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Through the Blue

Further exploration of ink and paint – this time on panel and using oil paint on top. The circular shapes formed in ink on the first layer, informed my choices as I created the over-arching shapes of trees and reflections in the water. There’s something pleasing and peaceful here I think.

Spring Path

This piece evolved intuitively in several layers. The feeling of spring is everywhere in the green and the wet.

High Above

Another experiment combining ink and paint. Trees and birds are endlessly inspiring!

Cloudless Evening

A small intuitive landscape, this one is definitely inspired by local scenes. I have been very fortunate over the years to have several opportunities to sail around the islands and bays of the the west coast of Canada. Awe inspiring – even overwhelming – the seascapes and landscapes here continue to feed my creative soul.

Floral Dance

This is another in the series that started with carbon black ink on watercolour paper. I added first transparent acrylic colours and then opaque. As I painted I was keeping the original rhythm while watching for something to arise. Shapes turned into flowers and leaves. I love how loose and full of movement this one is.

Which Way

I decided that I enjoyed the process of creating the recent “Spring Nest” painting so I decided to explore that path a bit further. I started in the same way with black ink and loose brush work. You can still see some of that first layer especially at the bottom. At that point, I really didn’t know what it was going to be but after rotating the paper a few times, I decided I liked it this way up and started adding some acrylic paint. I added quite a few layers before it resolved into this scene and I decided it was done. I am starting to really enjoy the energetic edges. They give the piece a lot more movement than if the paint stopped at a tidy straight edge.

Forest View

Sometimes it’s possible to fit a lot of landscape in a 4″ x 4″ mini painting! When I first started doing minis, I painted a lot of close in details with one bird or bee or other small creature at close to life sized. That’s a lot of fun and I still do those …but compressing a large vista onto such a small surface while still keeping the painting loose is fun too. Check out all the texture you can see in the paint like where I scratched back into the wet paint with the end of my brush.

Bumbling Bees

Another mini oil painting celebrating some of my favourite pollinators. I love to see and hear bumbling bees moseying from flower to flower in the garden. They are a big part of what makes the garden feel alive – not just plants growing and flowering but all the small creatures enjoying them too.

Monarch Pair

Monarch butterflies are lovely especially when set off against a blue sky, I think. This mini oil painting started with just the Monarch on the left but I thought one looked a bit lonely so added a second …a bit of a challenge to paint one edge one like that! They were the most common butterfly around when I was a kid – sadly not so common now.

Spring Nest

I like to play with different media from time to time and this one came out of that exploration. I really enjoyed the process of creating this and also how it turned out. Much of the acrylic paint was transparent so a lot of the first layer of ink can still be seen. That makes the focus very clearly on the three eggs which were painted with opaque paints. Perhaps more in this style later…

Green Tea Doodles

take some time for tea and check out my doodles