In The Paint

Here’s another one.

I went out one morning before work this past summer for a quick photo walk. This is painted from one of the photos I took.

This was the first one of the still life paintings that I did. I really enjoyed this in the small format and I like the turquoise background.

I’ve been doing more of the tiny paintings on 5″x7″ paper.

More to come…

Ok, this post is about art and my trip to Ottawa. The purpose of this trip was to visit the National Gallery to see the exhibition Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome. This was a great exhibition although a little overwhelming. My hubby and I decided to get the audio guides which we did not enjoy. We felt that the narrator was just describing the paintings without much information about the artist and the technique.

My favourite part of the exhibition was the area that had three or four paintings of Judith with the head of Holophernes. This included the painting by Artemesia Gentileschi, which I looked at and discussed with my grade 8s last year.

I don’t have any photos of the NG but I have photos of some other art that we found around the city: have I mentioned that I’m also a history teacher?

Here is Nelly McClung fighting for women’s suffrage:

Queen Elizabeth II:

Joseph Brandt:

The coolest place we went was the Diefenbunker. This is a cold war bunker turned museum that was created to shelter the government should a nuclear weapon hit Ottawa.

On a sadder note, we heard the news that Jack Layton, Leader of the Opposition, passed away just a couple of hours before we went to spend the day on Parliament Hill. Below is the beginning of a pile of flowers and tributes for him as well as the Peace Tower with the flag at half-mast. It was an emotional day.

Saturday night was the opening of AWOL’s Square Foot Show. This was my first time participating or even attending and I was impressed with the overall quality of the work. It’s a non-juried show and the accepts 500 artists to show one to three works of art.

This is what the walls looked like:

It was a very busy and warm in the space so we walked out in the rain looking for cold drinks afterwards. It took us a while but ended up at Ossington and Dundas in a classic diner called Lakeview Restaurant. The atmosphere was great as was the food. I had a banana smoothie, and my husband had a shepherd’s pie.

Recently a Golden representative did a presentation at one of my places of work. I had never used used Golden paints before because they are a little pricier than other brands and because I usually paint in oils and not acrylics. At the end of the presentation we got a little loot bag full of Golden goodies and I couldn’t wait to use them. When I got home I started this painting with a limited palette of fluid Indian Yellow Hue, Manganese Blue Hue, Alizarine Crimson Hue (all samples from the bag of goodies) and Titanium White of a different brand. After the first layer I added Golden’s open Red Oxide and Sap Green Hue to my palette.

I loved the way these paints went on the canvas. It was easier to blend and dry brush looked great as well. It still dried quickly on the palette but while moist had a nice creamy feel. I think I have been converted to Golden.

Here is the finished piece. Thank you Stephanie for being my model! This and another portrait will be part of AWOL Gallery’s Square Foot Show from August 6th to 21st.

In January I made a New Years’ Resolution that I would fill up my sketchbook. Every page. I don’t think I’ve filled a sketchbook since high school. I made this resolution out loud and in front of my Grade 7 students. I was encouraging them to use their sketchbooks more to plan, experiment, and sketch in. I’ve been using mine as sketchbook/journal. I am more than half way through the book and through the year.

Lately I’ve been thinking about photo-transfers. Next week at art camp I’ll be teaching 11-15 year olds Digital Photography and we’ll be doing a lot of collage and mixed media involving photo-transfers.

This first one uses two methods. For the image of the sale boats I used Golden’s Super Loaded Matte Medium and the transfer only takes about three minutes. And for the skyline I did a packing tape transfer that my friend Stephanie taught me. Thanks Stephanie!!

This sketchbook page is about my day at the Toronto Islands watching the Dragon Boat Races.

Here are a couple more sketchbook pages:

That’s my photo buddy aka my brother. I got the idea for a faux photobooth picture from a journaling book I bought on sale at Indigo.

The pears started as an acrylic still life demo for my adult painting class and was later cut up and added to the sketchbook.

Here is a painting that I did recently. Last year my husband and I travelled to Fergus and Elora, Ontario for a weekend getaway and I took plenty of pictures and am only now getting to paint from them.

For this one I loved the colours in the sky and the yellow in the landscape. These small paintings are so much fun!