Shady Birches

My little sparrow hawks are back and are once again going to be in the nesting box under the eaves of the house just outside my bedroom window.

I am happy that they have reclaimed it from the starlings that were trying to take it over. It is going to be an enjoyable summer watching them teach their young how to hunt.

My neighbour has some lovely groupings of birch trees on their front lawn. I wanted to do a painting of birch trees so I went out and did a quick sketch of them.

After I finished running my errands I returned home to do this painting.

This original 5-1/2" x 7-1/2” watercolour painting when framed will be available for $95.00.

Early Morning 1 and 2

I am very fortunate about where I live, as every day I get to see the sun rise and set, weather permitting of course.

This is one of the many reasons why I often have paintings with large areas of sky.

For the first sketch I put a large tree in the foreground and a couple of smaller trees back in the distance.














Early Morning 1

I lightly indicated the distant snow covered hills and the snow drift around the base of the large tree.

I can picture this in colour with the sky colours being reflected off the snow.














Early Morning 2

This sketch as well, has a large tree in the foreground and smaller trees in the distance. I also indicated a few birds in the sky.

I put in the far hills and grasses and growies around the base of the large tree.

Pine Reflections 1 and 2

Today I went to the back of the property to do a little sketching by the Snelgrove Brook before it becomes overgrown with all the leaves on the deciduous trees and bushes as well as the tall grasses and growies.

I decided that I would like to do a diptych of the open area of the brook at the bottom of the field just before the start of the
forest at the south end of the property.

Pine Reflections 1

I started with the closest shore of the brook on both drawings so they matched.

I put in the basic ground line in first and added a few trees and grasses.

Next I put in the waterline of the far shore making sure it matched on both drawings.

Then I started adding in the rocks against the water's edge and put in some growies in the foreground behind the rocks and then added the pine trees and deciduous tree trunks.

Pine Reflections 2

Lastly I indicated the pine tree reflections into the water.

Three Ships

I was watching Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World on television and decided to do some sketches of the various ships.

Doing these quick sketches forces me to put down the most important parts of the ships and to get the proportion correct.

Then later on when I decide to turn the sketches into either watercolour or acrylic paintings I have a solid foundation from which to work.

Storm Waves I

















Battleships I












At Rest 1

Frozen Birches

This has been a long time in coming (see postings on 13 May 2010, 26 August 2012, 12 February and 28 February 2013), but I finally managed to complete this 6-1/4" x 9-1/4" monochromatic painting of a forest of birch trees.

I did this while at the last meeting with the Buckhorn Tuesday Painting Group.

The Group will not meet to paint together again until the second Tuesday in September.

Now I have to get it framed up so I can enter it in the Monochrome show at KAGS where it will be available for $225.00.

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

Quarter Horse

Today I worked on a different kind of racehorse from the one I did earlier this month (see post on 01 April 2013) of the Standardbred.















This is a drawing of a racing Quarter Horse called Kurt King who used to race at Picov Downs many years ago.

This original 10" x 15" framed graphite pencil drawing is available for $165.00. SOLD

Crystal Clear I

Finally a nice, sunny and warmer day; I should be able to start working in my garden later this afternoon.

In the meantime I decided to work on this drawing of the tidal pool in front of our beach house that I started the last time I was at the CoCo View Resort on the island of Roatan in the Bay Islands of Honduras.












I hope to go back to Roatan again in a couple of years, the diving is fabulous whether you go boat diving or shore diving and it has become one of my favourite places to dive.

I have taken this drawing as far as I am going to for the day and now it is time to go outside and work in the garden.