Category Archives: ranching

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.

Bully For You!

This guy was standing beside the road over in Saskatchewan one day.  He sure thinks he’s pretty, and I guess we’ll all agree.  I used a little of my abstract tactics with this one…giving cartoon edges jumping up the colour with the felt pens. Why not!? 

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.

Money Maker

 This lovely range cow is from my brother’s herd, and here she is, making a living out on the southern Alberta prairie and ready to have a calf.  She’s hardy, resourceful and a producer.  Now if the Gods are with us and there are no recent scares like “Mad Cow Disease” we might be able to call her a “Money Maker”.

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.

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.

Hilly

So I’m working on my people; trying to make myself simplify !  So am using a flat brush and trying to say what I want to say in as few strokes as possible, and still having to apologise to my long-suffering models!!  This is one of my precious nieces, and she’s so much more beautiful than this bad portrait.  Am going to persevere.  (Actually I did 2 today and one is in the trash….this one may join it tomorrow.  You nearly got a goose egg from me today!)

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.

XL Chuckwagon

Here’s another relic of the past.  The XL Ranch was across the Bow River from our winter pastures, and this old chuckwagon was still around when I was young.  The Centennial of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Assoc. in 1996 was good for anyone who still knew how to build these utilitarian units since many big ranches had new ones built to take on the big cattle drive across the British Block north of Medicine Hat that year. 

When the west was being settled, these kitchens on wheels rolled with the cattle (and the cowboys who worked with them), and the grumpy old cooks were the most popular guys in camp….famous for their talent with bacon, biscuits and beans.

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.

Sagebrush Symphony

 Wow, the Meadowlarks were singing their heads off this morning, and I’m hoping they’re calling in the rain.  My brother, a rancher, calls them the “Rainmakers”, believing that they have the ability to do just that.  Here’s hoping! 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.

Calving Time

Hello!  Look who’s just arrived, along with spring.  It really feels spring-like and the days are wonderfully long, the sun warm and delightful.  The very best thing about winter is the day that it starts to lose it’s icy grip, and the word starts to awaken with new life. 

5 X 7″ om 200lb Curry’s w/c 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.

Bridle Trio

 So this is a little “quickie” I did in my booth today, from one of my friend Kim Taylor’s fabulous photos, hanging on the wall of HER booth across from me.  Only thing is I had about 40 interruptions, and it shows in the higglety pigglety lines and wishy-wash colour.  But it’s all you get for today!

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.