Category Archives: gardens

Sunshine on my Shoulder

Today I was practicing a form of denial….As the wind howled outside and the radio kept a steady stream of weather updates and heavy snowfall warnings, I painted this beautiful sunflower.  I grew this guy and brought him in the house in September.  Being the size of a dinner plate,  brilliant and radiant in every sense of the word, he totally dominated the room. 
I think it’s lovely that I can bring all that beauty and loveliness into my life on a blizzardy day in November.  Now I’m passing it on to you!

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.

Tomato Season

We had our first really hard frost last night, and considering the date, that’s pretty generous of Mother Nature.  Her other recent gift was the fabulous tomato crop we had this year, the last of the fresh ones going into a batch of cabbage rolls for supper last night. 
Time and the seasons march on, changes are guaranteed to happen. I guess our job is to rise to each occasion.  

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.

Sunflower Study # ??

I promise that this is the last sunflower study I will bore you with for a loooong time.  I just had to take one more stab at it.  Trying to listen to you John, but loosening up for me is like swimming upstream!  I picked a new sunflower today…a yellow one. Trying to be looser and lighter with the paint.  Very little drawing.
Off to a Cowboy Poetry festival for 3 days, and doubt that I’ll have Internet access, so you’ll get a reprieve!!  Hope everybody has a great weekend; the weather is going to be spectacular!  
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.

Sunflower Study 1

Well, bear with me while I wrestle with this.  I did 3 of these today, and threw 2 away…this one will probably follow!  It’s the one-stroke thing, only with sunflowers this time. I’m trying different brushes and various strategies to paint the whole thing in as few strokes as possible.  I can’t for the life of me figure out how to get that flower painted without the center running all over the place though. As a consolation prize I’ve added a photo of the  bronze sunflower I used as a reference. So beautiful, and …this pathetic thing bears no resemblance!   

Zinnias & a Marigold

This piece is another of my attempts at one-stroke floral paintings…..this time with a little bit of preliminary drawing, just to place the flowers in the picture plane. It’s still not what I’m after and I wonder if this just isn’t my style.  It’s all about the ratio of paint-to-water, and I keep coming at it with too much paint.  I feel like a beginner, which is kind of fun (regardless of the results!). 

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.

Summer Kitchen

It’s so great to have a garden again, after several years without.  There’s something about being out in my bare feet amongst the vegetables.  This has been a fantastic tomato and pepper year, and this week I started canning both. The result was a “found still life” on my kitchen cupboard.  Anybody for pickled peppers?   

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.

Delphiniums @ Echodale

Echodale Farm  was my location of choice yesterday, and the flowers were in all their glory; there were even some delphiniums still in bloom.  I loved how the light hit them and lit them up against the dark foliage background.  Again, I tried to paint them much wetter and more directly, with no layering or glazing. It’s fun, but I’m not getting the lost edges I want,   so I’ll keep trying. 

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.

Echodale Farmhouse

I’ve been trying to get to Echodale all summer, and finally made it today. AFTER all the animals are gone, and there’s no-one baking bread in the kitchen or hammering out horse shoes in the blacksmith shop! Darn it anyhow. 
 It was very beautiful though, and quiet.  I was able to sit and do a little sketchy painting of the old log house and enjoy the absolutely perfect weather.  I wandered about and enjoyed the flowers and the sight and sound of the S. Saskatchewan River sliding by. Hope you all enjoyed your Labour Day weekend as much as I did. 

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.

September Song

Today’s painting is another attempt at a more direct style of using watercolour, with no drawing ahead of time and a one-stroke style of applying the paint. It’s still not the result I want, but I intend to keep on trying. 

The flowers are from the yard…a reminder that though the calendar says summer is nearly over, we still have lots of flowers to look forward to for a month or so anyway.

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.