Looking Towards the Water

I painted this plein air over the Thanksgiving weekend in the Highland Glen Conservation Area. It was a gorgeous day and you could just see the water sparkling through the trees. This is an impasto painting done with a brush.

Finally finished

I finally finished this one. I set it aside for a few weeks because I it was calling for me detail, but I was  afraid of putting to much in and losing the simple graphic quality I had already achieved.

Wild for Blue

Lots of intense colour in this one and big for a change. I have been working a little bit larger lately due to feedback from prospective buyers and from a feeling of being a little restricted by a smaller format. This one took me quite a while and a few incarnations before I was pleased with it.

Orange Sunflowers

Another one of these sunflowers and in the square format that I really love.
The flowers still look great after a week, so I am hoping to get another painting out of them.

Blue Shadow

I found these orange and purple sunflowers? at the grocery store. I had never seen them before.

Plein air in Stratfod

A quick plein air done in Stratford Ontario. This was quite challenging as the cars parked on the street kept changing as I painted.

Orange Lily

I was not feeling well today, but decided to tackle a small panel so I would not feel like I wasted the day. This has taught me that even on days when I do not feel very creative pushing to do one painting can produce surprising results. I am pleased with this one. There is just enough there to suggest the glass and the lily. I did not get fussy with it.

Lazy River in Stratford

I painted this plein air in Stratford Ontario. It was a hot and humid day and the river was real still.

Rainy Intersection

I painted this from a photo reference this past weekend while I exhibited at Art in the Park in Stratford Ontario.

Update on WIP

The picture is a little fuzzy, but I am almost finished with this one and thought I would share a sneak peak. I am at the stage where I need to decide how much more detail I will add. When I work larger I give myself more time to think about things before pushing further and it can lead to indecision and fear of messing it up. The only way to overcome that is to put  paint to canvas. Does anyone else encounter that?

Crisscross Applesauce

This is of my son practicing his crisscross applesauce sitting at the beach.

Magnetic Mural

This is the mural I just finished in my son's room. I painted a 3 x 4 foot rectangle using magnetic primer. I then top coated it with house paint and painted a copy of one of Evan's dragon drawings on top. You can see in the photo that he already has magnetic words up on it to play with.

I found the magnetic primer to be very sloppy to work with and did 6 coats of it because the instructions indicated the more coats, the more magnetic it would be. I did not find much difference between 3 coats and 6. It does the job though.

Stratford Art in the Park setup

This past sunday I was at Art in the Park in Stratford Ontario. This is a picture of my setup. It was a really fun (but long) day and I made my first sale to a really delightful lady who has just published a book. You can check her book out here. I will be in Stratford again this saturday if it is not forecasted to pour.

Hard at Work

Here I am hard at work painting live at the silent auction for Art in Action last night. See the painting I was working on in the post below.

Art in Action Silent Auction

Last night I painted live at Art in Action's Silent Auction. The auction was held at Honeywest, a local restaurant here in Burlington.

Painting live was quite a challenge but a lot of fun. I was backed into a corner, so I could not stand back from my work at intervals as I usually would. As the night went on this room was packed, but I was happy with my composition so I resisted adding more people in to it. I worked quickly, simplified, edited the space and came out with an interesting painting.

Thank you to everyone that came out (including the posse from my street); you made the night a lot of fun and a great success.

Sandy's Garden Path

This is an 18 x 24 commissioned painting that I did yesterday onsite in my friend Sandy's garden. I am really pleased with how it turned out and I hope she is pleased is well. She has a beautiful garden - so gorgeous that is was difficult to pick just one scene and stick with it.

I worked on a cad red ground and this is all done with a brush - a departure from my usual knife work - but it felt right for this subject.

My friend and fellow artist Kim Rempel kept me company and did a painting of me working on this one. Check it out here.

Work in Progress - Highway

I am continuing to work on some larger pieces. Here is the start of my next highway piece. The bare bones are just roughed in, things will most likely change a bit as I go.

My Window Artist

Here is my son, the window artist, hard at work. He is using Crayola window crayons and I am so excited about this product. My son has fine motor skill issues and getting him to spend a good amount of time colouring is tough. He spent about two hours drawing masterpieces on my windows the other day and just loved it. Every once in while I had to correct his grip, but most of the time he was practicing a good grip and not even knowing it.

(This product wipes off really easy too.)

Sandy's Garden - Study #1

On saturday I went to my friend Sandy's garden to paint. I did two studies in preparation for a larger commissioned painting of her garden that I will start on this week - if the weather cooperates. These are rough studies and the first one is the composition that I plan to go with - although once I am working on a larger format I think I will include more than this study shows. It was quite a challenge to work so small; I kept wanting to get into the small details. But doing these studies did help me work out the composition, try out different greens, and just get into the project.

Sandy's garden is gorgeous and everywhere I turned there were interesting views, plants to paint. She may find I am a new fixture in her garden (I just hope she does not expect me to weed.)

Sandy's Garden - Study #2

This is the second study I did in Sandy's garden.

Garden Irises

This is a corner of my garden. I am going to a friend's garden to paint on saturday (if it does not rain) to work on a commissioned painting of her garden. I thought I should get warmed up so did this painting yesterday.

I learned a lot and this piece got me thinking about decision-making while painting. I find painting is a series of decisions, and my best paintings happen when I am not consciously aware that those decisions are being made; I am making them intuitively.

Originally this painting had more in it; the background behind the irises showed my neighbours garden. I changed this after asking myself 'what is the subject - the irises'. To bring more attention to them I cut out the detail behind. This decision gave large areas of colour for the eye to rest, but also made the background behind the painting shallower, more abstract in comparison to the plants.

I am happy with this piece but on the next one I will try and achieve more depth while still including the more abstract open areas of colour that I favour in my still lifes.

Painting landscape involves different decisions than painting still lifes and as with anything practice, practice, practice until it is intuitive.

Circus Performers

A quirky little painting of cupcakes for today.

I'm sick

I am sick so I will not be in Stratford, Ontario at the Art in the Park on saturday. I was really excited to be there tomorrow, but will be there on other weekends throughout the summer and will post the dates before I go.

Flowers

I will be in Stratford, Ontario at the Art in the Park this saturday (along as the weather cooperates). If you are in the area, come and say hello.

One Bloom

The paint just kept getting thicker and thicker on this one.

Mother's Day Bouquet

This is a painting of the bouquet I received on Mother's Day from my Mother-In-Law. It is still looking great, so I my paint another rendition of it.

Lemons and Irises

These are irises from my garden. I was going for a simple, almost graphic composition in this one.

A Bottle of fuzion

I painted this on friday but it was too rainy and windy to take a photo of it until now. This is a bottle of wine that comes from Argentina called fuzion. I am no expert when it comes to wine, but I quite enjoyed this one.

Myra's Great Art Book

Check out this great movie by artist Myra Anderson at 'Last Cup of Coffee'

(My son is featured as the map maker. He is thrilled and right this minute he is drawing a map to Myra's.)

Thanks Myra, you have inspired him. Evan also wants his own blog too.

Iris #4(blue underpainting)

This is the last painting, same palette but with an ultramarine blue underpainting. My favourite switches daily. What I have discovered is the monochromatic paintings (3 and 4) and the first painting (not sure how you would classify it) have a calm mood and energy. The second painting where I used a complementary colour scheme (yellow and violet) has an upbeat energy.

Have you got a favourite?

Iris #3 (violet underpainting)

Number three - this time with a violet underpainting. I noticed that I am getting looser with each painting as I get more comfortable/confident depicting the same still life set up.

Iris #2 (yellow underpainting)

Here is my second iris painting - same set up, same palette, but with a yellow underpainting. I think the yellow gives this one a different energy than the previous one.

Iris #1 (green underpainting)

The irises in my garden are out and they look amazing. I am going to experiment a bit with them by setting up the same still life for a few paintings but switch the underpainting colour I use on each one. My palette will remain the same, but I will see how the different ground colour influences or changes each piece. This is the first one - I used a muddy green as the ground - you can see it peaking through in the painting.

Little Fairies

This painting is a surprise for my neighbour down the street. This is from a photo of their girls wearing these fabulous wigs. My son thought they looked like little fairies. I agonized over this painting more than usual. I think because I really wanted to get a great likeness of their girls, I wanted it to be special, and I am doing it on the sly and I do not know this family real well. Anyway I hope they love it.

Contemplation

I can feel the sunshine coming. It has been beautiful weather lately and I am so excited for summer. This is a painting of my Mom. It looks like she is enjoying a quiet moment to herself - in reality she was actually watching 6 or more kids climb and jump over the groin she is sitting on. How she remains so calm during all the craziness I'll never know. I guess that is what makes her such a great teacher.

Cheers to you Mom!

Hydrangeas

I am hoping to grow some of these in my garden this year, I just love them.

White Flowers

Happy Easter everyone.

My Children's Book - A Preview

There's a Shark in the Toilet! by Tammy Hext | BOOK INFO

My children's book is finally ready and here is a sneak preview. I just received a copy in the mail yesterday and I am really pleased with the quality. The story is based on a dream my son was having when he was toilet training. I turned his fear into a fun little story where he saves the day in the end. He is really proud of the book and has been busy showing it to all his friends and our neighbours. If you wish to purchase a copy, just follow the link to the blurb store.

Coffee Break

This is a portrait of Al and his coffee. I had a challenging perspective for this portrait and struggled to get the proportions just right.

Sunset

Here is another sunset. Getting things to recede in a square format is a little trickier than when you use a rectangle. I like the square because it seems less traditional a format. Anyone else have thoughts on their favourite format?

Whizzing By

This is a small study for a larger painting. I am trying to work out what black I will use - a more brown one or blue one. I used a more brown based one here and I think it works well with the orange and reds of a sunset.

Palette Knife Portraits - Slideshow

Here is a slideshow of some of my recent palette knife portraits. The first and last portrait shown is of a friend - Haydain Neale of Jacksoul who passed away late last year. The music is by Jacksoul.

In a Hat

The portrait group I joined met again last night and I struggled with this one. I think if I had stopped at the two hour mark I might have been happier. Parts I am very pleased with, and some areas I wish I had pushed further - sometimes three hours is too much time and sometimes just not enough.

Children's book project - update

Here is another of the paintings for the book project I am working on. I am using a company called Blurb to self publish the book. They provide you with the software, you do all the work and they send you a finished book when you are done. They have an on-line store where your book can also be purchased. Once I have one and see that it printed well I will post a link so you can have a sneak peak at the contents.

Children's book project

For the last few days I have been working on a children's book that was inspired by a dream my son was having when we were toilet training him. In his dream there was a shark living in our toilet. I have been mulling this idea around for a year and started the pictures in pencil and watercolour. I was never quite satisfied with them and a fellow Toronto artist and teacher - Ed Shawcross had a look at them and suggested that I am an oil painter and should paint these images in oil. Well Ed - I could kiss you because this little idea I have been tossing around has now turned into 20 rocking little paintings. (Ed is currently working on a website and just wowed me when we met for coffee a while back. He can draw the human figure from his head with outstanding accuracy - I was in awe watching him work out my drawings and show me where I could improve them.) Thanks Ed!

I will post more on this book once I am finished. I am pleased with how it is panning out and my son is so excited now that he can see the pictures.

Carly

Carly posed for us last night and I really enjoyed painting her. I also tried out a new support. It is a canvas board by Raymar and I absolutely loved it. I cannot wait to use these supports again. If you live in the States you probably already know about this product, but here in Canada it is new to me. I highly recommend the supports; I ordered them directly from Raymar.

Border Crossing

I have been working on this painting for the last couple of weeks. I took the photo of it outside and ended up with a lot of glare, (the sky is really more blue than green) it must be all that snow outside reflecting back on it. I found as I worked on this painting that the more details I edited out the happier I was with it. It was a difficult composition to work with because the overpass split the painting in half. I may go back to this piece after it has sat for a bit.

Cory

Last night at my portrait group, the daughter of one of the painters modeled for us. She is a gorgeous girl and I am not sure I quite captured how striking she really is. I wished I had just a little more time on this one. I felt it was just starting to come together when our session was finished. Hopefully Cory will model for us again sometime.

Toronto Skyline

This painting is of the Toronto Skyline. I used a really limited palette and resisted the urge to include too much detail. I am quite happy with the result. I may play with this image again, just changing up the palette to see what happens.

Sunshine Blog Award

I want to thank Trish Seigel and Carolyn Finnell for giving me the Sunshine Blog Award. Once you receive this award you are to post it on your blog and then pass it on to 12 other bloggers with links to their sites. Here are my 12 fabulous nominees:

1. Lisa Daria

2. Catherine Jeffrey

3. Last Cup of Coffee

4. Robin Cheers

5. Dreama Tolle Perry

6. Julie Hill

7. Karen Appleton

8. Ann Gorbett

9. Judy Mackey

10. Tony Allain

11. Leslie Saeta

12. Claire Kayser

Portrait of Karin Jurik for the Thank You Project

This is my portrait of Karin Jurik for the Thank You Project that Jill Polsby organized. Jill contacted as many of the 180 artists that participated in Karin's Different Strokes for Different Folks year end portrait challenge as she could and supplied each of us with a photo of Karin. We were all sworn to secrecy and asked to paint Karin and send a photo of the painting to Jill. Jill compiled all the portraits into a book that has been sent to Karin. Please check out Jill's blog for a link to see all the fabulous portraits that were produced.

Study of Bernie

This is my effort from last night's portrait group. I struggled with this one. There was a light right over me that was causing a lot of glare. I found when I removed my painting from the easel what I had looked different once that light was gone. Not sure about this one - but I did enjoy evening and the process of painting so I guess that makes it a success.

Untitled Portrait

Here is my effort from last night's portrait group session. I found this fellow a real challenge to paint, but finally ended up with a fairly good likeness of him.

Highway Series #1

This is actually the third painting I have done based on this subject matter, but the first since deciding it would make a nice series. Most of this series I see in a larger format, but thought I would get the paint flowing on a smaller scale first before I start tackling my larger supports.