Nature's Gift

Nature's Gift

14" x18" - acrylic on canvas - sold

In June a friend commissioned a smallish landscape painting for a mutual friend who was retiring from teaching. This is the finished work.  I didn't set out to use such a warm and predominantly pink palette. It resulted from starting with a magenta coloured ground, and as I painted I realized how much I was liking the base colour, so began to vary it but maintain it too. My friend who commissioned the painting was very happy with it, and our friend who received it was thrilled. And so am I that it worked out so well.

Haliburton Marshland, Evening'

Haliburton Marshland, Evening
24" x 48"  - acrylic on canvas  - $700

It's funny how some images stay with you. The inspiration for this landscape was a photo I took many years ago from the window of my car as we sped along a two lane road towards our cottage in the Haliburton Highlands of Ontario. I have used this landscape as a starting point for several paintings, basically varying the format (canvas shape) and palette. What I really like about this work is how I painted the lower foreground 'land' forms - with very deliberate strokes of colour that suggest long grasses, but are much more interesting and dynamic. 

We are heading to our cottage in Haliburton this weekend for what we Canadians call the'Victoria Day' holiday weekend (celebrating the birthday of Queen Victoria), and the unofficial start of cottage life and summer!!!!  Be safe and enjoy it wherever you are.

Spring Awakening

Spring Awakening
22" x 28" acrylic on canvas
SOLD

This 'variation on a theme' is a marsh view in the Haliburton area of Ontario (along highway 118), given a spring colour makeover. Spring seems to have finally arrived in this part of the world - the air is fresh, the sun is warm and flowers are blooming. Not sure if the ice is off of our lake just yet - but cottage time is just around the corner. Yeah!

Thinking about Summer

Mystic Marsh
22" x 28"  acrylic on canvas

Summer means sunshine, colour, warm days and for me - living in a cabin on a big island on a lake in Ontario, in a cottage area known as the Haliburton Highlands. When traveling to and from the cottage I take photos from the passenger seat of the car and have used some of these as the basis for many of my landscape paintings (posted elsewhere on this blog). Scrolling through my photos the other day I found one that spoke to me - and I had to answer. I really enjoyed painting this one - the separate brushstrokes of colour are quite visible in the foreground marsh area, but become more mushy in the background trees. It was a very satisfying painterly experience.