Advent Calendar Days 17 - 23

 

 

Advent Calendar Day Day 17

Have some Fruit!, wool and mixed fibre, 8.75” x 11.5”, CAN $ 400

This fruit still life is a re-creation of the acrylic painting with the same title. While I had no problem with the watermelon and plumes, the bananas were challenging. For the longest time, I was unhappy with the form and colour. It took a lot of mixing and layering colours until the bananas finally looked real.


When I held up the artwork online to show it to my daughter, I realized a triangle where the yellow and pinkish red background meet. In the reference photo, the shadows create a dark triangle. In the felted piece, the eye got stuck in that shape.


I decided to change the colour to yellow. Unfortunately, I did not take a photo of the artwork before I made the change, but you see the dark triangle in an earlier stage of the creation.

 

 

 Advent Calendar Day Day 18

Pumpkins and Plumes, wool and mixed fibre, 7.5” x 11.5”, CAN $400

This painting is the result of the felting workshop I offered, Ready for Pumpkins. It took me a while until I was happy with the colours of the background, the part of the painting that seemed to be the easiest.

  Advent Calendar Day Day 19

 

Fall Bouquet, watercolour and watercolour pencil, 11.7" x 8.3"

At the end of October, my husband and our dog, Shadow had booked another week at the cottage. Two of my painting buddies, Janis and Bob, wanted to join us for the first painting trip in three years. We were excited because we wanted to go painting while Ingo went hiking. Shortly before the trip both got sick. We were all disappointed.


Ingo invited a friend to go motorcycling for the weekend after the cancellations. To my delight, his friend brought a beautiful arrangement of flowers from his garden that I could not resist painting.

 Advent Calendar Day Day 20

Rolling Fields, watercolour, 8.3" x 11.7"

This watercolour painting is the first work from the painting outings with my friends Janis and Bob in the Whitewater Region. At the Westmeath Scenic Lookout., we found painting opportunities in all directions. Full of enthusiasm, I decided to use my acrylic paints, only to discover that I had left them in a closet at the cottage. Luckily, I had also packed my watercolour equipment. In the warming sun, sheltered by the hill with the lookout gazebo, I painted the fields with the Ottawa River in the distance.

In the studio, I added another layer of colour to some areas to make the painting more vibrant. 

 

 Advent Calendar Day Day 21

Marigolds, acrylic, 9" x 12", CAN $300


Shortly before Thanksgiving I decided to paint our marigolds outside on a sunny day. The flowers that look like little suns cheered me up the whole summer.


It was my first acrylic painting of the year because I couldn’t reach my studio in the basement due to the injuries from my accident. Therefore, I used only watercolours for painting because there was less chance of ruining the floors or furniture with paint splatter.


I combined different views as I couldn't find one spot where the slowly withering flowers created a pleasing composition. Outside I used Golden Open Acrylic for the painting. In my studio, I added some more texture with Heavy Body paints. 

 

 Advent Calendar Day Day 22

 

For Day 22, I didn’t pick one artwork but two collages of small pieces I created during the our weekly virtual meeting with my Painting Buddies. Since the start of the pandemic, our group has met every Wednesday except when I was on vacation.


We paint or draw for an hour a shared photo. When I was house-bound due to my accident at the beginning of 2022, these meetings with my friends brought a bit of normality into my life and helped to keep my spirits up. I am so grateful for my painting friends. Here are some of the artworks I created. Some are more developed than others. I didn’t finish most of them in one hour but continued painting or drawing after the session.


Meeting virtually is not the same as going outside to paint together but the sessions offers different challenges and opportunities. Sharing photos in the group allows for a broader pool of reference photos of very varied subjects which is challenging and fun at the same time. Plus, our friendship has grown stronger over the years due to meeting regularly and our chats while we create art, even though some of the members of the group moved to other cities and even provinces.

 

 

 Advent Calendar Day Day 23

Vibrant in the Sun, watercolour, 8.3” x 11.7”


On one of the last mild days in November, I returned to Petrie Island with my friends. We had trouble deciding on a painting spot because it was very windy and mostly cloudy.

It was challenging to create this painting because the landscape looked boring until the sun broke through the clouds. Unfortunately, it hid behind them most of the time so that I could only catch intermittent glimpses of the brilliant transformation it created. It got so cold that I finished the painting in my studio.



Tomorrow, I will post a special blog so that you get the last image on December 24, 2022.