ODYSSEO Cavalia

As a mothers' day gift my daughter gave me a pair of Rendez-Vous VIP tickets to go and see ODYSSEO Cavalia in Toronto last night.

It was an unbelievable experience starting with a buffet supper produced by the KEG, the wonderful performances by horses, riders and performers, followed by a tour of the stables.














I cannot thank Christine enough for her wonderful, unexpected and extremely thoughtful gift.

The performance I saw last night inspired me to produce this sketch which I will post at a later date once the line drawing is completed.

OSWOA - Two Family Home 1

While going through a box of small paintings I came across this piece that I had started last year (see posts on 06 and 17 May 2014).

A lot of things needed to be changed on the building so I started at the top and changed the angle on the front part of the roof adjusted the chimney and lowered the back roof to give more definition to the shape of the building.

I used various mixtures of French ultramarine blue, raw sienna and burnt sienna to match the greens in the background to make the changes to the silhouette of the building. Since I was using the green mixes I washed over the bright teal colour to the right side of the building.

For the front roof I used alizarin crimson and burnt sienna for the shingles and repeated those colours with the addition of raw sienna for the chimney.

For the back roof I used mixes of raw sienna, French ultramarine blue and burnt sienna and kept it as a tin roof.

On the far right side of the building I wasn't pleased with the window over the top of the door, it looked as though the building had a screaming face so I removed the window with water and made the door a little larger.













Next I added two more windows, one beside the door on the left side and another to the right of the door on the other section of the house.

Since I wanted the building to have that neglected look I used a greyed green of Antwerp blue and burnt sienna and brushed it through some areas of the white walls. While the paint was still wet I put in the shadows on the building with cobalt blue.

While that was drying I added a few fence posts to both sides of the house using burnt sienna and connected them together wire. At the same time I added some of the burnt sienna to the tree trunk and on some of the branches to take away the solidness of the dark shape.

Now that the building had dried I went in with a dark of burnt sienna and French ultramarine blue and gave a little definition to the door and window frames.

Lastly I went into the foreground grasses and weeds with various mixtures of raw sienna, burnt sienna and French ultramarine blue.

If you would like more information about OSWOA please go to my post on 12 March 2010.

The OSWOA shown here is an original watercolour painting using Artist quality Winsor & Newton paint on 140lb. Arches 100% rag, acid free watercolour paper. It is priced at $40.00 and sold unframed.

ACEO - Shapes 3

It seems as though we have totally by-passed spring and have jumped straight into summer with the temperature today reaching 82F (27.8C) with the humidity making it feel like 89F (31.7C). We were fortunate to have a strong breeze blowing to make it pleasant to be outside.

I thought that today I would work on another abstract painting.

Using a pencil, I marked out a couple of rectangles.

With alizarin crimson, I painted in the long rectangle on the right side.

I moved diagonally to the bottom and used Antwerp blue to paint in the rectangle.

Using a mixture of both colours, I painted in the horizontal bar at the top left side.

Lastly, I used cadmium yellow on the bottom horizontal bar to complete thee painting.

If you would like more information about ACEO please go to my post on 11 March 2010.

The ACEO shown here is an original watercolour painting using Artist quality Winsor & Newton paint on 140lb. Arches 100% rag, acid free watercolour paper. 

It is priced at $20.00 and sold unframed.

Sunlit Builidings 1 and Moonlit Buildings 1 - Two Works in Progress

Another bright, sunny day with a nice breeze, which even though the temperature reached 78F (25.6C) it was nice to be outside.

Today is the last day of the Doug Mays workshop and it has been a very enjoyable and learning experience. I look forward to future workshops with him.














For the morning he did a demonstration of a number of sunlit buildings with the only thing being masked was the window on the first building.

Once the painting was completely dried he washed over the entire painting with indigo turning it into a moonlight scene and set it aside to dry.













I will complete the first painting and leave it as a sunlit scene and the second one I will wash over with indigo and turn it into a night scene.

I will post each of these paintings at a later date once they are completed.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and enjoy the artwork.

Snowy Trail - A Work in Progress

Today was day two of Doug Mays' workshop.

This is of a winter forest trail with the background trees in muted shades of green greys and cast shadows in a variety of blue greys throughout the snowy landscape.

The sky was brushed in using Cobalt blue and as it dried the distant trees were painted in using raw sienna which mixed with the blue of the sky.














A little darker mixture of Cobalt blue and raw sienna was added to create a slightly closer layer of background trees.

The main tree trunks were put in using pure burnt sienna on the sunlit side, burnt sienna with a little French ultramarine blue and alizarin crimson was added to the grey mix for a dark on the shadowed side of the tree trunk.

Smaller background tree trunks were added using various shades of the greyed browns. I will post this painting at a later date once more work on the trees has been completed.

Century Barn - A Work in Progress

The weather remains bright, warm and sunny which is a pleasant change from the long cold winter we have experienced.

Today is the first day of a three day workshop with Doug Mays being held at Six Foot Bay in Buckhorn, Ontario.

The theme for the workshop is shades of grey and during the course we are going to create a wide range of greys with various paint colour mixes.

The first painting was of an old barn. The barn board was various mixtures of Prussian blue and alizarin crimson.

Instead of doing his barn, I chose to paint a couple of my barns, in this case the east and north barns. The west barn is behind the east barn and not visible.














The upper part of the paper was wet, leaving the barn and foreground untouched. The sky was a graduated wash of French ultramarine blue, and allowed to dry completely.

Next the foreground was washed with clear water and various mixtures of raw sienna and Quinacridone gold and once again it was set aside to dry.

Once the foreground was completely dry it was time to start with the barn board. To start a pale mix of Antwerp blue and alizarin crimson was put over the barns with a dry brush.

Gradually the pigments were darkened as more layers were added. There is still a lot more to do on the barn.

I will post this painting at a later date after the barn board is completed.

Buckhorn Artists' Group Blog - Show Updates

I have updated the Buckhorn Artists' Group blog with a listing of shows some of the various artists in the Group are exhibiting their work in during the month of May.

If you get a chance come out and visit them at one or all of the shows.