Category Archives: small towns

Little Ol’ Truck

This Little Ol’ Truck showed up at the Bassano Homecoming this summer, along with a lot of other neat old jalopies, cars, tractors and such.  I can’t remember what this truck was; maybe some of you know.  It’s nothing I’d ever heard of before, and so cute I had to paint 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.

Longview Autumn

Longview is a sleepy little town, west of High River, and if it’s famous, it is by association with our famous Cowboyographer, Ian Tyson who lives nearby. These hills just west of town are on the front range of the Rockies, and are the last transition between prairie and soaring rocky crags. Their folds and mounding hills are breathtaking, reminding me how small are the plans of men.

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.

Ice Cream & Memories

This little painting shows that brilliant summer light that attracts me so much. Such a lovely moment with a young mom, Jen, her little child, and an ice cream apiece. I’ve known Jen since she was the age of her little girl.  How is that possible?! It slides  by quicker than a melting ice cream cone!

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.

Bull Trail Hay Bales

Here’s another little piece from my painting trip to the Cypress Hills the other day.  The Bull Trail is a gravel road, extending from The Bench @ the top of the Hills into Irvine, and historically it was the trail used to move cattle back and forth to market. It’s still just a beautiful drive, but I wish I could go back in time and see it as it was when my Grandad and his brothers came here in 1896 and bought a ranch just a few miles off the Bull Trail.  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.

Pizza Palace

Small prairie towns have some of the most intriguing architecture, and though I’m in & out of Redcliff all the time, I only noticed this quaint old building for the first time this week.  It was built to be the “Redcliff Hardware”, probably 100 years ago or so, and now it’s the Pizza joint. The fancy brick trim, and the funky paint job, the false front,  the awning and the cute little castle trim all combine to create it’s “character”. Better check out the pizza next time I’m there.

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.

Parkbeg House 2

Remember my post of July 1st, a painting of an old house on a prairie hill near Moose Jaw?  Well here’s a close-up of a window, and the prairie beyond.  Due to wonders of the internet, the current owner of this house found my blog, and emailed me with a little history.  This house was built around 1904 by a horse rancher and telegraph operator for the CPR, John McFayden and was, as I guessed, a palace for it’s time and place.  It had  indoor plumbing and steam heating.  Be sure to look for it on your way through on the Trans Canada.

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.

Weekend Wanderings

Instead of a painting, am offering 2 photos, with apologies.  Spent the weekend in Nanton, High River, Black Diamond and points in between.  And there was absolutely no time to paint.  I did get some neat photos though, and will be attempting to paint from them for future posts.  

Here are the Nanton elevators….still standing and still looking like all the elevators in all the small prairie towns did 25 years ago. 

 The reason I was there, was for the Ranch Rodeo, and was it ever awesome.  Ranches from B.C., Alberta, and Saskatchewan enter teams and they compete against each other in events that closely relate to actual ranch work, like doctoring and milking a ranch cow (now THAT can get western!), and there’s a big emphasis on gear and horsemanship.  It’s a real family affair,as the photo shows.  If you ever get a chance, get yourself to a ranch rodeo.

Bassano Sunset

 Seldom do I ever paint sunrises or sunsets, but this morning I was up early to get my painting done before I headed for  my home town,  for my brother’s branding. I decided to paint a sunset I’d seen at Bassano this time last year.

  We went on to have a beautiiful, sunny day (YAY!), got the branding done, and  had a great  visit over Jan’s fabulous food.  As I headed for home after all that, this was pretty much what the sunset was like…Toronto has the CN Tower. Bassano has the….feedmill.

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.

Pretty Cows

I was at a small rodeo in Bentley last year, and these cows were part of the stock brought in by the contractors.  There’s something really special about   longhorns, don’t you think?  It’s their  speckled hides, the extravagant horns the intelligence, and  toughness. These girls, penned in close proximity to each other make a beautiful tapestry of dots, spots, stripes and horns.  Oh! and one eye peeking at us.

 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.

Vanishing Sentinels

This row of elevators still stand at Mossleigh, a 45 minute drive SE of Calgary, or they did last time I was through there.  They’re some of the last remaining elevators around, and they’re starting to look scruffy and uncared for, but I so enjoy their familiar profile against the sky.
  The landscape certainly isn’t the same without them….the prairie towns look like derelicts, missing their front teeth;a gaping hole where the elevators once stood. “Progress” feels like a swear word sometimes. 

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.