Home - A Work in Progress

Everything is set up here in Kingston and I have been enjoying the Eastern Ontario Labrador Breeders Association 10th Anniversary Specialty Show and the Limestone Kennel Club Dog Show.

It seems everywhere I look there are images which would be ideal as paintings, so I am doing many rough sketches before I lose the idea as well as taking a lot of photographs of the different breeds of dogs.

This is a painting of my farm very early in the morning just as the sun is starting to come up over the distant hills on the other side of the Snelgrove Brook. Nothing has disturbed the freshly fallen snow from the night before.








The painting is about half finished. I have to paint the house and have to decide whether I would like to have a light on in the kitchen window. Then there are a few more details that need to be added to the barns.

Not a lot of the track shows with all the snow covering the ground when you look at the house from the far turn on the track. There are still a number of trees along the edge of the track that have to be added which will give a little more depth to the painting as well as adding the growies that are in the infield and tall enough to stick up out of the snow.

I will post this later after doing more work on this piece.

Spring Barn - A Work in Progress

This is the fourth painting in the series of four seasons with a barn and horses. Autumn Barn has already been sold and both Summer Barn (see yesterday's post) and Winter Barn (see post on 27 April 10) are works in progress.

The apple trees on the right side were masked out to protect the whites and the barn was covered with masking tape. Unfortunately, the masking tape did not stay taped down to the paper and allowed some of the sky colour to get onto the white of the barn. Just another thing to fix later.

The sky is Antwerp blue and alizarin crimson, the paint was allowed to mix on the paper.

The pasture grasses are various mixtures of Antwerp blue, French ultramarine blue and raw sienna. A soft wash of pure alizarin crimson was also applied in some areas.














The background trees and the shadowed leaves on the elm tree are a mixture of French ultramarine blue and raw sienna.

I will post this painting at a later date once more work on it has been completed.

Now I have to finish loading the car and head out to Kingston and set up my paintings at the Eastern Ontario Labrador Breeders Association 10th Anniversary Specialty Show held at the same site with the Limestone Kennel Club Dog Show. It should be an enjoyable weekend.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and enjoy the artwork. I hope you will return often.

Summer Barn - A Work in Progress

This is the third painting in a series I am working on of the four seasons using a barn and horses.

The first painting Autumn Barn was sold to new collector Ms. Rose Briand of Buckhorn, Ontario. The second in the series is Winter Barn and it is a work in progress (see my post on 27 April 2010), the fourth one is Spring Barn which I will post tomorrow.

The barn had been covered with masking tape to protect the white paper before the sky was wet and painted.














The sky was put in using French ultramarine blue at the top and blending in Antwerp blue leaving some areas of white for clouds and raw sienna down by the horizon line to give it the warm hazy feeling of a hot summer afternoon.

The grass base for the pasture was washed in using mixtures of French ultramarine blue, Antwerp blue and raw sienna. The distant trees, under painting for the foreground tree leaves and shadows were a darker mixture of the same colours.

The shadows on the barn were indicated using a mixture of French ultramarine blue with a little bit of burnt sienna to grey it.

As I do more work on this painting I will post it at a later date.

Close to the Water - A Work in Progress

The evening sky has been painted in with a mixture of French ultramarine blue and burnt sienna near the top, blending into a mixture of raw sienna and burnt sienna, with the orange a mix of raw sienna and alizarin crimson at the horizon line.

The same colour mixes were used in the water and applied with zigzag strokes to give the impression of movement. A slightly darker mixture of alizarin crimson and raw sienna was painted in below the horizon line, with a few touches of pure alizarin crimson in the background.

The colour was gradually lightened as it came closer to the foreground, where it gradually changed when the raw sienna and burnt sienna was added to the right side of the foreground.














Areas of the French ultramarine blue and burnt sienna were painted into the foreground water. Once the paper was dry the juvenile gull was sketched into the foreground and the shape of the bird suggested using the same colour.

The background island and trees are a mixture of French ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and alizarin crimson. Using a darker mixture of the colour a suggestion of the ripples on the water has been added in a few places as well as the dark tips of the gull's wings.

The foreground rocks have been completed and some of the trees on the closer shoreline have been painted.

I will post this painting once more of it is completed.

Buckhorn Artists' Group Blog - Lorraine Ryan

I have posted the biography of another member of the Buckhorn Artists' Group,Lorraine Ryan to the blog as well as an example of her artwork.

OSWOA - Broken Window 1 and 2

When we first bought the farm, there was a lot of work to do renovating both the house and the barn as they had stood empty for almost ten years.

The weeds and vines around the buildings had grown tall and many of the windows had been broken and needed to be replaced.

Looking out through one of the dusty and dirty broken windows in the barn I remember thinking how fuzzy everything looked through the dirty glass and the strong contrast with the sharply defined leaves through the broken part where the glass was missing.

Broken Window 1

The OSWOA shown here are both original watercolour paintings using Artist quality Winsor & Newton paint on 300lb. Arches 100% rag, acid free watercolour paper. They are priced at $40.00 each and sold unframed.

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




Broken Window 2

ACEO - Old Buildings 1-2

Driving through the countryside it seems that more and more of the old barns and some of the farmhouses are being neglected and left abandoned.

One barn on the Lindsay Highway collapsed this year.

Now all that remains of it are a few broken beams, some sheets of tin still partially attached to the fallen roof which rattles in the wind and the stone foundation that has survived for over a century.

But eventually, even all of that too, will give way to the weather and time and disappear forever.

Old Buildings 1

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














Old Buildings 2

The ACEO shown here are all original watercolour paintings using Artist quality Winsor & Newton paint on 300lb. Arches 100% rag, acid free watercolour paper. They are priced at $20.00 each and sold unframed.