Hello to Hawaii

One of the bonuses of my new location on the west coast is closer proximity to Hawaii, the favoured vacation spot among our neighbours. We were very fortunate to be invited to accompany new friends recently on a two-week visit to Kona, on Hawaii's big island. This island's unique black lava environment inspired me to experiment with working on a black ground in acrylics. I have worked on black paper in pastels many times, but for some reason have never tried underpainting in black for other media. Here are some results of my exploration. I was quite pleased with the effect and will perhaps work some of these small studies up into larger works this winter.  

First Responses to the West

After many months of managing all the details of moving cross-country (not to mention retiring from my teaching job and building a new house), I am happy to say that my new painting studio is functional! As well, having now spent some months on Canada's west coast, surrounded by many new sights, sounds, smells, and textures, I am beginning to find inspiration in my new environment. In October, a cold fog bank hovered across the strait between us and Vancouver Island for several weeks, cancelling all float plane flights and limiting our view to a swirling mist. Finally one morning there were signs of clearing as the sun rose, and I spent an hour photographing the effects of the rising sun on the remaining fog that lay offshore.  Hundreds of photos, dozens of possible paintings!

Here are two of the first from this series, then. These are painted in oils, which I am enjoying exploring at present (though a new set of Terry Ludwig pastels arrived this week in the mail, inspiring me to do some pastels in the coming days as well).

Morning Mists

Obscured

Obscured 24 x 24 oil on panel $650 unframed

Another inspiration has been the constant dazzle of sunshine on water. I experimented, in this piece, with an highly iridescent acrylic underpainting in an ivory tint . Over this, I painted the scene in oils, and then scraped back to the underpainting to create the ripples and points of light in the water. When viewed from different angles, the effect is similar to the actual sun-dazzle one experiences when looking into the sun, but without blinding the viewer or, I hope, becoming gaudy!

Awakened

And here's my current project, a painting done almost entirely with a palette knife, in oils.  The slow drying time of oils is changing my usual alla prima (in one pass) approach, causing me to slow down and consider multiple sessions and passes on a work. This piece has had one three-hour session, to the point at which the panel was so thickly coated with paint that further work was just muddying the effect.  So, it is drying for a few more days, and then I'll go back in and clarify/soften/adjust with another layer...

Tofino Passage

Now that I have developed some momentum, I hope to begin to post here more frequently, again!  Stay tuned for more posts...

Plein Air Wildflowers

On the ONLY Saturday in July that was rainy, two students (Kebbie Gibb and Patricia Lowe) and I made the trek to the Wildflower Farm near Orillia, Ontario for a plein air experience. Challenging the dire weather forecast, we set out anyway and after pressing on through torrential rain and rolling thunder, we were rewarded with fields of just-washed brilliance.  This establishment grows native wildflowers and has developed seed mixes for naturalistic meadow plantings (www.wildflowerfarm.com).  They were very welcoming to us (there's no fee to paint in the flower fields here, unlike at other establishments I checked with when planning this trip!), and we quickly set up our gear inside a lovely central gazebo that gave us great views across the flower beds amid the clearing drizzle. First we wandered around taking many inspirational photos (which have already been used to generate paintings back in the studio), and then, when the storm fully passed, we ventured out with our easels to capture the fleeting beauty of petals and sunlight. Studio painting is good--but getting out in front of the real thing is always refreshing!

Here are a couple of the resulting paintings, so far!

Painting Large on PastelBord

I recently ordered a package of eight large (24" x 36") pastelbords from Above Ground Art Supplies in Toronto (ordered by phone, they arrived on my doorstep by special post, but took several months--I had been warned by the clerk that this could be the case, and I wasn't in a hurry, so that was ok).  The package of eight, ready-to-paint boards was around $250, delivered. I wanted to try painting LARGE, and was frustrated by having to cope with the persistent curling of Wallis paper purchased in rolls (I could have it dry mounted, but that would require an extra, off site step and pre-planning!). PastelBord, a relatively new product, is hardboard coated with a special mix of kaolin clay and marble dust--heavy, but sturdy. I painted my first piece on the full-size sheet, and was very pleased with the drama of the resulting painting. Because of its size (the biggest I've done yet in pastel) and its subject matter, I called it Breathtaking.

Breathtaking

Next, I asked my husband to cut a board in half horizontally on his tablesaw, and experimented with two strongly horizontal paintings.  The second one kept me up until 2 a.m., struggling with achieving a needed depth of field, but that was because of the subject source (a photo with an extremely shallow scene), not the pastelbord. Again, I was very happy (eventually) with the result.  I think I'll keep using this support--but now I have to save up for the framing of these large works!

Time To Go

Winter Hedgerow

Go West, young woman!

Ok, so I'm not so young, but it just doesn't sound right to say "Go west, middle aged woman!" Anyway, I've just returned from a two-week stay at a lovely house on the Sunshine Coast, just north of Vancouver.  In an attempt to escape Ontario's bleak January weather, we fled to B.C.'s warmer, albeit much wetter clime.  We did have quite a few days of sunshine (that being why we chose the "sunshine coast" location), but even when it was raining, it was warmer, and the fresh scenery inspired my painting. I took along a handful of previously unused photo references, and my laptop in order to take advantage of the local photos I took while there.  Here are some of the results (see the pastel gallery for many more new images).

Also while there, I taught an intro to pastel session for my daughter-in-law and two of her friends.  We had a fun day together, and the budding artists were pretty pleased with their resulting works!