Tia's Wedding Day (10"x14")

September 20th was a beautiful day here in Alberta. I enjoyed Tia and Matt Hand's wedding out at Crystal Ridge Golf Club. I thought an outdoor wedding was pretty risky any day in Alberta... but Matt and Tia got a stunner - 26 degrees Celsius and sunny. Just before the sun set I caught this photo looking out over the golf course from the clubhouse. My first painting class was yesterday and we were asked to bring a landscape reference photo and I took this one. What a struggle! I think I had performance anxiety painting in a group after so much painting alone time over the summer. It started to come around towards the end of class and I worked at it a couple more hours today. It's not a favourite but I hope you can see the beautiful fall scene. Enjoy! Retweet this

Rowan Berries (14"x10")

One of the most beautiful fall sights is a flaming "Mountain Ash" or Rowan tree. It's clumps of red berries coupled with the gorgeous multi-colored leaves is hard to resist. Some leaves were an interesting combination of red and green - tough to paint that's for sure. Others were orange-red, deep burgundy, golden, pink... an amazing variety for a single branch. Such a treat to look at and to paint.

I began by painting directly (no pencil lines) thinking that I'd have a fresher look and impression. I sprinkled a bit of salt over the area I intended for the berries and let it all dry. Yesterday I pencilled in various shapes and puttered at it off and on... defining a leaf here, a berry clump there, and generally making a variety of leaf and branch shapes. I added some darks behind the leaves and defined some veins by wetting and lifting out with a towel (an old cotton tea towel works great for this). I lifted out some negative leaf shapes the same way. Adding a few dark tips on the berries and glazing a few small berry clumps with blue to push them back a bit finished it off.

I had fun signing this painting. The right bottom was quite dark so I decided to lift out the signature. I used my rigger to paint my name with clear water and rubbed it with the towel to lift off the dark paint and reveal the letters. Enjoy!

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a stinker and a start

I've finished another painting, two in fact. However, it is midnight and I haven't the light to get a decent photo. That will be tomorrow's post. For today I share a the beginning of a stinker and the beginning of one I actually quite like. First the stinker...
The beginning... I wanted those intense fall colors, to paint by pour and pump, and I had a particular scene in my mind... I'd protected some negative spaces for the sun to shine through, etc. What a mess! Things got really fun... and then I had mud.

Here's the interim photo... I did force myself to go all the way to the end of this and I will post it. It's good for the soul. Days like this I'm glad that I am truly having fun in the process... the results are not worth the time. The colors blending together as the freely chased and pulled each other around was really fun to watch. Had I used transparents it would have resulted in better results. Tomorrow I'll post the end result (not really a "finish" yet).

My start from late yesterday is nice, bright and cheery. I'm going for fall berries, mountain ash to be precise. Stay tune tomorrow for the finish of this painting.

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