A light hearted discussion of the days painting projects, demonstrations and general art thoughts. From me ... to you!
"Still Life With Limes", 20 x 16", oil on canvas
"Raking Light", 11 x 14", oil on board
Here you can see the set-up -Jan is on the other side of the room. There were about 35 people present to watch our humiliation, opps, I mean success. They were free to come closer and we were able to share some of our methods and thoughts. Look at how fast that brush is going! We had less than an hour to finish the painting.
Several members dressed up to represent the kind of distractions present during plein air painting. We had tacky tourist, people dressed up as wild animal and others with stuffed animals -it was a hoot. Oh, and I forgot to tell you that there was a sound track playing of wild birds, wind and rain. (Jan had time to do 2 paintings to my one, the speed of acrylics!)
At the end of the evening, I won the award for oils and Jan won the award for acrylics (nobody wanted to pick a winner!) We were presented with these cute awards complete with brushes. Great fun was had by all, and the funky atmosphere put the artists at ease.
"Flowers and Oranges", oil on canvas, 16 x 20"
"Roses Return", acrylic, 13 x 16" image size
"Across Policeman's Creek", oil on panel, 16 x 20"
"Remembering Home iii", watercolour on Yupo
"Landscape Patterns:, 36 x 36", oil on gallery wrap canvas
"Objet D'Art", watercolour mounted, varnished and framed like an oil with linen liner
"East End of Rundle ii", studio oil painting, 20 x 24"
"A Stitch In Time", acrylic, 22 x 30" image
"Fuchsias", oil painting, 19 x 19"
I would like to show you larger images of two of my advanced students work, that I think are really exceptional. The above painting of irises is by Rex Beanland. You can see all the work he did in preparation for this painting on his blog. Please read through it, it is a great learning experience. If you click on each of the photos, you can see them larger.
An this is done by Leila Chan. I had Leila as a beginner student several years ago, and due to her great work ethic and commitment to putting on the brush miles, she has really progressed and is really beginning to loosen up and trust the process. This painting is a milestone for her, as she had to make up all the wonderful colours in these white glads. Well done you two!
"Pathway Through The Trees", oil painting, 20 x 10"
Along the theme of showing off my fabulous students work, these are the final paintings from my advanced watermedia students. I am amazed by the progress that every single one of them made this year. I am part of the Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA) and at the last show jury, 14 of the 55 paintings that were accepted were by previous students of mine. I got three in as well, so I would say we made a pretty good show of things.
"Light Loves Colour", 6x6" oil on board
I know I have been a bad blogger as I haven't posted in a whole week or more -but life has been wonderfully busy. I haven't been painting much lately, and that has been in acrylics. However, I thought I would post an oil that I started this weekend. It is a 18x24" canvas done from my plein air painting "Summit Lake", painted this year at Waterton Provincial Park. When I do oils in my studio, which is not often, I love to work from a plein air study in conjunction with photos to make the larger work. Trying to keep the looseness and spontaneity is the hard part here. As you can see I am working on a red-orange toned board, the same colour as most of my plein air work is done on. This is pretty much just past the block-in stage. I am leaving the water and reflections for now as they have to be done wet-on-wet in one go. That is where the painting will either make it or fail -so I am a little anxious about it :)