Two Perspectives

                                                                  Water Colours

                                                                Above and Beyond

Ink and wash a la Barry Coombs

Here is "Bear with Me" my very first try at ink drawing and wash. Barry gave us a great workshop and I would recommend him to any group for a positive engaging instructive day. I had it framed at Bordered Image with a bright yellow matte and purple frame. I gave it to my first grandchild as a gift.

MGA Mural Project

Here is "Snail's Pace" my canvas for the mural project sample. I found this project challenging at first. We were each given a 6 x 6" section of one larger picture. The large picture was divided into 28 small sections. The challenge was to increase the size of our work to 12 x 12" and then make a realistic painting out of the section we were given keeping the same values and colours if possible. Mine became a garden with a snail, some bull rushes, mushrooms and a puddle. I will let you know how the project proceeds.The end result will be a mural for the Markham Public Library system to display on one of the library's walls.

ARTBEATS: MGA Show at the McKay Centre, Unionville

Today is the official opening of the latest show by the Markham Group of Artists.I was very pleased to learn that my abstract "BACKBEAT" made it into this juried show. There were over 100 paintings entered and only 42 were in the final selection.

Dates:  May 23 - June 3, 2012
Location:  McKay Art Centre, 197 Main Street, Unionville
Hours:  Tues - Sat 10:15 am - 5 pm, Sun 12:15 - 5 pm, (Closed Monday)

Village Grocer Calendar

Here is a 12" by 12" acrylic painting that I did to enter the calendar competition. I entered it under the name "Celebrate" but I think I will call it"Cakewalk" here.

SOLD

Sometimes I have mixed feelings when I sell a piece and that is true today. Yesterday I went to Sunnybrook to find that Tibetan Treasure (large blue and green one ) had sold. All at once I felt elated and then a twinge of sorrow at loosing one of my own.

Sunnybrook Hospital Art Show

Today is the first day of the show by a few of the MGA members at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto. It runs until the end of March 2012. I entered a few pieces this year, mostly abstract.

ala John Stuart Pryce

I am just about to finish a landscape that I started in November in a workshop with John Pryce. He started with an underpainting in rose, burnt sienna or ochre in white-- a light mid tone and outlined the large background shapes roughly with alarizin and white. John uses retarder for softer edges with acrylics and 2 " brushes from Walmart. He prefers blue paper towel. The scene we worked on had reflections in the water and he showed us how to draw down the rocks and trees into the water. Reflections should be vertical strokes darker and lower in chroma than the rocks and trees. He prefers to work dark to light. He paints the sky last and cuts it into the trees.