family hike to Balancing Rock

We took the kids for a hike to the island's best known landmark, Balancing Rock, in Tiverton. The day was beautiful, with temperatures hovering just above freezing. There was no wind, and the woods were hushed with the layer of snow. The sun was so bright and felt so warm at the shore, such a nice break from the cold, miserable weather we've had lately. As hubby said yesterday "If winter were like this more often, I wouldn't mind it nearly as much".

The path/stairs to Balancing Rock.

Balancing Rock, a 30 ft (?) Basalt column perched above the St. Mary's Bay.

Looking 'up' the shore from Balancing Rock, a view of the mainland at East Ferry.

whales ATC

ATC size, 2.5"x3.5", watercolours, micron pen & gel pen on Reeves watercolour board.

celtic whales

Wow, it's been a while since I last posted. I've been busy with kids, colds and flus, too many snow days.

I've been working on the celtic raven painting, but I'm not happy with it at this stage, so I'm not showing it to you, yet. ;)

I will show you the line drawing I did last night. I will work on it more today, and hopefully post again with something finished.

Celtic humpbacks, about 4"x4".

so I'm really into the ATCs...

Copper on blue spiral fragment

gel pen and acrylic paint on mulberry paper

2.5" x 3.5"

Water lily

coloured pencil on textured cardstock,

2.5" x 3.5"

Gold leaf Relief Knot ATC

Gold leaf relief knot,

gesso and gold leaf on (three thicknesses of) acid free cardstock

3.5" x 2.5"

I wish you could touch this! The fun thing about this series of ATC's is that I can try new techniques on a small scale. I had a lot of fun building layers of gesso to make this knot three dimensional. It's not as smooth as it could be, but I rushed it because I wasn't sure if the idea would work. Next time, I'll use thinner layers of gesso, and sand down the final layers a bit, if need be. Still, I was thrilled with it. It's so tactile, and I made sure to give it a couple of light coats of Kamar varnish so it can be touched.

Miniature paintings

Here are three ATC's I've been working on lately.

I wasn't going to post them here before they had reached their destinations, but they've all been mailed, and I don't have to say who's getting what. ;)

Blue Heron, coloured pencil on textured cardstock

Illuminated R, acrylic and gold leaf on canvas, mounted on heavy cardstock

Peggy's Cove, acrylic on canvas, mounted on heavy cardstock

(cliche Nova Scotia ;) )

Brrrr... snowed in today

I've been down with a virus this week, so haven't felt much like painting, and the art I have made is secret and I can't show you (yet) ;-) . I am involved in an Art Trading Card exchange. ATC's are miniature art works 2.5" x 3.5", or the standard size of sports trading cards. Twenty six people from all over the world are involved in this project. We each have six months to produce 25 cards, and mail each one to each of the other 25 on the list, aiming for a card a week. In return, we will each receive 25 cards. I have made two cards, but couldn't get to the post to mail them today. I don't want to show them here until they have been received by their recipients.

You can see from the photos I've added why I didn't go out today. The roads were bad, with whiteout conditions. And the -25* C windchill made it a c-c-cold day to be out of doors.

Smoke on the water

(The wind chill temperature is low enough that it causes vapor to rise from the water)

today's sketches : still lifes (lives? ;) )

Taking a break from the raven today, I did two quick watercolour sketches, with items from this week's artwork from life scavenger hunt at www.wetcanvas.com.

work in progress: celtic raven

After finishing Dad's painting, I decided I wanted to do another acrylic before I get back to my apples. I spent the better part of the day yesterday deciding what I would do, and then last night worked up a sketch.
The first picture shows how I often compose paintings. I've drawn the elements of the compostion on tracing paper. Then I can move them around until I'm happy with how it looks.
Next, I lay another sheet of tracing paper over the design and trace everything again. Sometimes I'll do this tracing in ink. The next step is to turn the sheet of tracing paper over to the wrong side and trace each line in charcoal or graphite. When I flip the tracing paper over to the right side again, I have "carbonized" the image. I position the image over my canvas and tape it down, then re-trace each line again. When I peel off the tracing paper, the image has been transferred to the canvas.
Here you can see the carbonized image:

The next image is just an undercoating of paint, so I don't have to worry about rubbing the charcoal off the canvas. But, you can get an idea of what I'm doing. The image of the raven pinned to my easel is the reference image I'll be using... I swiped it from an old issue of Saltscapes magazine. As you can see, I like to work on the kitchen counter during the day, so I can see the kids and chase/fetch/feed/potty/rescue terrorized animals as needed.

Oh yeah... I'm thinking of starting a petition or something to have the school board subsidize nerve pills for parents of children who have been snowed home from school for four days now. Aaaaargh.

dad's car

I just finished this today, as a (late) birthday present for my Dad. His birthday was on Saturday.

Dad got his '62 T-bird roadster three years ago, and his pride in it sure shows. Every part of this car gleams . He and my mom show the car around the province in the summer.

The painting is acrylic on canvas, 8" x 10 ".