Bumble Heart

The last mini of this set of 8. I decided to paint a bumblebee as a change from hummingbirds. He’s head down getting all the pollen!

Autumn Market Blooms

This was a demo painting I did during a workshop earlier this fall for a lovely group of women. Market flowers seemed the perfect subject – almost the last fresh local flowers of the season. Despite wandering around during my own painting process to check the students’ progress, I ended up with a piece I was pretty pleased with. It’s fresh and loose.

Rose Sunset

This is another in my “Skyflowers” series. Having so much fun with this. It’s whimsical and there are so many ways to play with the idea. Here I really like the cascade of roses transforming from cooler to warmer depending on how the sunset would affect them.

June Blooms

Fun with colour and flowers! Another view from a friend’s garden this summer. This one was painted in the studio from photo references rather than plein air though. I enjoyed getting into the textures and depths as well as letting the buds dissolve into the sky.

Queen Anne’s Meadow

This is the next in my “Skyflowers” series inspired by the southern Ontario farmland I grew up around and the late summer wildflower Queen Anne’s Lace. Here the clouds are both puffy cumulus and wildflowers. Have you ever noticed that most Queen Anne’s Lace have one tiny flower in the middle that’s red or purple? Of course they are mostly clusters of tiny white flowers so they work well as clouds, I think.

Summer Heat

This is another of my plein air from this past summer. It was August and although the “heat dome” had passed, it was still very warm that day. So the title reflects the time of year and the heat as well as the wonderful red-orange of the cascading crocosmia. This view could only be painted while I was standing in the direct sunshine so I had to take breaks in the shade every 15 or 20 minutes. Well worth the experience …and I can still feel the heat when I look at this one.

Skyflowers

I just had a three day open studio as part of the Gabriola Thanksgiving Studio Tour. It was a wonderful experience slightly tempered by the necessity of keeping strict COVID protocols. Welcoming people into our space after being quite solitary for the past year and a half was heart-warming. People were so thrilled to be able to take part in this activity and visit many artists studios throughout the long weekend. This painting was shown at the central gallery where each artist displays one piece of work.

The idea for “skyflowers” – or clouds that taken on the aspect of various flowers – drifted into my mind and just had to be painted. The seascape part is very much inspired by the local waters here amongst the Gulf Islands off Vancouver Island on the west coast of Canada.

Here are irises cascading into the ocean behind an island at sunset.

I built up and scratched away layers to enhance the evening glow in this part of the sky.

One more piece of sky clearing showing the shape of the iris clouds.

This painting is definitely not the last of this series. 🙂

Nola’s Lily Pond

About a week after my first visit to Nola’s pond, I had the chance to go back and focus on the now blooming waterlilies. What a treat. There is something about painting waterlilies …I guess Monet was onto something!

Margaret’s Garden

Another lovely day in late June spent painting a garden. I was so pleased to be able to create this piece which ended up having quite a personal resonance for the owner.

And here is the setup in the strong sunshine we had that day.

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy my plein air set up? It’s a Coulter Easel, and I have been using it for a couple of years now both for plein air and often (at least for smaller paintings) in the studio too. It is compact and very ergonomic with the palette and painting held at the perfect heights for working …and in cases like this with sloped ground, it is very easy to adjust a leg of the tripod to compensate for the terrain.

Nola’s Pond

Another friend/neighbour invited me to paint their lovely garden. I really enjoyed the pond here! A chance to get into the shadows and reflections in the pond as well as the varied planting around (and in) it. In June, the irises were still blooming and the waterlilies were just starting to show some colour.

Green Tea Doodles

take some time for tea and check out my doodles

flowers