Alberta Archives - Gena LaCoste

Category Archives: Alberta

A New Day

A new year is quite a big deal, really. We stand back to have a look at what we’ve managed to pull off over the past year, and what we need to clean up or improve on. Coming out of the festive season of over indulgences, we are doubly motivated to have a fresh start!

But our year still needs to be lived one day at a time, with a eye to living in the here and now. This involves leaving the past behind and avoiding living in terror over what might or might not happen next week…or tomorrow even. It means doing the next best thing and being in that moment, giving it everything we’ve got. So! a toast to this very first day of 2013. Lets just deal with that for now.

Winter’s Palette

Winter has settled in here, though it’s warmed up considerably today, after a week of frigid -20’s. I visited Polly today and this is our beautiful S. Saskatchewan River valley blanketed in snow. The river cliffs here have bands of brilliant vermillion (thus the name of the town of Redcliff) and when that contrasts with the cool blue shadows we get in late afternoon, the effect can be stunning.

Winter’s Sun

There’s a pretty barn and ranch yard on the way to Elkwater, and I’ve stopped often to admire it, either with canola fields in bloom, with heavy rain clouds in the west, or like this day, with full-on winter. This was one of those days with ice crystals in the air and the weak winter sun attempting to do something about it Ah, winter. May as well like the weather you have, right?!

Echodale Christmas

This blog has introduced you before to our gem of a Regional Park here at Medicine Hat, “Echodale”. It is a restored farm with all kinds of recreational advantages for us all. Summer time is great there with the poultry and animals in residence, the garden growing and the cooks in the kitchen baking bread in the old wood stove. But winter is fun too, with hay rides and wiener roasts. Here it is, the beautiful old log house garlanded up for Christmas.

Doing these latest paintings is gradually getting me in the mood for the Season, and today I had some really great young friends drop by with their various beautiful kids in tow. Now that REALLY made my day! Hope your Christmas joy meter is ticking up a notch or 2 every day as well, remembering that it really is all about relationships.

Gold Spring Rhythms

Today’s painting is a commission for a friend, so it’s larger, and the first landscape I’ve done in quite awhile. When I remember how I used to cry and tantrum while attempting to paint all the nuances of light on coulees, well, lets just say that I’m truly grateful that I can now approach it with a smidge of confidence. Having been raised with this very landscape I can truly say that I can feel it in my bones. It is such a joy, FINaLLY, to be able to paint it.

Under Dusky Skies

Today’s painting isn’t a little one…this one is 8 X 16″ on watercolour board; the Q Ranch horses as they jog to the corrals the night before branding.
It’s such a treat to see horses in groups; they move together as if of one mind. Add a wild sky and some waving prairie grass, and you have an dramatic story.

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.

Side Trip 3

Well, this is officially a “Series”. I just keep wanting to play with this landscape. Today I painted the hillside red, and then let it dry. I then went in with my magc frisket pen and drew into the landscape. Once that was dry I painted over it with the blues and greens, yellows & oranges. Once the resist was removed, there was this batik-like effect. I kinda like the results and I really loved the process.

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.

Side Trip 2

The little landscape I did a couple of days ago for this blog has continued to haunt me. I kept thinking about it…the rhythm of the strips of yellow trees and undulating hills kept rolling through my head. I wanted to paint it again in a looser more impressionisitic way. So this time I didn’t do a drawing and I only allowed myself a flat brush, and I tried to do the minimum of layering. Turns out it looks pretty much like the first one! No matter what I do, I seem to do what I do!!

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.

Side Trip

Last week my parents came to stay, and since my dad grew up in the Cypress Hills, he loves to go for a drive out there. So we did, and it was a golden fall day with the exquisite clear light we’re so blessed with in October (if it’s not snowing!!)
We took a side trip across from north of Elkwater, east to Eagle Butte on our way home, and there was one stunning hillside after another. This was one of them. Good thing we went when we did; it looks quite different this week!

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.