Category Archives: Rocky Mountains

Front Range Rhythms

There’s something so elegant about the contours of unaltered landscape; the undulations, carvings, upthrusts and foldings. This landscape has all of those as the mountains rear themselves up from the flat bed of the plains, each segment carrying it’s very own eco system and micro-climate. How dare we ever think we can “improve” on any of that. 

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $100 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

Spirit Bear

Well today’s painting is meaningful to me on several levels. It is inspired by the sculpture in front of the Whyte Museum which I so admired in Banff last week.  And then the news about the 2 grizzly cubs killed by trains this week really knocked me sideways.   Add to that the changing climate and what the effect that’s having on our polar bears, and you could say I’m bear-ly thinking about anything but bears. 
Time to take a moment to acknowledge the Spirit of the Bear.

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $100 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

Redtail Country

I shot photos of this (I think) immature Redtailed Hawk on my trip down the Cowboy Trail last week.
Probably the most common hawk in North America and one of our biggest birds, he is truly a beauty.  This pale phase is typical of a youngster; he has at least 2 other colour phases including the famous dark-to-sandy phase with the namesake barred and fan shaped red tail. Identifying them can be tricky.  
It’s always a thrill to see them, but I thought he looked particularly spectacular in this landscape. 

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $100 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

The Long View @ Longview

If you’ve never been down the Cowboy Trail, this won’t look familiar. This is the iconic Alberta scene that one sees over and over in our ads and promos of the province.  Prairie gives way to foothills, which rise up to towering Rockies. Nowhere is this transition more dramatic than at the aptly named “Longview”.  Just north of that little town there is this incredible depth-of-field which defies pen and paint, but I had to try anyway.  Those who haven’t been there, it’s time for a road trip!

f you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $100 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

Chain Lakes

This weekend was a celebration with my classmates of our graduation from nursing school many years ago (not saying how many!) We met in Banff and had 3 days of catching up and enjoying the last days of September in one of the most beautiful towns anywhere in the world.  I always like to check out the back roads, so today I took “The Cowboy Trail” from Turner Valley to Chain Lakes and then cut across country to home, gathering fabulous visuals and visits with even more friends. It took all day, so no painting….  Instead, this photo, taken about 25 miles west of Nanton,  of Chain Lakes and the Porcupine Hills stretching up to the Rockies.

Farmstead and the Rockies

 This is one of the scenes I encountered this weekend on my travels to a family wedding. Another abandoned farmstead stands in a sea of wheat, presided over by the rusting old wind mill.  Such a nostalgic and now a very common sight! 

Imagine coming here a century or more ago to find the pristine spot this must have been, and carving out your livelihood, and community in such a place and at such a time. 

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $100 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

Corrals and Chief Mountain

I’m still down here in the SW corner of the province, lucky me, and this rugged old set of corrals with it’s breath-taking backdrop was one of the sights we passed on our way to Police outpost Lake yesterday. It’s been such a great year for rain, and the pastures and meadows are still knee deep in grass and wildflowers. 
 There are some tell-tale signs though that summer’s days are numbered, as time and the seasons roll on.

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $100 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

Alberta Wildies

Here’s another more fanciful piece…..more on my attempts to be less “literal”.  I combined my inspiration from a spring horse gathering with my friends from Kananaskis, along with photos I’ve taken near Black Diamond. This is the same size as yesterday’s offering.   So while this is from my experience, it has an iconic or symbolic feel to it.

4 X 15″ on watercolour board

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $215 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

Land of Shining Mountains

The news this week is that the plans for big energy developement along the front range of the Rockies from Longview down to Pincher Creek, have been cancelled.  Whether it was the organized protests or the current low price of oil, I think I heard a sigh of relief. This gets to look like this for a while longer. 

SOLD

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $100 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

Alpine Abstraction 3

 Since I’d already drawn this twice, I just went in with pen & ink and drew it cold turkey…no pencil, and not too much attachment to the “reality” of the scene.  I then used watercolour and Faber-Castell felt pens.  It was fun and I think I like it the best out of the three attempts.  Maybe I’m onto something?  Let me know your thoughts.

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $100 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.