Book #3 Launching Soon!

Some of you have read—and kindly told me how much you enjoyed—my first two historical fiction books, Those Who Wander, and Those Who Stay. My third book, This Fair Land, will be available as of July 1st, from me, at Talewind Books in Sechelt, BC, at Earthfair Books in Madeira Park, BC, and, for the first time, as an ebook and a ‘print-on-demand’ book, from Amazon.ca.

I am planning an online launch via ZOOM on Tuesday July 6th at 430 pm PST. To receive the meeting id, please email me at rodgers.ruth@gmail.com.

See more details about all my books, including the new one, in the new ‘Books’ section within ‘Works’ on this website.

Anticipating Summer

Sunnier days and better news on the virus front have conspired to make me more interested in painting beach scenes again. I’ve taken some of my favourite little ‘beach bits’ kids and made them bigger (about 20 x 20) for more impact. On this one, I experimented with a fluid acrylic underpainting, splashing drops of clear water on a graded colour base to form fun ‘sea-urchin-like’ shapes. In fact, once I completed the boy, foam, and sparkles in pastel, I decided to call it Sea Urchin for the underwater shapes and the boy. It’s a nice bright piece that has me anticipating summer days at the beach!

Sun Dried

I haven’t used soft pastels in quite awhile, having concentrated on building my skills in oil, but there’s a call for entries for a new Pastel Artists Canada show coming up at the Federation Gallery on Granville Island (Vancouver) in the spring, so I thought I’d get back in the saddle with this nude. The background texture is rice paper, applied after the main figure was nearly complete. The texture isn’t quite as evident in the ‘in the flesh’ painting as it is in the photo, but it adds a nice textural element and something a little different. Creating the illusion of sun shining through the towel was my favourite challenge, along with the tattoo on the model’s back.

Sun Dried, pastel on textured paper, 27 x 22

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

About this time of year, I get a longing for the crisp, clear, snowy days of my Ontario home. This painting started as a demo for a student, showing how to use different temperatures of white (bluish=cool, yellowish=warm) but it made me nostalgic for our country home near St. Marys, Ontario. Not that I miss the treacherous drives and shoveling…

It Crossed My Mind oil on deep canvas 20x20 $600

Reworking Waves

In a post-Art-Crawl sort out, I tagged a number of older works for a refresh/rework, including several wave paintings that just didn’t seem to quite make the grade. I had experimented with using a very dark, opaque, solid background behind a wave on a painting that sold on the Crawl, so I thought I’d use the same approach on these…see what you think! Can you tell what I kept and what I changed?

This is the former image—’V-Curl’

Which became this image, Flippant, 14.5x20.5 pastel on paper, framed, museum glass $600

‘Silver Lining’ became…

Fluid Arch 14x20.5 pastel on paper, framed, museum glass $600