Finally did some painting!

I finally did some painting! This was one that sat unfinished in "the pile" for a long, long time. This month's Flower of the Month show at EBSQ is Lobelia so after a lot of thought, I decided to finish this one and put lots of lobelia in the window boxes.

I had actually started this painting to practice doing brickwork. The main colour used here is Daniel Smith's Quin Burnt Orange, which I love!

It's also posted at the show page at EBSQ. You can click here to see the show. At EBSQ, there are two kinds of memberships, artist and art patron. Art patron memberships are free and with it, you are able to vote on the shows. The artist memberships are a fantastic investment for artists and you can vote also.

Here's the painting:

Here's a few close up detail shots.

The above closeup, while slightly dark, shows the curtains. I'm pretty happy with how they came out but can't decide if I should add more darks to the interior area.

This one shows the flowers. I managed to leave lots of whites in the masses of flowers for a real watercoloury look. That was tough. I'm pretty happy with the greens!

Found something ....

I found a very old picture of me at the age of two, drawing. Thought I'd share it.

Snow, snow, snow, snow, SNOW!

This weekend, the first "Family Day" holiday, has been busy. I like this new holiday in February, though! I've been shooting a friend's paintings so she can get them up on the Focus Art member's page and resizing them, too.

And since my baby's home from college, I've been baking him anything he wants - which included a strawberry-rhubarb tart from Martha Stewart's latest magazine. I love having him home for the weekend but hate seeing him go back. (I'm as anxious as he is for the summer holidays to get here!)

I've also got a piece of Arches w/c paper textured up with moulding paste and have two coats of gesso over that, now dried and ready to paint. I'm going to do a painting for this month's flower of the month show at EBSQ, which is Lobelia.

In lieu of painting pics, I'm attaching snow pics! We have snow (almost) up to our ears. And what you see in these pics is over and above all the stuff that's melted several times over this strange winter! I've also put in a few pics of the house in summer to better show the snow. I swear, next year, we're going to have a snowblower! Just when you've got it all shovelled clean, it snows another foot or so. Just when you have THAT cleaned up and ready to leave for work in the morning, the darned snowplow goes by and leaves about two feet at the end of the driveway.

Okay, first pic is the front of the house in summer. Ahhhhh, summer - no snow. Hot as hades, but no snow to shovel or drive in. (Sorry, several of the originally posted pics have been removed.)

And now, this winter with all it's abundance of snow! I never dreamed my little evergreen shrubs would get so heavily buried in snow. I hope they make it! Last winter and early this winter, I would brush all the snow off them but then the snow got to be too deep!











































The last one was taken looking down the sidewalk. You ought to see it before the sidewalk plow goes by!

Monday and Tuesday of last week had temps of -20 C. Tomorrow is forecast for +6C. Too much change, too fast. Too many extremes. At this time of year, we need a few good weeks of the -20's, not all this constant fluctuation! But you can't argue with Mother Nature.

And that's my rant for today! If you're sharing in the new Family Day holiday, enjoy it!

I'm so tickled!

One of the January shows at EBSQ was for unfinished art. (I have no shortage of that!!) One of the criteria was that the painting be more than six months old. (I have no shortage of that, either!) I entered two paintings and one of them, a dahlia macro won Member's Mention!

Here's a link to see my EBSQ portfolio, showing my five ribbons. And here's a link to show the group's current show page. Scroll down to see the "recent exhibit winners" and click from there to see the complete show exhibit.

I've also included a write-up about EBSQ on the What's New page of my website. This painting, by the way, will never be completed. I hate it. I grew tired of painting in only orange. I plan on cropping down to some painted section and framing that. So, here's the dahlia - unfinished - that won the Member's Mention:












And here's the other entry:













The above, an unfinished painting of dogwood flowers was originally started as a demo by Rhonda Carpenter. She was generously showing myself and Ann, Paulette and Teresa the steps of pouring. Lots of fun and even though it's unfinished, it taught me a lot about the fun and the technique of pouring paint. Thanks Rhonda! (There's a link to Rhonda's blog over the right.)

Actually, this is the one, of the two here, that I prefer. I know it's because I love blues and am not an "orange" person. We also started some jelly fish that I am definitely planning on finishing.