Street Corner - oil on board 12″ x 9″click thumbnail for full view
Had a good time working on this little oil, I’ve been learning the challenge of different light effects, like all the twinkling lights in the night, I might try some more of this sort of thing…I would have liked to stay a little looser with this one, but it is what it is.
Monthly Archives: January 2007
Rock Cut - oil on canvas 28″ x 24″ click thumbnail for full view
Here’s another version of this view. I’ve posted lots of versions of this view that I’ve painted before. There never seems to be an end to the possibilities… this time I thought I’d get real close to the limestone cliff, as if you’re up there climbing on it…and I tried a different palette too, mostly lemon yellow and dioxazine purple in various mixtures
I’ve been working on some large oils mostly of the views from the limestone bluffs around Kingston, and also of the rock formations themselves. This is one of the road from Kingston home towards Elginburg.
Towards Elginburg oil on canvas 48″ x 24″ Click for full view
Phew! On Wednesday I went to a local public school as a visiting professional artist to talk with the children and do a demonstration of watercolour painting! I was nervous beforehand, but it really was quite okay, I shouldn’t have been nervous. I mean after all they were 2 classes of grade 5’s so they were pretty accepting of whatever I would show them. They are working on a “Gardening Festival” art project, as the Kingston Arts Council is sponsoring a Student Art Awards Contest at the festival this year. I did a watercolour demonstration on an easle (as I wanted all the kids to be able to see what I was doing) which went better than I thought, I just made sure to completely soak my paper beforehand, clamp it to the support and blot it dry on the surface before starting. This worked really well to control the wetness and flow of the pigment, at the same time left the back of the paper wet for a soft but controlled effect.
Olive Tree, Assisi -watercolour sketch 8″ x 6″
Fidel’s Garden watercolour 22″ x 15″ click image for full view
I’ve been working away on paintings from Cuba. Fidel is a gardener who tended the garden at Tryp Peninsula Varadero. He did a wonderful job…he was always there clipping, trimming, weeding, watering and giving it his tender loving care. There was a large aviary in his garden with some beautiful budgies in it, green and cerelean blue, & pink & yellow…the same colours as some of the houses…anyway I sat down to sketch and soon after Fidel came over and introduced himself, he asked me if I like coconut juice, then picked one, cut a hole in it, inserted a straw and offered it to me. I thanked him and he went back to gardening, and I went back to my sketching. Shortly after he came back with a bunch of beautiful majenta flowers for me that smelled like vanilla. They were absolutely lovely, he assured me they would last for 4 days in water. That was my sketching stop in Fidel’s garden, and this is the painting created from it.
Front Step with Blue Shutters - oil on canvas 18″ x 22″
click on image for full view
Spent most of Sunday afternoon painting in the studio…I decided to work on my brothers portrait which I started a while back…managed to do the right eye and his forhead and hair just fine, but scraped off the left eye and the mouth and reworked this area…I am not satisfied with it, and it’s still unfinished…perhaps I’ll get a eureka moment next time I work on it. Also I’m stuck on a large oil landscape I’ve been working on…I know what I want to do, but getting there eludes me. I want to combine the actual view with what I think should be there, and that is to have the focal point in the painting, read as a village, but actually be made up of overlapping abstract shapes that make you think “village” when you look at it. I think it’s going to have to be one of those that sits around the studio for a while waiting for me to resolve it. On a watercolour note, I worked on 3 of my Cuban watercolour series last week, but only succeeded in starts for 2 paintings, so lots of potential to make or break them yet!…1 went directly to the reject pile in a huge filing drawer! This filing drawer is really great, my husband salvaged it from some military offices when they were remodelling and wanted to discard it…it is one that is designed for holding many assortments of large maps for military planning and exercises. It is perfect for large sheets of watercolour paper, though it weighs a ton and was really hard to move up into my studio when he brought it home. I use the surface of it to put my palette and oil paint paraphenelia on, it measures about 4′ wide and 3′ deep, and has 5 drawers.
Thought I’d post this oil, it is from an early spring morning walk down Gore St. in Kingston. My friend AEmilia owns it. Unfortunately it hasn’t photographed well, as I was getting a lot of reflection off of the shiny black roof.
Granny Smiths oil on canvas 12″ x 10″
Just received an email acceptance yesterday for a group winter exposition at Gallery 22 here in Kingston! I will put in 2 pieces for this show, both will be recent oils of wooded landscapes. One of them is cropped on the banner of this blogsite, (title: ‘Joyful Chorus’)! The other is posted below. It will be sort of interesting , because this show is for many different forms of art & artists… there will be paintings, sculpture, poetry, music to name a few art forms. The concept for the exposition came about in response to a statement about ‘beauty’…artists of various persuasions were encouraged to submit their responses to the statement, and of these submissions several have been selected to participate in the show. I’m happy my submission was chosen. I think it will be fun to participate…and always good to get a little more exposure for my work.
Cathedral Floor oil on canvas 28″x24″ click to view full image
Tidying Up - Cuba watercolour 22″ x 15″
Now that it’s January and we’re all done with the holiday season, it’s back to more time in the studio for working through various projects I have on the go…one thing I’ve been dying to get at since my trip in November is some time to work through my Cuban resource material I gathered…I’ve felt the urge to express in watercolour my expressions of the place. I’ve done a few allready and will probably have at least ? more before I feel done with it. It’s fun working on stuff from a holiday, it brings back lots of memories while doing it.
Sitting In The Sun - Cuba click image for full view
watercolour 22″ x 15″
Just came home from helping to hang up the annual OKWA(organization of Kingston Women Artists) winter group art show. It is always a challenge to hang every piece so that it gets the attention it deserves…but all in all I think we did a fairly reasonable job. The show looks good and has several very strong works. The show opens January 4 and runs until the 30th at the Wilson Room in the Kingston Central Public Library on Johnson St.
