Completed ...?

Ice Trails on the North Saskatchewan

Well this is the completed 12 x 16 oil on wood panel.  The biggest challenge is knowing if you are done.  So I felt this was done, but I am not quite finished with the idea and will be working on a large scale version or two this winter.

 

Hunting for a painting

For some time now I have been 'planning' a painting in my head.  It started one day a couple of years ago when I was driving across the bridge over the river while the sun was setting and noticed how gorgeous the light on the water with the ice on it was.  I couldn't get it out of my head.  

Since then I have tried on several occasions to capture a similar view.  I have taken numerous photos.  I have looked up the sunset times and checked the ice structure, I have driven to several different bridges, I have hiked a number of kilometres along paths but it has been elusive.  

There hasn't been enough ice and I've got the sun in the wrong 'spot'.  Then there was too much ice and no water showing through.

I've planned wrong and arrived too late for the setting sun, or clouds have blocked any reflections on water.

Yesterday was an okay day.  Not quite matching my vision in my head but elements were there.  I had some open water, some lovely sky colour and reflected light.  the rest I will make up as I go along.

... and so I have begun.  I will try and post a process painting as I go along in the next few days.

 

Working on Commissions

My last two painting projects have been 'commissions', one of pets and one of children.  I always start commission projects with some fear - what I want to paint and what the recipient wants may be two different things.  I have to say they were both enjoyable - the first one was bright, acrylic and ink and this one above is more subtle oil paints. They were both requests from family members too - which makes it easier.

Commissions can be a tad stressful.  First of all the photo references can be difficult to work from - unless you shoot them yourselves.  The above photo reference  I was sent is ideal - close cropped, great light coming from one direction, nothing but the subjects on the page.  Made it easy to tackle.  A commission can also be very stressful if the person requesting it wants to tell you exactly how to paint and gives you feedback requesting changes.  I found that when this happens I start choking up!  I become a little stressed and overwork things.  I have taken courses where my instructors were quite adamant that when doing commissions you, the artist should show a sketch, get an okay and then that is it - you create it.  I think most people are pretty happy with what they get.  The biggest challenge is capturing a likeness with a portrait.  I felt pretty okay with what I have got going so far on this one.  I am letting it dry for a couple days then going to do some tweaking with glazes and then STOP!  Off it goes and on to the next one.

A Different Painting Process

This awesome house in Edmonton had a yard full of tulips this past spring.  It is screaming to be painted!

 I have learned over the past few years that there are NUMEROUS ways with which to start a painting.  For some bright spots or warm undertones I like to do an acrylic underpainting in complimentary colours.  So if the leaves or grass will be green, then the compliment is red or a shade of red.  For this painting I started with red, orange and purple acrylic in my underpainting.

I drew out my design and had a lot of fun putting on BRIGHT COLOURS.

Quite a bit different style from my last one, but I like changing things up every now and then.  Keeps me interested!

Painting Process Continued

 So I am close to done on this painting process.  I like to leave it sit for awhile and re-think things before finally signing it if I am finished.

This was almost finished but it seemed a little washed out to me. So I proceeded to paint the sky a much deeper blue around some clouds.  Things I am still considering - is that lake snow a tad too yellow and does the close by snow need some more work.  Sometimes I just need to ignore it totally for a week or two before I have fresh eyes and decide if it is okay.  Time will tell

Painting Process

How I sometime tackle a painting, some beginning steps.

First you must go on some kind of outing or adventure and snap a ton of pictures.  This was a super day we spent cross country skiing near Fernie, BC

Decide on a picture and do some ROUGH sketches to help determine what is relevant to paint

I like a vivid acrylic underpainting that will show here and there with some pops of colour later

 and warm up the painting a bit - especially in these snow scenes

I use some black gesso to establish some of the darkest dark areas - it will mostly get painted over.  You can't really see it but I did a transparent red earth glaze of oil paint over the large tree area to add warmth to the trees later too.  I begin laying in the sky first, then randomly start working all over.

This is as far as I got this week.  I will let the painting dry before I tackle the closer trees, as they have that red glaze I don't want mixing in and making muddy later.  

Now I hope that it will continue to work out and sometimes I lose courage and don't want to go farther cause I haven't done anything I do not like yet.  I always fear it could go south on me, but if I plan properly, mix my paints out first and not rush it, it tends to work okay!  I WILL post the results when it is finished. Fingers crossed.

 

Handling the Down Times

I have found at some times during this past year I am somewhat unmotivated...surprise, surprise... I am sure many others are experiencing this too.  I have done the recommended things to stay upbeat... exercise, get outdoors when I can, try new hobbies (sourdough still going), we even got a new family member who is loads of fun.  

Like most artists this year, the art fairs and other opportunities I usually relied on were cancelled.  I had a stockpile of paintings building up and painting new ones was at times challenging.  I have enjoyed being part of the Federation of Canadian Artists Edmonton Chapter as it has given me the opportunity as the Education Coordinator to learn new things (how to use Zoom and Wild Apricot), meet some new people (virtually) take part in some art calls / submissions and be inspired by others art.  Even managed a plein air outing in early summer with some members.

Recently, I grabbed the bull by the horns and found an opportunity at the Bountiful Farmers Market to place some of my art up on one of the market walls.  It has been a great motivator as I sold some paintings on my first weekend there.  Like me, many people are wanting to shop local, so now seems like a good time to tap into those places that people go to or look at on-line in our own communities.  Now... to go paint some more pictures!

Covid Activities

A lot of artists and musicians have been posting tutorials and videos on-line during this challenging time. It's been great to watch or join in.  One bright light for me has been the Portrait Artist of the Week event.  Hosted by Sky Arts TV in the UK, there is a live sitter and one of the winners from the past Portrait Artist programs painting live on Facebook on Sunday mornings.  You can join in by painting the sitter yourself then posting it with the hashtag #mypaotw for all to see.  Luckily the event is recorded, since it is 2 am here when it starts in England.  I have managed to take part in 3 of the 4 painting challenges.  Above is some video of my painting author Bernardine Evaristo, below is my 4 hr stab at getting Robert Rinder , judge and UK tv star on canvas.  Fun, I get up early on Sunday's when no one else is up yet and enjoy painting along and listening to the banter (or the one-sided conversations, since the artist is busy trying to paint the subject).

Outside at Last

Today was my first day this spring getting outside to paint.  It was marvellous... I found a quiet spot in the sun by a creek.  It was partially cloudy out and so I would occasionally have very bright sun on the view, followed by cloud cover.  As you can see in the 2 pics below - it can sure makes a difference to your colours and values when it is cloudy vs sunny.  I attempted to get the 'sunny' view - however - I made the mistake of bringing a canvas stained with a deep orange.  I think for my Plein air painting - a lighter warm colour (grey or Sienna) would be better.

Only wildlife, other than geese overhead, was this colourful fly who sat on my easel for a few minutes, warming up.  Would be cool to paint him, but he didn't stick around long enough.

 I did two fairly quick 'sketches' - one is the general view - very thinly done with thinner and oil - so the orange really shows through too much.  The other was just a 'sketch' of the little tree in front of me.  Both I 'erased' after to reuse the board for my next time out.  I just made sure to paint the panel a light grey for next time.

What to do... what to do...

Well... things have certainly changed in the last month... I am very blessed to be home and healthy with my family.  Being somewhat of an introvert, I find I am kind of used to spending time on my own, working on projects.  I do miss work, teaching the kids and getting out of the studio was a nice change of pace.  Hopefully we can all get back to our own 'normal' soon!

My attempt at creating a night time painting, with lights

I have been doing lots of cleaning, baking, homework nagging and a few paintings.  I have also been trying to improve on my 'weak' areas of painting - and it seems like there are several!  In doing so I have been sketching more and watching some instructional videos.  There are many great artists putting out instructional / on-line videos.  Streamline Art Videos have been my favourite so far.  Every day, they show a free 45 min to 1.5 hour portion of an instructors video.  If you like what you see you can buy and download an on-line full length version.  I had purchased Brian Blood, Shelby Keefe and Mike Hernandez in the past few years.  Today I downloaded Christine Lashley, to help me learn how to do night lighting effects.  Very informative! Although it may seem pricey - considering the cost of getting to a workshop is several times more expensive - I feel it is worth it.  I can pause and play it SEVERAL times, which I have done with all of them.  James Gurney is another favourite, he has tons of free stuff on his YouTube channel, including lots of outdoor - plein aire painting tips.  Happy painting and stay safe!

Escape to Art

I am continuing to practise by covering up some of my old paintings.  The painting I am covering today was from one of my art courses where we had to copy one of the Master's - I chose Van Gogh's room.  It was enjoyable getting the textures of wood and colours but it is in my paint over pile...

So I chose a photo from an amazing trip we took to Spain a few years ago.  As it is cold and snowing again, it felt like a good escape from reality and brought back some warm memories.

I did a very quick sketch and decided I wanted to widen the view and make the 'bridge' over the road wider and the amount of wall on the right, less.  

 My final painting is a bit too light and chalky (too much white in there) but I have areas I love - primarily the palm tree and the garden and shadows below.  I often find I like certain parts of a painting and perhaps parts I am not thrilled with.  But... it is always a learning experience so on to the next one!!  I may let this dry and try glazing some transparent blues or purple over the left hand side and the bridge building, so I have more mid- tones and less light tones going on.  I think it would make the lights POP out more.  If it goes well I will post it again, if not it goes in the paint over or campfire pile!

Updated - This is the glazed version, where I used a transparent Ultramarine Blue to darken the buildings that are not in full sun.  Not sure if it has helped, so I think this is in the paint over pile!

Art Books I Love

 I recently purchased a new art book on sketching, by R.E. Scott.  I was not disappointed and have been practising sketching more every day.

 As I have continued to paint I realize the importance of having really great drawing skills, so I keep trying to improve.

I have about 3 shelves of art books, many are 'coffee table' style ones with paintings by and info about my favourite artists (Sorolla, Group of Seven, Wyeth) or my favourite style of art (impressionism).  However, I have a core group of art books that I have referred to several times, cause they are just so darn helpful.  Below is a photo of my FAVS - Charles Reids Watercolor Secrets
- Richard Schmid Alla Prima II  - Carol Marine  Daily Painting  -  John Carlson Carlsons Guide to Landscape Painting - James Gurney Color and Light - Kevin MacPherson Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light& Color - Landscape Painting Inside and Out. I think it is important to be a life-long learner in whatever it is you enjoy.  Now, being isolated from all our friends and daily tasks, is a great time to occupy your mind with something more uplifting.  So order that book you've been wanting!!

What to do with the failed paintings?

Like most artists, I have a number of canvases with paintings that did not go as planned. I also have difficulty throwing out or wasting the canvas and stretcher bars.  At times I have just removed the canvas and re-stretched some new canvas.  You always have to be careful that your old painting doesn't come creeping through if you do decide to paint over them - so I tried painting fairly thickly over a somewhat thinner painting underneath.

With this painting, I had a large, 36 x 48 canvas that had not worked out.  So I turned it sideways and sketched in a new idea from a photograph I took in Sept. 2019 at an art fair.  I had asked a couple guys with cool retro bikes if I could take a photo of them and their bikes for a potential painting.  They agreed and this painting below is one from these photos. 

Completed 36 x 48 Oil on Canvas Title? - 'Hecks Angel' maybe (or DeathSpoke Rider - which is the name of the retro bike group here in Edmonton)

The first bit of charcoal sketching going on after gridding.

  

I outlined the charcoal in Cadmium Orange Oil paint - cause I love the bright hit of colour it provides

A close up of the face in progress

Anticipation!

Well, my last blog post was about how much I looove winter.  TODAY, however I am eagerly anticipating spring because my FABULOUS Strada MICRO painting box arrived and I am planning some Plein air (outdoor) painting.  

I am pretty impressed with how small this pochade box packs down and how much lighter in weight it is.  I test drove it inside today, as the day started out as -20 with windchill.  Right now though it is warming up to above zero by tomorrow - so soon my pretty - I can take you outdoors. 

We had a pretty good snowstorm again on the weekend and it looked like spring was delayed I got several good wintry evening shots on Saturday night.  I set up the Strada box and easel indoors today and did a quick gouache study of the Orange Hall from this photo, with hopes to do an oil painting later.  

Winter - I love it!

A little cross country, downhill ski on the Family Day long weekend

I am an unashamed lover of winter and snow!  I grew up relishing those cancelled school days when it dropped below -35 and we would go outside to play.  We cross country skied, tobogganed, ice fished, curled, skated on ponds & outdoor rinks and pretty much enjoyed any winter activity available.  If you are going to live in a cold climate you MUST dress properly and get out and enjoy it or it could be a LONG six months of darkness for you.  

Right now I am enjoying attempting to paint various scenes that have snow, the most challenging for me being the partially snow covered coniferous trees.  Have a Google of  Lawren Harris' fabulous winter trees or check out Clarence Gagnon's cozy, nostalgic scenes of Quebec in winter - beautiful!

A bright, sunny winter's day provides the best shadows and highlights imaginable for painting.  I am attempting another one today of a buried camper van, waiting for spring to return.

Figuary 2020 - LIFE drawing

February is FIGUARY!  I have joined in on the FIGUARY 2020 challenge at Vimeo Croquis Cafe, doing life drawing from models on Vimeo.  It is an excellent way to improve on your overall drawing skills and it is FREE!

Often I can not make it to the life drawing sessions available in Edmonton (see Harcourt house courses ).   This is a great alternative way to get some instruction through the lovelifedrawing  instructors on YouTube, then you go over to Vimeo Croquis Cafe for the actual model session.  Unfortunately YouTube does not allow life drawing videos because of the nude models.  Vimeo however does and has some excellent life drawing sessions to practise with.  Posting your life drawing sketches also can cause some issues on Instagram and Facebook because of the nude poses.   (sigh - I would like to go into a long rant here about art / nudes post vs violence / hateful posts but I will withhold my views).

If you have any 'nude' issues than the tamer SketchDaily website has excellent animal and clothed people photos to practise on.  HOWEVER, I find it interesting that a number of the clothed photos on this site are of women in 'sexy' costumes and seem more degrading to women, than any nude models on Vimeo.  In one of my figure drawing classes at university, one of the female models refused to wear 'sexy' lingerie items, as she felt they were offensive to women and I had to agree - the lingerie seemed to create a more 'porn' feel to the pose. Rant over.

The time commitment is minimal as the videos are about 15 minutes long.  It can start with 30 second to 1 minute poses, 2 minute poses and finally one 5 minute pose.  The 2 minute poses are my favourites - not enough time to get into detail, but just getting important lines and movement sketched in.  FUN!

Day 3-  2 min poses

I am noticing an improvement in my sketching in these first 7 days - the tips and instruction on lovelifedrawing  are helpful.  

 Happy Sketching.

Day 7 - 2 min poses

Day 7 - 5 min pose

Art and Technology

I have been tweaking my website and blog lately, trying some new styles and themes.  Technology and the ease of creating your own website (I made mine by just following YouTube videos) can be a great help to artists.  It can also be a large time waster!

I find when I am stuck on a painting or hesitant to ruin a new canvas, I start looking for inspiration on Instagram or on-line, or start doing 'business related' tasks.  Anyhooo... that's what is happening now.  I have a painting I am trying to do in acrylic vs oils and I am unsure about my background - so I am changing themes and styles and working on the blog.  Above is a video recorded in time-lapse mode on the iPad of the drawing portion of my painting.  The process for making these time lapse videos used to be longer and much more challenging - now most phones have a time-lapse button and you can have that sucker on instagram faster than should be allowed.  Ah, tech... I love / hate you.

Night painting

I have wanted to attempt a 'nocturnal' painting and have done a couple of sketches in the past.  This is my first attempt with oil colours.  It's from a photo of my brother, getting the bonfire started for our Christmas sledding and fireworks party.  I think I will attempt a larger scale one this year, maybe squeeze in more of the family.

11 x 14 Oil on Canvas

Another Process Post

the grid and drawing

One of the BEST places to visit on this planet is Haida Gwaii, on Canada's west coast.  It is spectacularly beautiful.  I travelled there with my family a few years ago and we had a wonderful time.  We learned a lot about the Haida people's culture and history, we ate great food, we met friendly people and we took an epic trip on a zodiac boat to one of the culturally significant sites.  I have painted a couple pictures from photos, but I took soooo many photos that I could probably keep painting.  I hope to get back there again some day to do some Plein air painting.

starting in with the oil paints

Nearing completion - picky details will take another couple of days