Monday, October 28, 2013

Take A Stand


















acrylic 24 x 24

Another moving highway view I had started a while back and just finished.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Foothills Art Club Demo




























I drove out to Cochrane last week to do a demo for the Foothills Art Club. I think I have painted enough Echo Creek, although they are all a little different and great for demo purposes, to show the palette knife technique and still have a painting almost finished within and hour. Here are the two finished pieces from that demo.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Uplfting




 This painting ended up being a real challenge and full of surprises, but I like  the outcome. I loved the mountain in my cropped reference photo but thought it needed more defined trees ( shapes ) on the bottom and maybe some reflective water, so I chose another reference photo. The mountains came together quite quickly but when I added the autumn trees and water, something was not right. I changed the color of the trees, the back hills and still it wasn't working for me. I made the trees larger and eliminated the water...nope that didn't work either. I brought back the water and took away the trees.  At this point, before I added the trees again, it finally dawned on me. I had too much going on in the painting and needed to simplify. I had accumulated a lot of texture and layers from scrapping and such and was really liking the effect ... I managed to make trees without painting them! Time to simplify. I still needed to connect the top and the bottom. Just a couple of autumn trees did the trick and I was happy with the mood.

Here are the two enhanced reference photos and my painting ,acrylic 15 x 30 inches

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Highway Photos


 
















'Catching The Light' acrylic 24 x 28.

Literally, I was trying to catch the light along the highway mountains from a moving vehicle. My husband always just wants to get where he is going. It's always " Sorry honey, there is no where to stop." or " Sorry honey, you didn't give me enough notice." Ha-ha. I'm sure many of you have experienced the same thing. That's why I like to go out on my own and spend the day shooting photos, but even then, I always miss some good ones.

I've included my original photo as well as the cropped/straightened photo.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Finished Paintings from Swinton's Demo


I have now completed the three paintings I was working on during my Demo at Swinton's Art Supplies.  I promised I would post them on my blog so here it goes:


 Demo 1









Wanting to show my palette knife techniques, I chose a 16 x 40 canvas, a reference photo, and a completed painting I had done a few days earlier of a creek scene in Banff. I got as far as I could and had to let the paint dry before adding the foreground in my studio.


Demo 2










I had half completed this painting at home and I still needed to show how I did the foreground trees. I refined them in the studio. ( acrylic 15 x 30)


Demo 3
















I had under an hour to paint a mountain scene from scratch. I wasn't prepared with a reference photo so luckily I had my I Pad with me and used a painting I had done a few months ago. I spent more time refining this then I did at the demo and, I was afraid I was going to lose the freshness. Acrylic 20 x 24)

Friday, October 18, 2013

workshop



Workshop at Swintons.....fabulous!
More to follow

Path To My Light
























A couple of smaller paintings I was experimenting with, trying to decide what to paint for my demo.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Light On The Edge










A sneak peek at what I may be painting for my demo at Swintons' this Friday night ( link )...so if you are around, come watch and have a glass of wine with me. I wanted to paint something that would showcase my use of a palette knife best. This one I finished yesterday, is acrylic 16 x 40 inches.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Beauty Within The Burn
















'Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.' - Andy Warhol.

Acrylic 24 x 30 inches. There was a fire this summer in near Purcell Mountain Lodge ( they hosted the firefighters). We were fortunate enough to hike there this fall and see this amazing area.

'To the artist, there is never anything ugly in nature.' - Auguste Rodin

This painting was a challenge and a little different for me. I wasn't sure quite how I was going to tackle it. So I did what I normally do when I don't know what I'm doing...bulldoze with gusto and see what emerges. I kind of like what happened. Working fast and furious for the first half and then getting tighter as I painted negative spaces. 




Saturday, October 12, 2013

Sunrise On The Selkirks'








Words, nor this painting, can describe how I felt as I walked up the meadow in the early morning to watch this breathtaking event unfold in front of me. Spectacular! Acrylic 16 x 40 inches. Sunrise overlooking the Selkirk's from the meadow in front of Purcell Mountain Lodge.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Purcell Triptych


 
My first triptych. Each is 16 x 48 inches ( together 4ft x  4ft).  I wanted to make sure each piece could stand alone. I didn't know how to stitch them together in one image using Photoshop. I googled and found a free site...only problem is the image file isn't very large and has rounded corners...but you get the idea.

Many thanks to Peter Stuhlmann for stitching my images together...please checkout his unique,abstracted and innovative work...link

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

After The Dusting


  
acrylic 10 x 30 inches
Another version, but I like this one much better. The orientation of the canvas is much longer and better suited for what I had in mind. I'm still not satisfied with my drawing, nor the mood I felt when I was there, so I will revisit this again. Below is the original photo and the cropped photo