White Geraniums and Cut Apple

10" square

Oil on wood panel

I so enjoyed painting this one.  I painted this one in oil on a collaged panel.  I put it in the Fall Exhibition and won an honourable mention and a red dot!

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Nasturtiums

Red and Yellow Nasturtiums in Silver Creamer

10" square

Oil on wood panel

Oh how I've missed my blog.  I have been using Instagram a lot more lately and that is probably why I've been remiss in posting here.  But here I am with the final version of my nasturtiums.  I am playing catchup so on to the next painting.

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Nasturtiums in Silver

Nasturtiums in Silver

Oil on Canvas

10" square

On my easel this Sunday morning.  I love painting silver objects and the delicious colors of demure little nasturtiums.  

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An Illustrated Menu

Summer is traditionally wedding season and illustrating for everything from the invitations to the reception tables can keep me pretty busy.  There are the place cards, seating charts, menus and beautiful quotes to design for.

Iris and Nectarine

Iris and Nectarine

6" x 9"

Oil on Canvas

What a beautiful color combination, Iris blue and all the peachy pinks and yellows in the nectarine.

It is a work in progress (almost there) and I'm picking up my paint brush and tweaking little bits even as I write this post.

Green Pear in Pink Paper

Oil on wood cradled panel

6" x 6"

This is a re-visit of a painting I did maybe 3-4 years ago. You can see the original in my banner at the top of the page. This time on a collaged background with my calligraphy of a quote that I like a lot..."Fill your heart with what's important and be done with all the rest".  I decided to re-do this image because I wanted to see how I might have evolved after a dedicated effort to improve my brush strokes.  I like this one as much as the first but I have to say it

developed a lot easier this time around.  

Geraniums Red and Yellow

Geraniums

8" x 8" x 1.5" Oil on wood cradled panel

A few geraniums from my container garden with a little yellow dahlia thrown in for good measure.

I enjoy painting geraniums.  I think I do better by them as paintings than in real life.  I tried a less structured approach with these this time.  Rather than starting out with a detailed drawing, I thought I'd "wing it" and just pencil it in roughly and let my eye do the measuring.  A lot more fun this way.

Moody Teacup

This is just before I punched in all the highlights and lightened the background.  I'll post the finished
image tomorrow.  This was the second approach to painting this teacup.   I really overworked the first one and also made a bad decision to paint from a photo that I didn't set up very well.  Not enough
contrast in the lighting so of course the end result was less than pleasing.  That's what happens when
you launch right in to a painting without doing a few "lesser" works to warm up with.  This one
came right after and is much closer to what I wanted the outcome to be.

Art Quilts

Forest Lake

16" diameter

bowl shape

hand dyed and commercial fabric

Spotted Robin

16" diameter

bowl shape

hand dyed and commercial fabric

Every so often I make a complete 180 and create something very different from what I've been doing.

I've been trying to find time to do some art quilts.  Nothing too labor intensive because I can never be too far from my painting projects.  This was the perfect project.  Involved enough to be a bit of a challenge and interesting in a tactile way.  I also had a collection of hand dyed fabrics that I was looking forward to using so all of this came together in a very pleasant way.  I never want to leave

a project with newly acquired skills too soon or else I worry about losing the thought process that led me to this so at least one more before I return to my painting.  

Cut paper design....

Design and painted textures are important no matter what I'm creating so I've been designing lately with cut paper from my growing stash of painted papers.  A spin off of the collaged birds of last year (which I fully intend on returning to) will be posted here in the coming days.

Spending less time at my computer...

means creating more.

A Sensible Quote

Having fun pairing up handwritten quotes with artwork and playing with my watercolours at the same time.  I can't stress enough that taking time to play can lead to great new discoveries.  This is unlike what I usually do with oils and something I'd like to do more of.

Gouache Love

I started these with the idea that they would just be informal sketches so I would've composed these a little better but I was in a hurry to apply this new found love of gouache.  I think this media (for me)

is here to stay.  

Now why hadn't I tried this before?

Gouache seems to be the best of two worlds and for some reason I never really explored the possibilities.  The convenience of watercolour with the ability to do fine detail and work in layers

like oil paints.  I originally thought I'd work with them for illustrations but am pleased that I can

do more fine art work with them as well.  

New Year, New Projects

The start of a new year means the opportunity to work on new projects and so early in January and in collaboration with the Deka team, I created these handprinted menus and place cards.  I'm brushing up on my calligraphy because I had way too much fun in 2015 working with this team.  Photography is by Emilie Olson (my daughter).