Cold Beauty

I found this painting of birch trees on a sunny winter's day in one of my portfolios that had been left in my frame room.

The only thing I had to do to complete this painting was to paint the markings on the birch trees and add the grasses and growies at the base of the trees.  

With a mix of French ultramarine blue and burnt sienna, I put in the markings and with raw sienna I added the grasses and growies. 

This original 6-1/2" x 10-1/2" watercolour painting once it has been framed, will be available for $165.00.

Birch Tree Trunks I

Today I was at Millennium Park in Peterborough and I came across these three birch trees by the edge of the Otonabee River.

It started to cloud over as I sat on the grass and started to sketch the birches beginning with blocking in the three trunks.














It wasn't long before the rain started so I took a couple of pictures before leaving the park to head home.

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

Warm and Cool Exhibit at KAGS

Today I am sitting the summer show called Warm and Cool at the Kawartha Artists Gallery and Studio.












The one nice thing about being here is that I am out of the heat and humidity with the temperature outside at 75F (23.9C) and with the humidity feeling like a hot and sticky 85F (29.4C).












The only thing I will miss is being able to enjoy the thunderstorm and watching the lightning flash from the top of my hill. Although, with the tornado warnings in effect I am hoping they will pass without coming anywhere near the farm.

Winter Trail 2

I was going through some winter photographs of the trails going through the woodland at the south end of my property and thought I would like to do this part of the trail which is just behind the pond and gives you c choice of going toward the road to the west or deeper into the forest as you go east.

I started by putting the sky in with a mixture of ultramarine blue and titanium white and as I got to the bottom of the painting I added a cobalt blue and pthalo blue into the sky colour for the snow on the ground and the snow shadows.

Next I mixed various different greens for my trees using raw sienna, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, pthalo blue and cobalt blue.

Using more of the paler yellow greens first, I put in the distant trees into the background and gradually darkened green mixtures as I put in the closer trees and added more details to them as I worked my way forward through the background trees.

On the closer trees on each side of where the trail divides I continued to darkened the colours and added more details to the trees.

Next I mixed a dark of ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and a little bit of alizarin crimson and put in some dark shadows at the base of the trees as well as a few of the bare tree trunks.

Norma's Peppers

Today is another wet and rainy day and I am painting with the the Lakefield Creative Arts Guild at St. John the Baptist Anglican Church in Lakefield, Ontario.

Many in the Group are getting mats cut and paintings framed for the up coming Artists in Bloom II Art Show and Sale later this month in conjunction with the spring Strawberry and Tea Social held on 27 June.

This is a painting I started last month (see post on 27 May 2015) and it just needs the yellow pepper painted to be completed.

To create the shadow on the pepper I used burnt sienna with a touch of cadmium red.

More layers of raw sienna, new gamboge and aureolin were layered over the body of the pepper to give it the illusion of roundness.

I finished the pepper with some areas of burnt sienna for the reflected colour.

This original 8" x 10" watercolour painting when framed will be available for $185.00.

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

Harness Horse Head Study

Today I was at the Brooklin Spring Fair and enjoyed watching the Light Horse show with classes for Carriage Horses, Hackney Ponies, Harness Ponies, and Haflingers.

As usual I took along my camera and sketchbook and took photographs of the classes and did a number of sketches.

During the course of the day I probably did about 20 sketches which could be worked into paintings.

I also took well over 500 photographs of the various classes at the show.

Needless to say, I am very happy that I have switched to digital as I would have hated to pay the cost to develop the film.

This quick sketch is of one of the Harness Ponies.

Fortunately, I took a series of photographs of the stages of this head study sketch.

A lady who had been watching me sketch on and off during the course of the day came over an asked if she could purchase one of my sketches.

I would like to thank new collector Mrs. Marcia Darrin of Toronto, Ontario on her purchase of this sketch.

As I develop more of these sketches I will post them at a later date.

Twin Pines 1

Today, I wanted to do something simple and fairly easy.

I decided to do the pair of pines in one of the fields behind the barn and just before the sugar bush at the eastern edge of the property.

After putting in the main pines trees I added some of the trees on the far side of the Snelgrove Brook which runs through the back of the farm.

Over the years I have taken many photographs of these pine trees.

They are one of my favourite subjects and I will probably do a lot more paintings of them in the not too distant future.