Prince Edward Island Landscape

Prince Edward Island Landscape

20" x 16"  acrylic on canvas
This is for sale - contact me for price if interested.

This painting is based on a photo I took during a trip to Prince Edward Island a few years ago with my daughter. I took photos as we drove (well I did stop the car) through the countryside of Canada's smallest province on the east coast, the fictitious  home of Anne of Green Gables, hoping that some might eventually inspire a painting or two. 

Though the actual colours of the island landscape in August are, in fact, quite vivid,  they did not come across in my photo. But then that is not really my landscape style anyway, preferring to interpret colour and therefore mood. My process began with reducing the photo to a greyscale version and I developed the colour scheme as I painted.

North Thompson River Landscape

North Thompson River, Looking South

24" x 36" - acrylic on canvas
This is for sale - contact me for price if interested.

I have been meaning to paint this view of the North Thompson River ever since I took the photo on a road trip in western Canada last September. The terrain along the river as we drove from Kamloops in BC towards Jasper in Alberta was really interesting - sparse and even scrub-like. Despite liking the the muted colours of the real landscape I chose a palette of blue, violet and green hues for the painting. I really enjoyed the process of simplying the landscape elements, and working large - and I really am happy with the results.

And, just a note about the painting - the colours in the actual painting are deeper, darker, more varied and therefore richer looking than in this photo. 

Green Grow the Rushes

Green Grow the Rushes
10" x 10"  acrylic on canvas  SOLD

Not sure that these are rushes (bull rushes??), but it was spring when I took the photo on which this little painting is based - and to me those yellow-greens suggest that season better than anything. It's what we need right now, I think.

Eramosa River View

Eramosa River View
24" x 20" - acrylic in canvas - SOLD

I have been working on four different paintings over the last week and each is starting to come together.  I finished this one yesterday - a view based on a photo (see below) that I took last October when walking with my husband and dog. What attracted me to this scene (and most scenes I paint) were the elements of 'water, land and sky'.  As I am not a plein air painter I feel quite free to interpret the chosen view in a creative, personal way - and begin with simplifying and abstracting the shapes of the elements, refining and recomposing. Colour and palette is determined through experimentation until harmony is achieved and expresses my visual experience of time and place.  Though it was not a sunny day when I took this photo, the air was crisp and pleasant and the place was peaceful save for the sounds of nature.

 Eramosa River at Rockwood Conservation Area,
near Guelph ON, 

Seeing Red

This landscape is based on a photo I took a few weeks ago when on a late morning walk with the dog at Rockwood Conservation area, near Guelph (Ontario!).  I have painted this view before but in a more traditional way that I was not, ultimately, happy with. This time I decided to be much more painterly, experimental and spontaneous, and have more fun.

Rockwood Conservation area

What is more fun than a cad red ground? Especially on a rainy day. On that I sketched in the landscape forms with some titanium white. Then I applied lighter values of the local colours, everywhere, quickly but not throughly, allowing lots of the red ground to show through. I really liked how the red seemed to 'glow' under some of the lighter colours, in the creek and sky. After that I added graphic lines with pastels, drawing around and re-defining the landform shapes, as well as adding detail within those shapes.  Liking what I had done thus far (and not wanting to lose it) I decided to stop and give myself some study time.  I have been looking at it for a few days now, and have to say that I really like this painting in all its graphic sketchy colourful spontaneity.
The big question is - how close is this painting to completion?
What do you think?
Stay tuned.