Winter Trees

It just seems natural to be painting winter scenes while there’s all that snow outside.  This little painting (5 x 7 inches) was done with a limited palette (pthalo blue, titanium white, burnt umber, mars black) and sketched in quickly with painting knives and then detailed with brushes.

My painting class is going to publish a calendar showcasing our work.  This was decided on in December, after one student brought in a professionally produced calendar of a particular artist’s work, and we thought we could do better (we are, really, a modest bunch, but somehow this idea caught fire with us).  Of course, December is a bit late to start thinking about putting together a calendar for January, especially with the holiday break at the end of the month.  So, flying in the face of tradition, our calendar will start in March, 2009 and run til February, 2010.

I’ve been collecting paintings from the other students and the teacher for Frank to photograph, and I’ll be arranging for the publishing of the calendar.  It’s a fun project.  At the moment I have five paintings leaning against the wall in the downstairs hall, waiting for their closeups, and every time I walk past them I’m struck again by the talent and the different visions of the people with whom I spend my Friday afternoons.  We all struggle with doubt over our ability to put something worthwhile down on canvas, but we all end up with some marvellous outcomes.  The best pictures happen when we can set aside those doubts and just meet the canvas head-on with an idea and a brush loaded with paint.  Everything magically comes together and we can step back and look and think, “that’s pretty good!”.

This week’s class will focus on portrait painting.  I’m looking forward to it, not just for the opportunity to get into it myself, but also to see what my fellow students come up with.  There’s lots of trepidation going into this particular venture, but I’m quite sure some amazing paintings will come out of it.

The Fedex man thinks she needs socks....

We’ve just had the first biggish snowfall of the season, somewhere between 20 and 30 cm (that would be 8 to 12 inches).  Since I didn’t have to drive anywhere and wasn’t waiting for a bus (transit’s on strike at the moment, anyway), I quite enjoyed the weather.  It was a bit of a slog heading up the driveway in boot-top-high snow to get to the mailbox, but it wasn’t cold and it was ohhhh so quiet with the flakes whispering down and occasionally leaving cool, wet kisses on my cheeks.  There were very few cars on the road, and each one that passed made that special driving-slowly-through-snow sound that I remember from growing up near Montreal.

The picture of the lovely lady on the left was taken in the late afternoon of the first day of the snowfall.  By winter’s end she’ll be up to her neck in snow and she, and I, will be ready for green growing things and warm breezes (note that I did not say we’ll be ready for +30C temperatures and 100% humidity!).

By yesterday afternoon the snow had stopped and the day turned sunny.  Frank and I went out to take some pictures of an old log-building ruin near here that I’ve been wanting to do a painting of.  He let me play around with the infra-red camera and here are a couple of the results (make sure you click on the pictures to get the enlarged version):

Old outbuildings on March Road

The pictures taken with the regular camera looked fairly pedestrian, but the IR makes the sky dramatic and just gives the whole picture an eerie otherness that I quite like.  I won’t be painting from this photo, but I like how it turned out.

Below, a picture of Frank (his jacket is actually red and purple, just to give you an idea of how the colours are altered), engrossed in his work.  By this time the wind had come up and it was too cold for me to stay outside of the truck.  When we left the house it was reasonably warm and windless, so I had removed the hood from my jacket and left my hat and scarf at home.  Shouldn’t have (but will I remember this lesson the next time I leave the house when it’s relatively warm and still?) ….

Frank bundled up against the wind

It was lovely to come home and sink into a hot bath before supper and read a few pages of Robert Henri’s The Art Spirit.  A quote: “That which is worth while in a landscape is the expression of human emotion in it…. Paint mountains as they are when they look wonderful to you, when they seem to move and have a life of their own.  Try to discover what it is you see when they look so wonderful.”

A gift for Liz

This snow scene is a gift for Liz, one of the students in my Friday afternoon painting class.  We’re having a Christmas painting exchange, with the stipulation that the painting be 8×10″ or smaller, and done entirely in class (and signed).  I drew Liz’s name from the hat, and this is the picture she’ll be getting on the 19th, our last class before the Christmas break.  The painting I’ll be receiving will be done by our teacher, Cheryl.  I have no clue yet what it looks like — I’m looking forward to it!

The Old Fenceline

This is the second of the knife paintings I finished.  I’m pretty pleased with the rhythms in it.  5 x 7″ is small enough that each painting can be done in a day or two (not so much painting time, but there’s lots of drying time involved because the knife lays the paint on rather thickly in spots).  Not much chance of getting bored with the subject when the painting is over so quickly.

I have a couple more small knife paintings on the easel right now; I’ll post them when and if they’re ready.