one of my paintings -but don't tell him -it's a secret!

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Monday

"Winter Twilight", mixed media landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Winter Twilight", mixed media painting, 15 x 22"
SOLD 

I went back into my painting that I did at the Quiller workshop, posted on November 3rd. I felt that it really lacked some 'oomph', so I went back in and added some opaques into the background, lighting up the distant mountain shape, then added some teal and orange opaques into the snow area in the front, darkened the trees in the middle, played a bit more with counterchanges in the trees, and capped it all off with a moon just coming up behind the mountains. I like it much better now.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Saturday

"Spokane Evening", mixed media landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Spokane Evening", mixed media painting on 300lb rough watercolour paper, 11 x 14"

I finally got around to finishing this painting I began while in Spokane. It is a memory of the wonderful park that is in the centre of downtown Spokane on the river. We walked through this park several times in the evenings on our way to restaurants in the area, and this view of the clock tower lit up in the starry night along with all the colourful fall trees, really captured my imagination. The clock tower is square actually -I did this painting from memory only, so I guess I missed that part!

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Tuesday

"Sunset - Early Winter", acrylic landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Sunset - Early Winter", acrylic painting, 5.5 x 10"

This is a demo painting that I did for my Monday Mixed Media class in which I was trying to show how to use acrylics transparently, translucently and opaquely. This is a scene that I am very familiar with living so close to the Rockies, although this is no mountain in particular.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Monday

"Looking Back", mixed media painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Looking Back", mixed media painting, 12 x 16"
SOLD

This is one of the paintings that I began at the Brommer collage workshop I took in September. I finally got around to finishing it- I was not sure what I wanted to do with the imagery in the bottom of the painting, and how to tie it to the top. The reddish shape in the lower right kept screaming 'person' so I went with it. The painting is about leaving home and looking back through the filters of our subsequent experiences.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Friday

"September Marsh ii", acrylic landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"September Marsh ii", acrylic painting on watercolour paper, 16 x 12"
SOLD

I often take my plein air oil paintings and use them as a taking off point for acrylic or mixed media studio paintings. This painting was done in acrylic for my Mixed Media class as a demonstration of how acrylics can be used transparently, translucently and opaquely to underscore a theme. The transparent reflections in this painting 'feel' different than the more opaque marsh grasses and distant trees. You can see my original oil painting on this blog page -scroll down to the entry for September 16/09. This painting's structure and format is a little different from the original -and it is interesting to see it in a different medium.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Sunday

Altered Books

As a creative endeavor, a group of 4 of my students and myself decided to do an altered book exchange. Each person was to get an appropriate book and choose a theme, and then complete 3 'spreads' (two facing pages) and then pass it on to the next person to do 3 spreads, etc, until everyone had worked in each others book. One of the members, Sheila, had recycling as her theme and the parameters were that you weren't allowed to use anything that you had purchased specially for the book ( ie: you had to recycle your art materials, etc.).
For this spread, after I painted the pages, I took some of the stuff that I found around our family's summer cottage, such as old Monopoly money, poker chips and a tiddly wink, a puzzle piece (from a puzzle that already had lost pieces!), some birch bark, and some maple and fern leaves along with a piece of a photo I took at the cottage.

This spread was fun! I glued about 1/2" of pages together and cut an opening out to hold a 3D cow I had made previously (at the Glenbow's exhibition of Joe Fafard's work -I just love going into the 'make it-take it' room and create with the kids!). I then cut 2 smaller openings to hold some bees (for some reason bees keep getting into my basement and then die there, leaving the most amazing intact specimens) which I poured self-leveling gel around to encase them. Then I covered the openings with a sheet of bingo paper I had bought previously from the scrapbooking store (great source of stuff!). On the facing page I glued a sheet of crossword scrapbook paper.

On this spread I decided to play with colour, and not worry too much about images. I decided to work with an interesting tertiary tetrad of yellow orange, red violet, blue green and yellow green. I used pieces cut from magazines, painted pages and a cut-out from a stamped card and then played with the design and colour placement. A great way to explore how colour schemes work together.
We are all getting together for our final party on Nov 24th, where we will get to see all the books completed and share experiences over a glass (or two) of wine. It has been a wonderfully creative experience, and I highly recommend it!

Enjoy!

To ask a question, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Thursday

Edmonton Show Invitation

Hello all. If you live in, or are visiting, the Edmonton area this weekend, I would like to invite you to come and see my show at the Centre d'Arts Visuels de l'Alberta gallery. The opening is Friday night from 7 to 8:30pm and the show runs until Nov 24th. I will have 19 framed and 18 matted paintings on display. This year I packed them all up and shipped them via Greyhound Bus Courier to save me the 6+ hours it would take me to drive them up myself. Certainly a good idea as nothing arrived damaged!

I am in the process of trying to find my studio after a hectic show season. I will post some photos when it is done as some of you are curious to take a peak.

Also, I have been notified by other blogger friends, that sometimes their blog posts that their subscribers received in their inboxes had formatting issues, with the text being superimposed over their images. I would appreciate it if you would let me know if this has happened to any of you. Thanks.

To talk to me or to commission your own painting, please email me.

Wednesday

"Marsh Reflections ii", mixed media landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Marsh Reflections ii", mixed media painting, 16 x 12"
$625 framed, FREE S&H

This painting began as a demonstration for my "Painting Creatively with Watermedia" class on Mondays. The challenge was to paint with acrylics in a watercolour fashion, using the paint in a transparent way only. In the next class we explored using acrylics translucently and opaquely as well as transparently (I am not finished with that painting yet, but will post when I am). I was'nt happy with the way the transparent sky in the original demo just lay there, not adding anything to the life of the painting. I went back into the sky area with the same colour, but in
an opaque wash -wow, what a difference -the landscape just popped. I carried bits of opaque around the painting so that the sky wouldn't stick out as the only area of opaque paint. As acrylic isn't the best opaque media out there, the sky was a bit 'patchy', so I went over it with a watercolour wash of ultramarine blue, which gave it even more life as the granular pigment settled into the valleys of the watercolour paper. Yeah for mixed water media!

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Friday

"Spirit Island Revisioned", acrylic landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Spirit Island Revisioned", acrylic painting, 14 x 15"
SOLD

This is the last painting that I did at the Quiller workshop. My hope was that it would look like my work with just a touch of Steve's influence, and I think that I succeeded. It was great fun to paint, and went through several changes in focus since the original inception. My work with oils has made adding the opaque paint to the transparent areas easier to conceptualize. It is neat how working in one medium helps your work in a completely different medium.

I have been very busy with shows and preparations for more shows! I am in two shows this weekend and will have 40 works in a show in Edmonton that opens next Friday. I am also going to be a featured artist at Arts On Atlantic gallery here in Calgary for the month of December, with 20 of my new plein air oil paintings from this season. I will post more about those as the time gets shorter.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Tuesday

"Winter Backlight", watercolour landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams


"Winter Backlight", watercolour landscape painting, 15 x 22"
SOLD  
 
This is another of the paintings that I did at the Quiller workshop, and this one is as close to a copy as I got -Steve's was awesome, mine ok. It is done completely with transparent watercolour on 300lb watercolour paper. I have included Steve's demo below so you can see the difference. It was amazing to see how the granulating pigments worked on the rough surface.

Friday

"Fall Hillside", mixed media painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Fall Hillside", mixed media painting, 14 x 11"

This is another painting that I produced at the Quiller workshop. It is a take off on his idea and is painted with acrylic, watercolour and casein. It was great fun to do and I just love the juicy opaque casein on the transparent acrylic and watercolour. Cheryl is doing a wonderful job outlining Steve's course on her blog, along with instructions, so be sure to check it out.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Thursday

Quiller Workshop

SOLD 
I have just come back from a WONDERFUL week at a watermedia workshop with Stephen Quiller at the in Spokane Art Supply in Spokane, Washington. This is the painting that I did in transparent watercolour working with a double analogous palette. The idea of the yellow trees on the cool field came from Steve's demo, but the rest is my invention. For a great description of the class and what we learned can be found on my student's and fellow workshop participant's Cheryl Quist's blog.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Sunday

"Elbow River at Redwood Meadows", plein air oil landscape by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Elbow River at Redwood Meadows", plein air oil painting, 12 x 9"
$525 framed, FREE S&H

This is my last plein air painting of the season, before mother nature dumped 4" of snow on us. I can feel that oncoming weather in this painting, although I had no idea it was around the corner. Most of the leaves on the trees were still green here when the deep freeze hit, and now they are just dead, but still on the trees. Should make for some interesting painting when it gets nice again.
I am off in the morning for 8 days in Spokane WA attending a Stephen Quiller watermedia workshop with 8 of my students. It should be fun! I will post again after I get back on Oct 27th.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Friday

"Follow the Path", plein air oil landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Follow the Path", plein air oil painting, 11 x 14"
SOLD

This is another painting done while at Diamond Willow Artisan's Retreat. I was caught by the patterns of light and shadow on these Aspen that resisted the season and remained green. I still have some oils to post in coming days, but right now I am playing catch-up while I prepare for my show tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Thursday

"Floral Reflections", abstract mixed media painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Floral Reflections", mixed media painting, 16 x 12"
$550 framed, FREE S&H

This is another painting from the Brommer collage workshop. It is supposed to be a garden reflecting in a pond -did you see that? Of course with abstraction, you are welcome to see anything you like! It is good to be getting back into mixed media after painting exclusively 'en plein air' (outside on location) in oils for the last 5 months. It is fun to move around creatively to keep the enjoyment and challenge in my artwork.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Wednesday

"Fall Abstract", abstract landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Fall Abstract", abstract landscape painting, 12 x 12"
SOLD

This is one of the paintings that I did at the Gerald Brommer workshop I just attended. It is based on my painting "Early Evening Shadows" posted on July 8, 2009, which has been sold. First we painted all kinds of oriental papers with acrylics in an assortment of colours, varying the values and intensities of each colour family. Then we glued them on in a rough fashion and then painted back into them to develop the compositional planes. Great fun and very creative as you have no idea where the painting will lead you.

Here it is in its frame. This painting is another that will be for sale at my upcoming Calyx show this Saturday (see invitation in the side bar)

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Tuesday

New Framing Method!


These are my recent paintings;"Isolated Showers" (image 8x6") and "Catching The Light" (image 9x12"), framed in a new way for me. I saw a friend, Dianna Shyne, do up a painting this way and it looked great. The boards are painted around the edge with black acrylic and then they are mounted on silk linen mat board with silicone glue. My dear hubby made the frames for me from frame lengths we had in stock (thanks to Artnest Gallery which went out of business). This way you can make the amount of liner show in any size you like, and it has a nice, clean, contemporary look.
I will have these paintings, along with many more, at the upcoming Calyx show THIS Saturday, Oct 17th from 10am to 4pm. The show is the only show of its kind in Calgary, with fine craft, such as silver and glass jewelry, textiles, woodworking and ceramics, as well as a great assortment of original paintings. The show sees over 800 visitors each day, so it is really a must see if you are in town.
Needless to say I am busy framing....

Enjoy!

To purchase these paintings, or to commission your own painting, please email me.

Thursday

"Silver Leaves Among the Gold", plein air oil landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Silver Leaves Among the Gold", plein air oil painting, 8 x 10"
$495 framed in choice of frame, FREE S&H

This is the last painting from Diamond Willow. The wind had picked up and the yellow aspen leaves were blowing, reflecting the blue of the sky and making the leaves look silver. It was fun to try to catch this in paint. Again the painting is more saturated in colour than this image, but for some reason when you shrink an image for the web, saturation suffers.

I have been attending a Gerald Brommer collage workshop all week, so will have some neat new work to show you after the long weekend. I hope you have a wonderful holiday, and remember to give thanks for all of your blessings.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Tuesday

"Diamond Willow ii", plein air landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Diamond Willow ii", plein air painting, 8x8"
SOLD

This is the mate to yesterday's painting post. Pictured is the creek bed that runs through the property. The creek has dried up by this late in the year, leaving the wonderful river stones to shine in the sun.

This is what it looks like in its frame. I think the two make a very charming couple, don't you?

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Monday

"Diamond Willow i", plein air oil landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Diamond Willow i", plein air oil painting, 8x8"
$350 oil on stretched canvas, framed (see below), FREE S&H

This is part of a pair of paintings that I did at Diamond Willow. The aspen were just beginning to change colour -I never before noticed that they change colour from the bottom up -is that normal? It was very pretty however, and very fun to paint.

This is what it looks like in the frame, FYI. I will post its companion piece tomorrow.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Sunday

"Catching The Light", plein air oil landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Catching The Light", plein air oil painting, 9 x 12"
SOLD

This is one of the paintings I did at Diamond Willow Artisans Retreat just before I left for Lake O'Hara. It was early morning and the sun was just peaking out from the early morning clouds, and lighting up these Aspen along the creek bed.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Saturday

"Cathedral at Dusk:, plein air oil landscape painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Cathedral at Dusk:, plein air oil landscape painting, 8 x 10"
SOLD

This painting was done extremely quickly (about 1/2 hour) while the sun was going down at Lake O'Hara. Three of us painters decided to take it on together, while the others looked on quietly. Actually one of them kept trying to serve us appetizers, but we had no time to eat, the light was changing so quickly. We were flying! To begin with I put down the lights and darks on the mountain as I knew this area would be changed the most with the light. Remember that lesson? Then I put in the foreground, and lastly I worked back into the juncture where the light meets the dark on the mountain and put in some transition values to soften some of the less abrupt edges. I am pretty proud of the way it turned out -sometimes faster is better, it doesn't give you time to mess around with it too much.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Friday

"Mary's Lake -O'Hara", plein air oil landscape painting, Sharon Lynn Williams

"Mary's Lake -O'Hara", plein air oil painting, 10 x 8"
SOLD

I knew it would be a challenge to portray rocks under water alla prima (wet on wet), but thought I would tackle it anyway. Usually this type of work would be done with glazing, but there you go. The photo is not as saturated in colour as the actual painting -I don't know why Photoshop does that. All in all, I am pleased with the way it turned out.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Wednesday

"MacArthur's Shore", plein air oil landscape painting, Sharon Lynn Williams

"MacArthur's Shore", plein air oil painting on board, 9 x 12"
$575 framed in a dark plein air frame or in a wood frame with a linen liner, FREE S&H

This is the last painting I did at O'Hara, and also my favorite. I love Lake MacArthur, the largest lake in the O'Hara area, backed by a neat glacier, although it is a bit of a slog to get there as it is quite high up. The water is the deepest turquoise colour I have ever seen, but it is moody as the colour changes with the weather. We had an amazing 4 days there, with no clouds during the day, which made it much easier to paint as there were no cloud shadows to obscure the forms. I will post the rest of the paintings I did there in the next several days.

I want to say thank you to all of you who came over to view my blog at the suggestion of Carol Marine. You comments were very kind and encouraging. I hope you will stick around for more.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Sunday

"Marsh Reflections", plein air oil landscape painting, Sharon Lynn Williams

"Marsh Reflections", plein air oil painting, 9 x 12"
$575.00 framed in a dark plein air frame, FREE S&H

This is the last plein air piece I did before going off to Diamond Willow. Since then I have spent 3 days painting there and then 4 days painting and hiking at Lake O'Hara, and yes, the weather was perfect for almost all of it. I got back on Friday night with tired legs from all the vertical at O'Hara, and then on Saturday my hubby and I and a bunch of friends hiked up Burstall Pass, which was equivalent (according to my hubby) to 3-4 times up and down the Calgary Tower and walking from my house to get there. Needless to say, my legs were rubber and I fell into bed when we got home, and I didn't post, but I know you will forgive me. I am here now, and have a bunch of paintings from my past week to share with you in the coming week, so stay tuned.

Workshop Lesson #16: This will be my last workshop lesson, but I will continue to give tips and helpful techniques as I continue to learn and grow as an artist, so I hope you will continue to find this blog helpful in your own artistic journey. The last lesson is that confidence in painting shows! So make confident marks that are as right as you can make them at the time. You can change it if it turns out to be wrong, just proceed with a light touch with the succeeding layers to avoid losing the freshness of the plein air strokes. And finally, don't play with the brush strokes you put down in the field before you step back to see if they read already. I am always surprised at how distance can clarify things.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.