Women of Influence

My mother recently celebrated her 80th birthday and looking back on pictures of her she always has a look of strength and independence about her. I wonder if she would like this painting.

Route 11, PEI, Canada

Here is a second painting I did for the August Virtual Paintout. Again, using my new Golden Open Acrylics. This time I had more gesso on the canvas first so the paint "stuck" a little more which made for a less watercolour-like effect.

Here's a link to my inspiration: Route 11, Lot 15, PEI

New Zealand Rd, PEI, Canada

9" x 12"

Open acrylics on canvas board

New Zealand Rd.

PEI, Canada

Here is my submission to the August, 2010 Virtual Paintout challenge which is PEI, Canada. I just bought a set of Golden Open acrylics and this was my first try at using them. The set is a "traditional palette" and the colours are all very transparent, so the look I achieved was very watercolour-like. This isn't what I would call my normal style of painting but I'm interested in doing more plein-air painting to enhance my skills, so I wanted to paint this very directly in a limited timeframe.

Virtual Paintout is an online art challenge that uses Google Street View as a source of inspiration. Here is the link to my inspiration for this painting.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=206+New+Zealand+Rd,+Lot+44,+Kings+County,+Prince+Edward+Island+C0A+2B0&sll=49.891235,-97.15369&sspn=48.835041,135.087891&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=FcN_wwIdI41J_A&split=0&hq=&hnear=206+New+Zealand+Rd,+Lot+44,+Kings+County,+Prince+Edward+Island+C0A+2B0&ll=46.36983,-62.288607&spn=0,0.01649&z=17&layer=c&cbll=46.366637,-62.288605&panoid=L-1QdN1vkeZe3pLzU_yBFA&cbp=12,136.72,,0,-4.08

Old International

"Old International"

Pastel pencil and Nupastel on black sanded paper

9.75" X 8.5"

I fell in love with a junk yard last weekend at the 2nd annual "Brush With the Highlands" Plein-Air Art Festival in Wilberforce, Ontario. There were lots of amazing spots to paint but I spent hours at the old farm/junk yard location. Here is my rendition of an old International dump truck rusting in the yard. I took hundreds of photos too, some of which I'll post on my photography blog.

The festival was attended by some amazing artists such as David Sharpe (http://www.davidsharpepaintings.com/) whoo was last year's juror's choice and Patricia Savoie and Charles Spratt and many others.

Now, here is where the hard core plein-air painters probably thought I was a bit of a whacko. I took rubbings off lots of walls and old rusty parts with the intention of combining them in some other mixed media work but some of them are little works of art in themselves.