The Bend in the Road

This is another Canadian scene up in New Brunswick, down South Shore Rd, which is the road our summer place is on. The small red building you can just spy on the top of the far bluff is our beach house, not much more than a shack really, but a good place to store rafts and things, andto be able to change into bathing suits if desired. I only got in for a swim once this summer though, since most of the days I was there it was chilly, gray and rainy. But I love it up there no matter what the weather!

The Artist and her Dog

My sister Amy had brought her oil paints up to Canada with her and was determined to do some painting there. She had a wonderful plein air setup she was eager to try. We had a lot of rainy weather though, although we both did get down to the beach one day and did our own interpretations of the fallen pine tree at our beach.

She was trying to get up the energy to do another plein air the next day, and finally managed to do so when she realized that she didn't have to traipse miles to do it, and could just set up right out in the farm yard.

So that was what she did. I loved her entire setup and was compelled to snap a bunch of photos of her at her work, with her little dog, Mary, at her feet. After three years of Life Drawing classes I felt I never wanted to paint a person again, LOL. But I loved this image of my sister so much that I had to give it a try tonight.

Dorchester - Bay of Fundy

My next-to-last day at the farm I finally got to go to the Bell Inn for lunch. It's located in Dorchester, NB and is one of my favorite places to visit, and it's been three years since I have had a chance to eat there! It was just as much fun as I remembered, and the food just as good.

On the way home I took the scenic route, Route 935, which is a dirt and gravel road that parallels the Bay of Fundy. It's a constant series of beautiful views, and I kept having to stop the car so my sister and I could take pictures. This painting, from last night's art class, was done from one of the photos I took.

I really liked this photo, and this picture almost demands more than the small 9x12 Art Spectrum I did it on. I may just have to think about doing this on a full sheet of Art Spectrum and see how that works out.

Fallen Pine

On Wednesday of my second week in Canada the weather actually turned sunny and got warmer. My sister and I decided to take our painting supplies down to the beach and do an actual plein air! I also wore my bathing suit and went for a marvelous swim. It was so refreshing.

The beach was lovely, and the light breeze kept all the bugs at bay, YAY! We have quite a steep cliff down to our beach, and every year it seems some of the land from above erodes and the cliff gets eaten away. The poor adventurous trees that grow close to the edge eventually end up keeling over and sliding down the cliff.

This tree was a casualty of this most recent year's storms and it seemed like a natural thing to focus on for my plein air. I guess my sister agreed as we didn't consult one another, but her painting was of the tree also. :-)

South Shore

My sister Amy and I kept thinking maybe we could try some plein air painting here in New Brunswick, but the weather is so variable. So far it has rained every single day, though no yet today - though there are plenty of threatening clouds. It's quite chilly too, for July. Last night I needed a second blanket on my bed, and today I'm wearing a thick flannel shirt.

None of those would be a real show-stopper though. I'd rather be in the cool than the heat. But the *real* show-stopper is **MOSQUITOES**. I cannot be outside more than 5 minutes without being bitten at least a dozen times. The mosquitoes are everywhere and regard me as a huge buffet feast.

So much for the theory proposed by several authors and bloggers that I follow who claim that if you don't eat sugar you are left alone by the mosquitoes. I've been sugar-free for 6 months now and they love me more than ever, whereas my sugar-eating sister is barely touched by them.

Anyway, yesterday the sun came out for about 10-20 minutes and I ran around taking a few photos, just for a chance to get some with some blue sky. It may be my only chance, LOL. So instead of plein air I did this painting in the bug-free farm shed using one of the photos I took yesterday as a reference.

Probably not quite an hour on this one, done on my usual 9x12 Art Spectrum.

A Hall Still Life

I'm still looking for painting subjects up here in the gray and rainy north. But this afternoon the we had a hint of sun through the haze and I took some of the fruits and veggies we had bought and set up a little still life in the front hallway where the sunlight was trying to come through.

This is a typical 9x12 Art Spectrum, and as with yesterday's picture I guess I spent about 45 minutes on this one.

Wildflowers in the Shed

Here I am up in Canada for two weeks. I had visions of doing some fun plein air painting up here, but it's been rainy and overcast and cloudy every day so far. I could even cope with that, but the mosquitoes are *fierce*. You can barely step out the door without being badly bitten. Being outdoors is just no fun, so I've been uninspired about art work.

But yesteday I ran outside for a few minutes, long enough to pick a few boring wildflowers (but closest to house for minimum bug exposure) and set up a very impromptu still life on top of the microwave in the back shed. So this is from yesterday, about 45 minutes of work on a 9x12 sheet of Art Spectrum Colourfix.

At least my laptop is working! I took it apart this morning to get at the fan and heat sink, and cleaned out all the hair that was blocking the fan and apparently causing the laptop to badly overheat. Before the laptop would be heating up to 50 degrees C before it had been on for 30 minutes. Now I've had it on for over two hours and I'm still sittting at a nice comfy 37 degrees C. It's actually cool enough that I could sit in on my lap, rather than having it burn my lap.

With all my animal critters at home I guess I am Death on Fans. This is my third PC in a row to suffer fan problems. But at least I'm working now and can actually upload stuff, though over 26.4K dialup (how 20th century) it's taking me a while.

Coneflowers

I've gotten stuck working on a larger painting that is just not going too well, so have not posted here lately. But last night I decided I needed to take a break from the larger work and go with something smaller and more accessible. So this one is from a photo I took in my garden, done on my usual Art Spectrum 9x12.

It seemed like a perfect painting to be part of my friend Michelle's 'Nature Notes' this week. This one was fun to do, and a change from my recent landscapes. Macro close-ups of things are also fun challenges.

Canadian Hayrolls

There just seems to be no end to my fascination with my Canadian pictures. Up where we have our summer place in New Brunswick there are still many working farms that face right on the bay, and I love the look of the hayrolls in the fields with the sparkling water behind them. The reference photo for this was taken along South Shore Rd. with the hayfield right on the edge of Baie Verte, and Nova Scotia across the way, on the other side of the bay.

Bridge over the Tantramar

I love the wide-open spaces of the Tantramar Marshes near Sackville, New Brunswick. Route 2, the Trans-Canada Highway, runs through the marsh and along the edge of Sackville, paralleled by large electric wires cutting across the landscape. But not far off the beaten path you run into a network of dirt roads that run through the marsh, connecting Upper Sackville to small towns like Jolicure and Point de Bute. 

It always amazes me that there is a real covered bridge still in use along the High Marsh Rd. from Upper Sackville, and it is still used daily primarily by the farmers in the area. I just enjoyed this view with the juxtaposition between an old-fashioned structure like a covered bridge, and the modern one of the high tension transmission lines that run through the area. 

Canadian Rocks 2009

I always loved the photo I took of the rocks on our beach up in New Brunswick, Canada several years ago. In fact, back in 2005 when I first began to learn about using pastels, it was one of the first pictures I wanted to paint. So I tried and tried, and I was so frustrated as I *knew* in my mind what I wanted to create, but just could not seem to get it down on paper. I just didn't have the skill or the learning or the experience to be able to create on paper what I could see in my mind's eye. 

But after four years of working with pastels I decided the time was ripe to try it again! I still wanted to do that rock scene! And this time it seemed to flow so much more easily. I felt happier with what I was doing, and more confident that I could achieve a result that pleased me. 

So I created the above on a 9x12 sheet of Art Spectrum Colourfix, and I'm much happier with the result than I was with my original 2005 attempt. To show you the differences, here is the 2005 attempt below, back when I was a fledgling artist, rather than one who is slowly coming to be happy with my own style.

The Beach at Barachois

Now that I'm back in the painting mode I had to do another one! I keep returning to Atlantic Canada, and this one is from a photo I took on a gray and moody day at Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula, when some friends and I went for a stroll on the beach at Barachois. This is my new usual of a 9x12 sheet of Art Spectrum, and this is also a quickie, about 40 minutes. 

We were so chilled afterwards that we stopped at a small café to get some warming drinks, and that was when I learned that ordering a "bowl of coffee" produced a drink that was actually served in a large bowl like a soup bowl!

Shades of Gray

I really thought I'd get to paint a picture or two last week while visiting my dad in NC, but it just never happened, alas. So it's been a while since I've posted here. But finally I got back to Art Class tonight.

Christina had an interesting still life set up which was quite monochromatic, primarily shades of gray, black and white. Some of the students were doing it just with charcoal, but I'm just too much of a colorist to enjoy that, LOL.

So my challenge to myself was to try to achieve the muted tones of the actual setup, but without using a single white, gray or black pastel! So that's what I did here - no white, gray or black was actually harmed in the creation of this picture. :-)

Canadian Sunset

This is from a photo taken behind our barn up in Canada, of a sunset over the fields. Sunset paintings are a dime a dozen of course. But this photo was so dramatic I just felt an urge to give it a try. I failed miserably alas. Glorious sunsets are just so hard to capture. But at least I don't hate this quite as much as I did during about 95% of the time that I was working on it. Most of the time it looked just a horrible, jarring mish-mosh of weird and unconnected colors that were totally meaningless.  But at the very last minute it finally came together and gave me at least a little hint of what I hoped to capture. 

Baie des Chaleurs Take 2

It was in 2005 that I visited with friends in Quebec's Gaspe Peninsula. I drove up from our farm in New Brunswick, a long 400-mile journey. I was getting tired as I approached Campbellton, and yet still had a long way to go, but pulled over to the side of the road to catch a glimpse of the Bay of Chaleur, which separates New Brunswick from the Gaspe. The vista was so stunning I had to take several pictures. 

Ever since I've wanted to paint a picture of that scene. I made my first attempt at it, using my photos as reference, with this rendition back in March. 

And I just was not happy with it. It didn't capture the scene the way I wanted to.  I rarely paint a scene over again, but I so *wanted* this one to be wonderful,  and I just didn't like it. So last night I decided to try again, on a sheet of 9x12 Art Spectrum,  and if it "felt" better from the Canson of the first version. 

But, , I'm not sure I'm any happier with this picture than I was with the first. There are some things I like in that one, and some in this one. But overall neither do justice to the my memory of the scene. Maybe it's just not for me to capture except in my mind's eye.

Beachkirk

I  can't get away from my "Atlantic Canada" kick! Today I chose to work from a photo, and went back, as I seem to do a lot, to Atlantic Canada. This is from a photo I took on the beach of our summer farm up in New Brunswick. I'm facing sort of northwards, and off in the distance you can see "Beachkirk" a lovely little old church that was at one time converted into a textile museum, and a charming one too. But alas the woman who owned and ran it became too ill and elderly to keep it up, and she sold it into private hands. It's no longer open to the public but it's still a l0vely local landmark.

Birthday Tea Two

I still have the photos I took from the birthday tea that my two friends took me on - though not as many as I would like. Alas I'm rather a dismal photographer, and the photos often come up looking not too useful as reference photos. But I decided I would give one more a try. This was done on my new usual support of 9x12 Art Spectrum.

It was a bit of a pain in the neck as everything was rather *small* on a sheet that size. I hate fiddling with tiny details like that, so this took a couple hours or better, much more time than I really like to spend on one single painting. But now there are two paintings. I guess if I can do a third it will really be a bit of a "series". LOL.

Birthday Tea One

My birthday is March 30. Last Saturday two friends took me out to lunch to this wonderful restaurant/tea room called Teaberry's in Flemington, NJ. It's a darling converted Victorian home, very cute. We had a lovely meal and tea there. I had brought my camera, and my friends kept arranging things on the table, and getting me to arrange things too, into still lifes and telling me to take photos, which I did.

So then they said they expected to see a series of paintings from these photos! :-) Well as usually happens the photos were not as wonderful as I had hoped, but some were not too bad. So I decided to try one today and see if I might do a "tea series".

Greek Philosophy

Tonight was the last night of winter art class. Christina didn't bother bringing in anything for a still life but figured she would just grab things sitting around the classroom. Her first grab was the same small bust that she had me work on as a second painting last week, but then she chose to add something to it that would probably not have been my own choice. I didn't think a skull was something terribly appealing. Yet it actually turned out to be rather fun to do, and it was interesting to see how many colors could be found in two essentially monochrome objects. In the end I actually enjoyed this one.

Greek Bust

Last night in class the Vase and Shadows painting was another one of those that just went very quickly. I was done with it by 8:30 PM, and still had an hour left of class. Christina challenged me to try a painting of this small bust which happened to be sitting in the classroom. I was not thrilled with the idea as it just served to remind me of why I don't enjoy drawing people, or have no interest in portraiture.

But she placed it up on the cabinet where the vase of flowers was sitting, so that the spotlight hit it with interesting lights and shadows, and that made it more appealing. So I spent the last 45 minutes of class working in this. At least he didn't need a break every 20 minutes to get up and stretch, and can't complain that I made him a bit wonky looking. :-)

Vase and Shadows

Spring certainly felt like it was coming today. But just because it was mild and sunny it does not mean things are blooming, mostly just starting to bud. Therefore no real flowers available from Christina's garden, but she brought in very nice silk ones for us to try to paint. They certainly gave a great illusion of spring. :-)

But it this case it was the wonderful cast shadow of the vase that really caught my eye, even more than the flowers themselves, so I just had to made the shadow the star of the show in this painting.

Ruthie's Lobster House

I can't seem to get away from Atlantic Canada, can I? Pretty soon I'll have an entire book's worth of paintings from Atlantic Canada. Tonight in class Christina proposed to talk about perspective, at the request of one of the other students. I sort of listened in with half an ear though most of it was not new to me. But I always enjoy Christina's lectures. 

However I painted as I listened! This is a picture I've long been wanting to paint, one I took of Ruthie's Lobster House in the darling little town of Victoria-by-the-Sea on Canada's Prince Edward Island. I kept putting it off and putting it off though, as I hated fiddling with drawing and painting buildings. But in honor of the class on perspective I decided to just bite the bullet and go for it. 

I took so long on the building I barely got done by the time class ended! However I did manage to finish, so spent about 2 hours on this painting, a long time for me. :-) This is done on my new paper of choice, 9x12 Art Spectrum Colourfix. 

Baie des Chaleurs

Tonight was a slow night for my pifflechat group, with one friend out celebrating Purim, and another running errands, soI decided to paint a picture. I choose this fromt a photo I took during my trip to Quebec's Gaspe Peninsula in 2oo5, I stopped alongside the road in New Brunswick, as I neared the border I pulled over and took a photo of the Bay of Chaleur, looking across to the Gaspe on the far side. I thought it was an awesome view.

Although I don't think this is an awesome painting, LOL. I could not find my Art Spectrum paper, and did this on a sheet of 12x16 orange Canson, all I could find. Gee, I used to love Canson, but after using Art Spectrum most of the time lately the Canson seemed horrible, and I had to really fight with it. I also found I was sadly lacking in greens in the little set of pastels I had here in the house (most of my pastels are already in the car to go to art class tomorrow).

But just doing something, anything, is good - no matter the result. Because I hated the orange paper I had, and had no idea how it would turn out, I took a few photos along the way - so I'll show you some of the stages this picture went through before I called it quits.

1) A very simple and basic drawing, and just filling in some underlayer colors using the Pan Pasels.

2) A very simple Pan Pastel undercoat on the entire painting.
3) Worked on the sky, clouds, and the distance hills of the Gaspe. Some deeper color to the water. 
4) More work on the water, the building roof, and some of the vegetation. 
So there you go. I have more photos of the stages this went through, but this is enough to give you an idea .I don't know if it's truly "done" but it's done for the night at least.  A shame in some ways - I do *love* this size so much more than the smaller 9x12 Art Spectrum. But I don't like using the larger sheets of Art Spectrum as I have so much wastage. And I've never had much luck using the Art Spectrum ground that you can apply to a surface of your own - it never comes out like the "real thing".

Maybe I just need to start working on Canson more again until I get used to it. I don't like the orange color either - but it was all that was left in the multi-color Canson pad - naturally since I left the icky color until last. :-) 

Cape Jourimain

Well, it looks like it's back to Atlantic Canada again for me! This is just a "quickie" done in class last night from a photo of mine. Cape Jourimain is in New Brunswick, Canada, just at the approach to the bridge to Prince Edward Island. It's a nature sanctuary and a major birding hotspot, and also boasts a restaurant that serves wonderful food - mostly all locally produced and organic, and supports its entire visitor's center with "green" technologies. 

The lighthouse there is no longer operational, and in past years ospreys have nested atop it. I have seen at least a couple of my "life birds" at Cape Jourimain.

I finished my onion painting quickly last night. Christina was doing some demos after that, but I have taken her classes before and seen the same demos, so I took advantage of the last 50-60 minutes I had available to work on a quick additional picture, which is this one here - also a 9x12 on Art Spectrum Colourfix.

Onion Basket

It was back to still lifes tonight with a basket of onions. Not too much to say about this one, except that I liked the contrasts of the complementary colors of the onions and basket, and the mostly purples of the background. This one went pretty quickly, about 75 minutes total. Done on a 9x12 sheet of Art Spectrum Colourfix paper.