Crazy Schedule

I'm back! Getting this blog off the ground has been a long process, and as you may have noticed, not very regular, yet. My only excuse is that life has been hectic in the last few months - getting our home of 26 years ready to sell - and now it is sold and we are planning the 'next steps'. And I just started two new painting series - one which features the same abstract figure, and the other, still life objects,  that for a lack of a better description, 'fade in and out' on the surface. More to come on these later.
Now, back to the landscapes of last summer. I really like them - hope you do too.

Spring Light   30"x30"

Wetlands  24"x30" 

Hot Day in July  30"x36" SOLD

Seeing Red  18"x24"

Blue Marsh  24"x30"

At the End of the Day  20" x 24"

Hopefully you can see the pastel lines on the surface of the paintings. I started using soft pastel over acrylic, and throughout the painting process in the first landscape series, but this summer this technique really began to dominate, and helped me to stay loose. And I finally discovered a great, non toxic, completely natural fixative spray fixative called SpectraFix.   

What do think?

Haliburton Highlands 'inspired' Landscapes

Each summer I spend some time in the Haliburton area - an area full of beautiful lakes, rolling hills and evergreen forests, about 3 hours north-east of Toronto. On one of our trips north a couple of years ago, I began taking pictures of the passing scenery, from the car window - don't worry my husband was driving.   I had been searching for landscape material and became fascinated with these roadside views of wetlands. I became rather obsessive about taking these photos and continued to point and shoot through the window,  in the fall and the next spring. The result was a series of paintings inspired by these marsh areas. As you can see in the four paintings here, I have simplified forms and used more expressive colour. It was also with this series that I began to use (soft) pastel overtop of the acrylic paint, as a way to add some distinctive line detail. It is a techniques that I have continued to develop.

Next time I will show you the Haliburton landscapes I painted this past summer.