The Ones That Got Away - Painting the Stump

With being able to dive it is amazing what you can find in the lakes. Everything from cars, boats, snowmobiles and boat motors.

In one of the lakes in about 60 feet of water there is an ancient native village. Pottery shards from this site have been carbon tested which dates it approximately 30,000 years old. Obviously long before the lake was there.














But aside from a wealth of bottles that have been accidentally dropped or dumped overboard there are many anchors and a lot of lures caught among the rocks and attached to old cedar stumps.

Shown here are just a few of the ones I have lost over the years. Today I finally finished putting the wood grain on the sunken stump (see posts on 08 July 2010 and 31 October 2011).

I still have to wash in more of the water colour over the painting and lift out the rays of light as it travels through the water. I will post this painting at a later date once it is completed.

Autumn Birches 2 - A Work in Progress

Today on the final day of the Bobcaygeon Art Show it is going to be slightly cooler, with the temperatures only going up to 88F (31C).

One of my fellow artists decided to help me with my painting by putting in texture marks on my birch trees. I was not impressed.

I tried lifting the lines from the birch on the right side of the painting and couldn't keep any of the white paper so I changed it into a maple tree (see posting on 13 July 2012).

I will try lifting the lines and see if I can save any of the pure white  on the large middle tree to keep it as a birch tree.

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

Autumn Birches 1

It looks like today is going to be another hot and humid day at the Bobcaygeon Art Show, with the temperature climbing up to 92F (33C) for this afternoon.

Hopefully we will get a breeze to keep things a little cooler in the school house.

Using a pencil I lightly drew in the boundaries of my birch tree trunks, to give me a guideline when bringing the background colour over to the white area.

First I lifted some birch trunks out of the background using water and added the birch markings on them with a light wash of colour.

Then I started adding a few maple tree trunks into the background with a grey brown mixture.

Using mixtures of burnt sienna, raw sienna and alizarin crimson the background colour was brought over to the trunks of the main birch trees to give them shape and definition.

Gradually building up layers of background tree trunks, branches and leaves to give depth the background.

Growies were painted into the foreground and slightly more defined leaves were added to the small branches.

Finer markings were put onto the birch tree trunks using various mixtures of French ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and raw sienna.

A couple of branches were added to the two smaller birch trees.

After looking at the painting for a little while, I added a wash of new gamboge ad alizarin crimson to give the painting a little more of an autumn glow.

This original 4" x 6" watercolour painting is available for $40.00 unframed.

Autumn Birches 1 and 2 - Two Works in Progress

Today I was the half day at the Bobcaygeon Art show.

It was hot and humid as was expected but we were fortunate in the school house that with all the doors and windows open we did get a little bit of a breeze going through the building.

With it being Friday and most people are coming up to the cottage today there wasn't a huge number of people in attendance, but many did come out to enjoy the concert.


Autumn Birches 2

These are the two of the pieces I started today and will be working on while at the show.

I forgot to take a photograph of  this one before I started adding the markings on the birches, but it is pretty much the same as the one where I did remember.

I will post my progress as I work on them over the weekend.


Autumn Birches 1

Setting up the Bobcaygeon Art Show

Today I worked on getting together all the paintings I am going to take to Settler's Village for the Bobcaygeon Art Show.

This is my third year in the schoolhouse with Tom Young another member of the Buckhorn Artists' Group.

Our paintings go well together. I usually bring smaller pieces which can be set on the desk tops and the seats, while he brings larger pieces for on the walls and easels.

It is a wonderful venue for us to able to display our artwork in the many over a century old buildings.

The rules we have to follow are very simple; use the existing nails for hanging paintings and do not damage any of the artifacts.













Even though they are calling for high temperatures of 86-93F 30-34C) and humid weather this weekend I am looking forward to the show as there are always many interesting things going on in the Village.

Sea Fans - A Work in Progress

I have just received confirmation from The Lindsay Gallery that Carol Rutherford and I have been accepted to exhibit our work next year from 30 July - 24 August.













So I decided that I had better start working on some of the underwater paintings for the show and pulled this one out that I had started a while ago (see post on 20 October 2011). I have sketched in a number of different coral reef fish that would be found among the sea fans.

I will post this painting at a later date once I have finished painting the fish.

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

Northern Lights - A Work in Progress

Since we are having the June KAGS Executive meeting this afternoon, I decided to go and take the life drawing class in the morning and while I waited for the rest of the Executive committee to arrive I thought I may as well work on one of my many unfinished pieces.

Since I didn't have a lot of time, I added a few more rocks and trees to this painting (see postings on 09 December 2010, 21 February 2012 and 29 May 2012).

I will post this painting again at a later date as more of it is completed.

Thank you for looking at my artwork.