Category Archives: friends

Eveylyn

Those of you who know me know what a struggle I have doing people.  And if adults are hard, I find children to be nearly impossible.  As a matter of fact I think this is the first watercolour of a baby that I’ve ever attempted!  I met Evelyn this week while in Calgary; her grandma, Jan, is my good friend, so I got to spend some time with her.  She is so precious and so beautiful that I was motivated to try and paint her. Don’t you just love that sober and contemplative gaze?! 

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.

The Wind_ painting stage

 I dithered quite awhile; looking at photos of wild skies and at the gloomy, heavy sky outside my windows!  Finally had to get at it.  I found a 2″ flat brush and started in with the orange and yellow across the mid sky, and dragged purple and blue in below that, down through the horses, to the horizon. Fun…and stressful! Banged in some grass while it was damp so that the horizon wouldn’t have too many hard edges.

Now for the big racing black cloud overhead.  I slopped in a ton of paint, and then I mixed green and poured it over top and let it run.  Then orange along the bottom edge, and flung in with my brush.  Yikers. I think I’m ruining it, but we won’t know till it’s finished, will we.

When the Wind Gets Up- Drawing Stage

 I’m working on a new 16 X 20 piece, and here’s where we’re at with it.  I was out at my friend’s ranch, painting the river cliffs, and their horses ran along side my truck on the way in.  The sky that day was flat and grey, so I need a different sky.  I drew the horses and decided on the horizon line, and then covered the horses with masking tape so that I can slop paint across behind them and not paint  them out!  I want  a really wild sky and have been agonizing over what that should look like; scared I”ll wreck a nice drawing.  Today I procrastinated, had 2 batches of company and then went to work, so I managed to avoid a decision so far. We’ll see how I do tomorrow.

Laura and Robert

A photo today…. spent time at a family branding over the past 2 days, and there’s no wireless internet there.  So I confess to taking a day off from painting!
  After a cold and windy week, we had a great day today.  The work got done, the food and company were fabulous, and as always the photo ops were sublime.  This is  my young friend Laura and her pal Robert, heeling calves.

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.

Broncs, Dust & Light

Well this makes day 2 with no painting, and I’m going through withdrawal!! Tomorrow doesn’t look a whole lot better.  SUCH a busy week, and I have new plans to show my work at Calgary during the last week of Stampede, at the Hyatt Hotel downtown, so am scrambling to get my work ready for that.It’ll be fun and exciting. 
In honour of that, here’s a photo from a day at Stampede Ranch last fall, with  cowboy, Cole Neely.  

Caprock on the S. Saskatchewan

Today I went out into the landscape to do my daily painting “en plein aire”.
My good friends have a ranch on the S. Saskatchewan river, west of the Hat. The river banks are huge, steep and spectacularly eroded, this huge cap rock being typical.  It teeters on top of clay banks which, because of their much softer composition, have eroded away beneath it leaving this precarious situation.
 It was a perfect day; meadowlarks singing, wildflowers nodding in the breese, and nothing to do but immerse myself!

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.

Along the Hoodoo Trail

 I’m just back from a 3-day road trip, to deliver a painting, visit friends and family.  Central Alberta in May is a real treat.  The aspen are just leafing out, and because there’s lots of water lying around, there is every kind of wildlife imaginable.  I took a side trip though Drumheller, and spent time hiking up into the badlands, and this is Hoo I met!   The First Nations people believed that the Hoodoos resulted when evil spirits tried to walk the earth and were transfixed in these fantastic forms.  I dare any geologist to compete with that story!. 

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 for a Shower

Yesterday we had a wedding shower for a beautiful young woman who is joining our family.  About 50 ladies got together at the hall in Elkwater and the feeling of community reminded me of how is was to grow up in rural Alberta.  It’s comforting to know that vestiges of that sense of rural togetherness and support still remain in some places
Part of my contribution was to bring flowers, and I did this quick painting of one of the bouquets I brought. 

6 X 9″ on 90 lb paper

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $150 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

Dale’s Roan

Back to my old approach tonight; a representational close up of my friend Dale’s beautiful roan gelding and his handmade gear. 

 How many ways can I paint a horse you might ask.  Just keep watching.  

5 X 7″ on 200lb paper  

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.

Olive; A Portrait

I have to admit that I do not know Olive personally.  This portrait is from a photo by Olive’s good friend and rescuer, Terry Mappin.  Olive, as a young Great Horned Owl, didn’t know enough to avoid barbed wire fences and was lucky enough to be found and taken to a sanctuary by Terri and her husband Brad.  Terri took the photo when Olive was released back into the wild last summer. Such a happy story for such a magnificent bird.  I really hope to meet Olive one day soon.   SOLD

-from a photo by Terri Mappin

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.