Cleaning off the Palette and Spring is Finally Here!

After I finished the 5 small paintings titled 'Prairie Red' I still had some paint on my palette. So like many of you I grabbed another piece of paper and 'used' up the remainder. I came back to it yesterday and added some collage and continued painting. I don't know if it is because spring is finally here, but I seem to have a new energy for exploring and experimenting with my painting. My father and my husband both worked in the oil and gas industry and I have a background in agriculture. So you are probably wondering what that has to do with painting? Well, when I look at a landscape I am not just thinking about what I can see, but what I can't. Soil profiles, rock structures, root systems - 'what lies beneath' - all food for fodder.

Thanks for taking the time to visit and wishing you a day filled with inspiration!

'Folded & Faulted'
6"X6"
acrylic mixed media on
hot press watercolour paper

Back to Painting!

Finally finding some time to paint. Have been struggling to get back into a painting routine. Spring is finally coming to our neck of the woods and the great outdoors is calling! The last couple of weeks it has snowed just about everyday - the ground would be covered in the morning, it would melt off during the day and snow again in the night. We actually had a wet snow yesterday, but today the sun is shining and the air is warm.

April 29, 2017
.....so sad....this is more snow than we had in November!

I am just painting small dailies but you do what you can do. I used these paintings to experiment with colour mixing, and some varnishing. (Trying semi-gloss and satin  varnish - no high gloss in my cupboard.) I do make colour swatches and have a book filled with different colour mixing 'recipes' and samples of those mixed colours, but decided to incorporate the 'mixing' into some of these smaller works. Much less boring!!

These are small - approx. 5”X5”, acrylic on Somerset printmaking paper. I tend to overpaint so the challenge this past week was to paint ‘quick’ and not obscure all the first layers of paint and collage. I started these just before the dinner hour so time was limited. I added the collage paper with the ‘typewriter’ font and wanted to be able to see it when I was ready to stop. I also used the same palette, and imagery - I am trying to work towards some continuity - thinking series. Although ‘series’ means different things and approaches to us all. I am happy with these and feel pretty successful in meeting my painting goals for them.

I am interested to hear your thoughts on working in a series, making colour swatches and of course the creative process in general! 

'Prairie Red' #'s 1-5

I miss seeing the red barns and granaries. The prairie fields and farm yards seem to be filled with metal structures now -more economical and last longer but I still love the red wood buildings. I you are interested to know why barns were painted red (I was!) click here.