Category Archives: small towns

Down at the Heel

Well, here I am in Maple Creek, having a great time with old friends and new…SO much fun that there’s scarcely time to paint.  When I finally got around to it & got my drawing banged out, I came to discover that I’d left home with everything I needed except my paint!!!!  So off I go to my friend Mary’s tonight;  we shared her studio, had a visit and I borrowed her palette. Phew. I got my daily done, after already missing 2 days this week.  I think it’s become if not an addiction, a compulsion!

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.

Winery In the Hills

 Marty and Marie Bohnet, owners of the Cypress Hills Winery, truly subscribe to the “if you build it, they will come” school of business. They built this oasis of loveliness in the middle of pretty much no-where, and in a few short years it has become a destination for thousands, an award-winning business and a genuine vineyard on the Canadian Prairies.
If you haven’t been there yet….GO.
You won’t be sorry.   

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.

Pow-wow Dancer

Now that I’ve finally gained some confidence in my ability to paint people’s faces, I find it to be incredibly satisfying…..and I especially enjoy painting native faces. I saw this handsome guy doing a traditional dance at a pow-wow @ Fort Walsh several years ago and have been waiting for the day when I thought I could paint him.  Today was the day.

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.

Nantons’s Skyline

As you all know, I was in Nanton for the Ranch Rodeo this w/e, and as always I enjoyed their beautiful row of elevators.  Every town in S. Alberta used to have a similar skyline, but them days are over……except in Nanton for some reason, where they stand sturdy, freshly painted, and apparently operational.
 My nostalgia-meter goes ballistic, and I have to take a few minutes to just sit and enjoy.

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.

Nanton Hollyhocks

Hollyhocks are, next to sunflowers, the toughest and most resilient of plants. These were growing and blooming in a back alley in Nanton last summer.  They were up against a white brick wall growing in hard-packed sand and gravel.  I’m sure nobody watered them or gave them a moment of TLC, yet there they were. Such resourcefulness and optimism should be rewarded, so here’s a portrait to commemorate them!

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.

Petunias For Mom

For Mother’s Day, I brought my mom a beautiful hanging basket bursting with these luminous pink petunias.  I’m so lucky to still have both of my parents and that they’re both as well as they are. That is the true gift; these flowers are just a token of my gratitude, 

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.

Laura’s Latest Wildie

When I was “home” for Easter I was introduced to this young fella.  One of my almost-nieces, Laura, has a way with young horses and this is her latest protege.  It was a blustery cool day and he didn’t quite know how to behave; he went from snorty to friendly, cheeky to inquisitive to bashful in the flick of an eye.   Mostly though I’d say he looks pretty broncy.

I’ll be really interested to see where he’s at by the end of the summer.

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $120 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

Gold Spring Afternoon

I found this partly finished painting in my sketch book while visiting in Saskatchewan this w/e; this from a trip up to Buffalo last fall.  So, thinking that it maybe had some potential for my blog, I finished it. Nothing prettier than a sagebrush covered river flat in the fall.

5 X 7″ on 90lb paper

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $120 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

Above Quarry Lake

This little painting is from a photo I took yesterday, once the sun had returned on the wings of Chinook winds…you can see the edge of the Chinook arch in the upper right hand corner, and the temperature soared to +3! This peak is beside the one from yesterday’s painting and forms part of the steep craggy ramparts that embraces the town of Canmore on the west. 
Such a spectacular landscape.  I’m promising myself that I will go there more often.

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $120 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

Still Standing

The Mossleigh elevators are a little down at the heel, and starting to lean into each other, but they’re still holding up the sky. 
Most of their kind are gone, and what we’ve replaced them with are these hulking concrete terminals that block the sun!  I wonder if, in 50 years we’ll be all nostalgic about the new ones and wish we still built iconic and interesting structures like that.  Somehow I doubt it.

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.