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.

It's been a while!

It's been a while since I've written (or painted) anything! I'm getting back into it now, though.

Attached is a pic of an acrylic piece I was playing around with. It started as a painting of texture only, then I just started painting in the landscape area. Originally, I'd wanted to paint a set of six (20" x 20") gallery canvas acrylics for the living room wall. Acrylic painting has been intriguing me for a while, so I jumped in.

I'm not dropping acrylics, quite the contrary! I'll just work at it more before trying something as intimidating and big. Instead, I'll paint what I want for the wall in watercolour and then mount it on the gallery canvases. That ought to work much better and won't be such a formidable project.

I think that intimidation is a big part of what's been ailing my painting.

I'd also like to include a link for an excellent blog of plein air painting. http://wwwartpleinair.blogspot.com/ It's the blog of Raynald Murphy of Montreal. I love his loose style and I love seeing his work of places I recognize!

Be back soon!

Focus Art Calendars now on sale!

Eastern Ontario Visual Arts Association, aka Focus Art, now has the new calendars for sale as a fund raiser for the group. Calendars will be available only at the Bank of Nova Scotia, Brookdale Mall, starting Wednesday, November 28, 2007.

My painting of the hydrangeas is in the calendar this year.

Art Sale this Sunday!

I'm not in this one but will be in the next, come spring.

More done on Homer pastiche

The latest of the Homer pastiche. Not much left to do. I think the blue reflections on the viewer's left of the boat need some work in the black ripples department. I'm happy with the clarity of the blue reflections though! Actually, I'm happy with the entire painting! It's turning out far beyond my original expectations. I still can't wrap my mind around his blue tree but I'm learning a lot from this one.

I like Winslow Homer. Yes. I like him and his painting. I would love to have been able to meet him and paint with him in this very spot of the Adirondack Mountains!

Every Tuesday night, I paint with a painting group at Tracy Lynn Chisholm's Serenity Studio. On the 25th of November, they're having an Art Sale. I was invited to join but after much thought (while going through available paintings of mine) I decided that I'll go into the next one but pass on this one. Many of the paintings I've done have been given away and the ones I do have that are good enough to hang --- well, I don't want to part with them. So, really, I'm not ready for this art sale but will definitely work towards the spring sale.

Tracy's studio is a wonderful place to paint and soak up the atmosphere! On Friday afternoon, I'm going to drop in and take some shots of everything all set up and ready for Sunday. I'll post them either here or on a page I'll make at my website. Standing there on Tuesday night in the centre of the room and just turning round in a slow 360 degree turn, it was like being a kid in a candy store. The many, many beautiful paintings were like an incredible stash of eye candy. All there for the gazing! Beautiful stuff!

Gotta get some shut eye now. My baby's coming home from college for the weekend tomorrow - a day early! Wonderful!