Blog 11
Since my last blog, the milder weather has encouraged my friends and me to paint outside more often. I am so thankful for the many beautiful spots in my neighbourhood. We love Petrie Island because it offers lots of inspiration at any season. The changing weather provides different views of the same spot. When Bob and I went to Petrie Island, we witnessed how the wind blew the leaves from the trees we were painting until the trees were almost bare.
Two hours later, we sat in the warm sunlight with temperatures in the mid-twenties, painting the blue waters and brilliant red dogwood shrubs. I am usually a slow painter, building up my paintings layer by layer, but within 45 minutes, I created a lovely sketch.
A trip to Mer Bleue was slightly disappointing because the beautiful golden tamaracks had already lost their needles. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the sunshine on the bog. I painted the boardwalk and quickly realized there was still a lot of colour in the shrubs on both sides of the path. Sometimes, you only need to take the time to observe your surroundings.
On another trip to Petrie Island, the water was uncharacteristically low. We could access a spot that is usually flooded. While we painted, the geese happily and loudly bathed themselves.
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Additionally, we still met in our weekly Zoom meetings. We share a photo album and pick a new picture every time. Here are my images from our meetings since the end of October.
Watching live theatre and musicals also gave me opportunities to draw. While I sit in the first row of the Ottawa Little Theatre, I often have enough light to see what I am drawing, but in the National Arts Centre, while watching The Lion King, we sat in the second to last row without any light. Therefore, I could only draw outlines and had to make many adjustments after the show when I realized that some body parts were in the wrong place. :)
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| Lion King at the National Art Centre |
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| Guilty Conscience at the Ottawa Little Theatre |
I created many drawings in preparation for the Cartooning and Comics courses I offer to children between 5 and 12 years old. Their requests often challenge me because they are out of my comfort zone. However, I enjoy learning about the characters they want to draw. This week, the students start their comics. I give them the first image, and they create the story and the additional panels.
For my Learn German Through Art students and followers, I drew 24 images for the Advent Calendar with German Christmas vocabulary and traditions. To learn more, check out my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/LearnGermanThroughArt/, starting December 1.
I didn’t have much time to create daily art in my sketchbook this month (see image at the top of this blog). I realized it was too ambitious a goal to make a drawing of the day aside from other creative projects. In the future, I will count all paintings and drawings, not only those in my sketchbook. However, I drew many different subjects, which was a great practice - and I had lots of fun capturing something from my daily activities.
In the upcoming three weeks, I will publish a blog showcasing my artworks in my annual Art Advent Calendar. There will be one additional blog on Tuesday, December 24, the last blog for 2024.
