Saguaro Sunset

I’ve had an amazing day in sunny and HOT Arizona (sorry all you Alberta people).  Temperature reached high nineties today but there was a slight breeze to take the edge off.  Quite tolerable rolling into and out of the pool. 

I sketched up the saguaro cactus behind the house here and put him front and centre with a little pal in a quick desert sunset watercolor.  It was fun. 

I’m really enjoying blogging since I discovered Windows Live Writer.  I do the entire blog posting on my laptop and when I click on post it logs on and makes it all happen.  Lots of options for formatting and jazzing things up – looking forward to trying some of those too!  Check it out here.

sketching and doodling

I've been to Banff and come home inspired once again! My husband had what turned out to be day surgery Thursday in Banff Mineral Springs Hospital. So I brought along my sketch book and puttered a bit between pampering him. His room looked out onto a little stand of trees with a mountain in the distance. I did some sketching of the trees and snow shadow shapes, etc. It was beautiful and restful there. Today I continued with a value study based [roughly] on one of my thumbnails.

Next stop - color studies of the same subject...

Color work...

For homework this week we are matching colors to a photo... I chose to attempt to match skin/hair tones. Wow, what a challenge. First match is to a blonde woman... I did this one directly on the sketchbook paper. As you can see in the first photo, the colors used are more vibrant on the swatches to the left. After attempting this I selected several areas of her skin, numbered them and matched them on watercolor paper where the colors are much more predictable and vibrant.

On the second photo I did the same thing. I thought this fellow's skin tones would be harder to match but I found it much easier. He has such deep tones and I found the colors easier to perceive... See what you think.

Stumo's Tigers

I sketched and painted these tiger lilies (4x6) this afternoon at the home of Maureen and Stu McLellan (aka "stumo"). They have a wonderful backyard full of all types of perennials, shrubs, and annuals including these amazing lilies in St Albert, Alberta. I had my sketchbook and paint out for about an hour this afternoon and I enjoyed it so much. I think I'm becoming addicted to this daily painting business - I need the outlet. We also had a nice relaxing visit but we forgot to sign Stu's cast (sorry).

Maureen and I took the opportunity to visit a couple galleries in St Albert yesterday. What an amazing art scene they have in their town - just lovely.

I hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as I enjoyed mine!

a promise is a promise - trees

Greenspace and blue spruce as viewed from my deck. This little study helped me "see" into the trees, shadows, etc but I struggled with the changing light. Every time I lifted my head from the study everything had changed. Great life lesson - don't get too focused on what's going on in your life this minute because it is sure to change in some way.

Plein Aire at Lloyd Park

The birds were very busy yesterday. Whole families of ducks were making grand forays into open water (training little ones?). The reeds were quite colorful from bleached out to intense burgundy and greens. I needed to do a warm up sketch and this is it. Notice there really are no trees here. I've been working for a little while today on trees... I hope to have a little painting done that would prove that I'm breaking out of my "tree funk". My goal this week is to paint trees, paint trees, paint trees, etc you get the picture. I'll be hard pressed to put a landscape out there that doesn't require trees. Quite difficult....

To close, another quote from Winston Churchill's "Painting as a Pastime" "Painting is complete as a disctraction. I know of nothing which, without exhausting the body, more entirely absorbes the mind. Whatever the worries of the hour or the threats of the future once the picture has begun to flow along, there is no room for them in the mental screen. They pass out into shadow and darkness. All one's mental light, such s it is, becomes concentrated on the task. Time stands respectfully aside, and it is only after many hesitations that luncheon knocks gruffly at the door."