Category Archives: family

Blue Duck

Here’s Blue Duck, one of the horses on my cousin’s ranch.  Don’t you just love the blue and purple! Those colours are no exaggeration; he really is this colour….. a real pastel painted pony.

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.

Teapot Sill Life

When we were young and working in Calgary, my sister and I lived together. This  teapot was a birthday gift she gave to me at that time.  Now 30 years later it is still my favourite teapot, used for special occasions.  This week, I had company who brought these flowers.  We had tea, and I’d bought groceries, thus the avocado on the cupboard.  All these events coincided in a “found still life” on my kitchen cupboard.
 

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.

In His Shoes 7

Today’s offering; another of my son’s shoes. Thankfully he’s safe & sound on Canadian soil, and going about his challenging and interesting life. But his shoes kicking about the place make me smile. This is one of his many pairs of “chucks”….the many pairs being necessary in order that every outfit have just the right colour and style of shoe! This is the guy who loves “gear” of any kind and that has always started with his foot gear.

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.

Ballet in June

A floral today, as we slide on towards winter.  My cousin gave me these beautiful oriental poppies a few years ago,  and for a short time in June, they’re a riot of fluttering, brilliant, luminous orange. They look like a troupe of ballerinas as they dip and sway with even the tiniest breeze. It was good to see them in my photo files this morning and to try and re-imagine them in paint.  

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.

In His Shoes 6

Remember that closet  I was cleaning out? Well what did I find but some little old runners from my son’s childhood. He probably wore these when he was about 5 years old. It seems like last year to me, and yet things are so different. The shoes he wears now are very grown up ones indeed.
 What is it about shoes that is so evocative of the person who wore them…especially tattered  ones like these.

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.

Three Crows in a Bird Bath

I’m aware that things have really “gone to the birds” with my blog these days, but these crows have been begging to be painted.  These are part of the family of crows that have taken over my parents lovely back yard….not the ideal situation if you value undisturbed sleep and peace in general!  Here they are monopolizing the bird bath. Their antics are entertaining though, with their bird-politics and their obvious intelligence. Now that the babies are raised they seem to have moved off to other locales…which is even more of a blessing than their presence. 

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.

A Nod to Summer

Big doings in the family this weekend, and I’m enjoying the festivities, so no painting today.  Instead, a photo…A Nod to Summer, because today there’s a change in the wind, and it has the nip of fall. This is one of the photos from pickling day and here’s my wonky little sunflower (the yellow one) from a blog painting a few days ago.  There’s so much difference between a painting and a photograph, and each has it’s charms. 

Happy weekend all!

Loon @ Police Outpost Lake

I couldn’t wait to attempt one of these extraordinary birds….I’ve only had a few minutes today, so this was a quick drawing in my sketch book, with overlays of watercolour.  Who can resist the fascinating blanket of dots, dashes and squares of white on a shiny black background; those squiggly calligraphic lines through the collar and onto the chest, the magnificent head and bright red eye!? All this is enough, and then!!      there’s the haunting call.  This was a close encounter with nature, and an incredible gift.

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.

Flowers & Pickles

 If you grew up in a rural environment and in my generation, then you know what August was all about! We would can and freeze, butcher,  harvest and pickle every garden and farm product we had on the place! Amongst all that we’d be making meals for our sizable family plus the haying crew or the combiners, depending on the year, along with whoever else showed up.  By the end of those summer days (some times around midnight) we’d  swear we never wanted to cook another meal, or wash another dish!
 No wonder I can’t let summer go by without making a few pickles at the very least. I did a dozen jars of dills last evening,(I was finished long before midnight) and this was the still life I “found” on my cupboard this morning.  

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.

Stampede News

Well today, there was no time to paint, so all you get is a photo.  It’s the 125th Anniversary of the Medicine Hat Stampede and my house is full of people.  Great and wonderful people.  Family and friends.  We had a great day; the weather is absolutely perfect, and there was never a dull moment. 

Because of the Anniversary, the Stampede is having a reunion of all the past royalty, so this town is absolutely full to the brim with beautiful cowgirls of every vintage.  They took up 2 city blocks in the parade this morning, mostly on horseback, and were truly a sight to behold. One of them is my darling friend Terri Mappin (whose photography blog is attached to this blog of mine) which is why she and her hubby Brad and their 2 little “dudes” are staying here at my house. Many others of those girls are well-known to me as well,  and beloved because I’ve known them all their lives, or they worked for me in my store, or both!  
I sure hope somebody got some photos in the parade; I was too busy gawking and tearing up, so all you get is another of my favourite subjects….bucking horses as they moved into their pens at the grounds.