A 30 Year Journey in Art – Sept 17-18, 2011

I’m excited – I just got jury results back for the upcoming Federation of Canadian Artists 30th Anniversary show and 4 of my 5 entries were accepted!  These are the first oil paintings I’ve submitted for jury so I’m thrilled that they met the high standards of the FCA jurors at our head office in Vancouver.  I’ll have more coming on this in future posts.

Here’s the invitation to the 30 year celebration show…  with my painting “Lift My Eyes” on the far right.  It was a fun surprise to see that on the invitation card!

Here are the 4 paintings I will have in the show:

Today’s Picks [oil, 8”x10”]

Foothills Float [oil, 9”x12”] – previously named Scrapescape…

Mari Mari [oil, 12”x9”]  

Rudiger Ranch [oil, 9”x12”] 

Have a great day!

Passing along a challenge…

The closest I got to art today was reading Liz Wiltzen’s blog.  I wanted to share this link to her blog post where she discusses painted value studies…  and posts a challenge – 50 studies in 30 days!  I’ll take a whack at this challenge after I get moved.  Hope you enjoy it!

I believe I mentioned that we’ve had our house for sale…  well, we got an good offer with a short possession date of August 24th.  This sent us into serious house-hunting mode and we were blessed to find a bungalow that will suit us very well.  Good-bye 2-storey!  I loved everything about this house but my knees hated it!  I was keen to find a house that gave me some move in ready studio space – and we did!  I’ll have more space there than I did here and I can’t wait to get in and settled!  As a result of the move, posts will be few and far between for a few weeks.  It pains me to set my paints aside but it can’t be helped…  Cheers!

A Simple Honeymoon [6”x8”, oil on panel]

I spent last week on Franchere Bay near Bonneville, Alberta.  My two daughters and 4 of my grandchildren attended Moose Lake Gospel Family Camp there.  It was a lovely week – just one rainy day.  We had mainly sunny skies but it was cooler than normal except for Monday when I decided I had to paint “the honeymoon cabin”.  This 7’x14’ log cabin was built by A.D. & Ruth Marshall in the early years – the first to be built on the current site.  It was quickly dubbed “the honeymoon cabin” as A.D. and Ruth had been recently wed.  Can you imagine being thankful – VERY thankful – for a 7’x14’ log cabin?????  Puts our whining into perspective, doesn’t it?

The challenge with this painting was to get a “likeness” without painting all of the wonkiness in the structure as it has settled over the years.  That wouldn’t be believable…  I liked how the light was hitting the west wall and the roof mid afternoon and that’s what I tried to capture. 

Any of you Moose Lakers out there – this painting is currently in the canteen at camp.  A silent auction is underway this week to raise money for camp.  Bid ‘er up boys and girls!  It’s all for a good cause.  The grins on the kids’ faces when they arrive at camp and the closeness one feels to God while there are two very good reasons for supporting Moose Lake Gospel Camp.