Seven Sisters

I had a very nice email this week from Calgary asking about the story behind one of my paintings that I have reproduced as a greeting card.
The best paintings have a story and here is my story for this one:

Seven Sisters (19 x 25 inches)

A young friend of mine visited an antique store in Yarmouth and found a box of old photos labeled "relatives 10 cents". The source for my painting  "Seven Sisters" was a 2 inch square, faded sepia photo buried deep in that box. My friend just knew I would love that image and I did! The original painting I made from the 2 x 2 photo is 19 by 25 inches and was purchased by an artist friend called John at its first showing at a local art show in 1998. For John, the Seven Sisters spoke to him of the his mother who was one of 7 sisters. John left this and many other painting from his collection to the local library so that they could be appreciated by many. The painting is on display in the Annapolis Royal public library.

Many people ask me who these people are and if they are really sister and of course I have no idea but the personalities came to life for me as I painted them.  There are many "7 Sisters"; the constellation, the women's colleges in the US, and mountains and hill tops to many to list here. Because the photo came to me from Yarmouth I made a local connection. (The photo could have been taken any where and I think this is part of its universal appeal.) Yarmouth always had a teaching hospital and to me these young women represented nursing sisters just finishing their training and just starting life's adventures at a time when the world was changing very fast. (I guess it is sometime between the wars by the hats and the skirt lengths and the sturdy walking shoes)
I know the personalities of these women. I know their hair colour, who is shy, which one is boisterous, which one is calm and gentle. No matter who these people actually were, they speak to me of the solidarity of women  "Well done, Sister Suffragettes!"

The execution of this painting was one of the moments that painters live for and and experience all too infrequently. Every brush stroke was placed with confidence and with no corrections. The painting was fresh and direct as the image revealed itself.

watercolour rescue

One of the best ideas I got from my friend Cluny was to take an old "trasher" (goodness know that we all have plenty of those) when you have not painted for a while and work on it. You have nothing to loose and it helps you get over that fear of the blank white paper. Sometimes this particular piece of paper is still destined for the bottom drawer but sometimes you end up with an interesting painting for your efforts.
 In my recent class on using ink with watercolour I started to add some ink lines to an otherwise lifeless painting.

 This painting always needed something and has been living in a drawer for quite some time.

 I started by adding some cross hatching in coloured ink to the shadowed areas of the pots and then enhanced some of the dark using a bamboo dip pen and India Ink. At this point I decided that what this painting had been in need of was some stronger darks. I continued working at home by adding some gripping dark areas and some cooler blue shadows to compliment the orange of the clay pots.

                                Newman's Pots (9 x 19 inches)

Thanks giving

I have been painting roosters both for my own practice and for my class demonstrations. As a subject, roosters are colourful, varied and have plenty of character. As long as you don't actually eat the pour fellows, they are a very seasonal motif as well. Rooster images are considered good luck in homes. Here are some of my expressions of "roosters for luck"

 This was a class demonstration where I worked with no pre drawing and tried to get the value and the colour intensity on the first go. I hardly ever do get it in one layer but it is always something to aim for

We worked on some ink and wash techniques in the second advanced class. In this demonstration, I put the wash down first and then drew the rooster with an ink pen. It is a great way to get away from the temptation the paint inside the lines - there were no lines!

 

I have added more colour and plenty of loose line work with a bamboo dip den. What a great little character he turned out to be.

(These are all 10 by 14 inches)

Gone to the beach

Hello dear readers

I have no really good reasons for neglecting this blog but perhaps the best reason is that I had "gone to the beach" It was lovely and I'm back now. Classes are under way for the fall session and the Farmer's Market has it's last blast this week end. Summer has been wonderful and fall is in full swing. It is all good

Lilies by the Bunch

On July 24 Bunchberry Nursery in Upper Clements hosted the second annual "Painting lilies by the bunch" event in the beautiful gardens surrounding the nursery. The lilies were a little late coming on this year but there was still lots of colour and an incredible variety of day lilies to delight visitors.
I am continuing to explore painting with no pencil drawing on the paper - just wet the shapes and jump right in! This is an exciting method of working and when it works, magic happens. I also get a lot of duds but as I always say, "moving right along ..."

This one was painted a few days in advance to get some practice in before I had to do it with an audience. It is probably the best of the bunch - you never know what you are going to get.

A ribbon lily that Jill is yet to identify

I used some drawing to start this one.

hard at work

Small Studies

The Farmers' Market will open in just 2 short weeks so I have been spending some time doing some small (5 x 7inch) studies to have something new for the season. I am often using a subject that I have used for a previous painting. I am using my favourite pen to do the drawing and because these are so small, I do not feel bad about loosing a few if a wash goes wrong. They are fun to do and are definitely a product of my daily drawing project.

Artists Circle

The artists Circle (a painting group based in the Kingston/Greenwood area) asked me to do a workshop with them on painting florals. My previous two postings showed some of the preparatory work I did for this class.  I arrived at the community centre to be greeted by this fabulous display of spring flowers. I always enjoy working with this group. They are keen to try new methods and enthusiastic about painting in general.

Getting started

We started with a fun exercise to get used to the idea of drawing with the bush loaded with water and then dropping paint into the wet pattern. Try writing your name this way.

I dropped blue paint on one side and yellow on the other and then tipped and tilted the board to blend the colours. You get some beautiful colour mixes that could only happen with a wet in wet technique.





Planning the painting

These little thumbnails are always where I start. The top 3 are for the first demonstration of pink magnolias. The last 2 (bottom centre and bottom left) are the planning for my afternoon demonstration.






Pink Magnolias

I started with the middle blossom. I wet the whole blossom shape and then dropped paint on to the bottom and let it flow upwards. I controlled the flow by drying the edges of the petals with paper towel. I wanted people to be able to see where the wet part of the paper was while I worked so I tinted the water with blue which worked very well with these particular flowers.

Pink Magnolias (10 x 14 inches)

After the initial wash had dried, I added some shadow details to enhance the forms. I may work on this one a little more latter on but I like the simplicity of this painting as it is.

Cosmos

I started a painting of cosmos in the afternoon using the same methods described in my previous posting. I could turn these into poppies - I'll have to think about that.

Participants paintings

Well done everyone. We had a great day