Category Archives: value study

Manny

OK this is what I painted today!  Oil painting no less,  16 X 12″. Nine of us gathered around 2 styrofoam mannequin heads and painted from whichever angle we got.  It was intense. It was demanding.  And because I was there and using oil paints, it was also messy. 
It’s interesting to be surrounded by the stunning landscape of Canmore, and be painting human heads.  I think the mountains would be easier!
Tomorrow we get a real live person to paint.  
We’ll see if it gets posted. 

Value Study

It was day 2 of our watercolour workshop and today I had people thinking about ” value”.  To understand the range from darkest to lightest value,  I found a black & white photo of this beautiful young man on the internet and did a demonstration portrait of him in colour. This is it.
 It was a  fun workshop with a room full of brilliant students who taught me more than I taught them! 

14 X 10 ” on 200lb paper

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $400 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

In His Shoes

When you have a boy-child you never dream that he’ll be a “shoe guy`…that`s what we expect of girls!  Today’s “daily” is one of the many pairs of  “skater“shoes my son has acquired in  his short life.  Then there`s the “chucks”,  the flips flops, the football , track and, rugby cleats.  Oh, and lets not forget  the many pairs of  cowboy boots & work boots,  the  ski and snowboarding boots.

He now wears another kind of shoe all together, built as rugged and tough as all these others put together; built to withstand rocks and dirt and miles of abuse in a hot and inhospitible place on the other side of the planet. Not many of us want to be in his shoes these days.  God bless him and all the other young men in those same shoes.

Petunias Again!

 I know! enough with the petunias already.
I had a friend over today and he wanted to paint petunias, so that’s what we did.  We each had a piece of 140lb Lanaquarel paper, (10 X 14″) and a photo of white petunias.  We chose our weapons (pencils then brushes ) and got to work.  What a great way to spend the afternoon!

If you’d like to own this original watercolour, email Gena with your bid today! gena03@telusplanet.net Minimum bid $350 (plus gst and shipping). First bid, or highest bid wins the painting.

Drawing “The Matriarchy”

Today’s blog is the result  of about 3 days worth of drawing.  Remember what I said about watercolours being coloured drawings?  Well that’s really true with the kind of work I do.Thus these horses have to be drawn right, so that I can know where the paint needs to go.  Value is so important, and these are black Clydes, which will make it tricky….there are lost edges within the horses figures where we can’t tell where one horse ends and the other starts.  It’s giving me butterflies, because #1 it’s quite big  (18 X 30) and #2 there’s a lot of really dark shadow in there!  To start I put some grass colour under their feet, so that I can paint their hooves down into the negative spaces that are the grass…that is, IF & When I even get that far!

The Not-So-Pedestrian Petunia

Well, here it is, looking somewhat different than it did yesterday.  It’s all about value, right? The magic of watercolour means that the white is the white of the paper, and I feel like a magician when the flat white paper becomes 3 dimensional…..AND I didn’t even paint the flower; that is naked paper!  Another cool thing is that I used to be a snob about petunias; thought they were pedestrian.  However, I have come to love them; especially the plain old white ones.  They’re so voluptuous and radiant, like a beautiful bride. SOLD

Under a Gunmetal Sky

 As we approach the winter equinox, the days get shorter and dimmer, and there’s a very intriguing twilightish atmosphere, especially if it’s about to snow.  There are 2 old houses, built in the depression era I would think, and they teeter on a cut bank above Kingsway, on the way downtown.  When I came by there this afternoon, I loved the monochromatic (drab?) colour scheme and the strong contour lines of the landscape and naked trees.   The poor old sun was hanging low in the south, doing it’s best to burn through the gloom. 

Time to get out the twinkle lights!!

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.

Mother Canada, Mourning her Dead

Today’s painting is from the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy Ridge in France.  Built over an 11 year period after the First World War, this fabulous monument marks the spot where Canada first felt like a country of her own, after our soldiers distinguished themselves in battle there.  I visited Vimy in 2009, and was absolutely stunned by the power of this beautiful piece of art.  There are many sculptures on the monument, but this one is the most powerful, I think, and exemplifies how we all feel on this poignant day of the year, especially with this new war which has seen our Canadian military doing so much good in a scary place on the opposite side of the planet, and in which many of us have suffered personal loss. We Remember.

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.

Frilly Dilly

What can I say….just felt like Petunias today!  Haven’t done many florals this year, and it makes me happy to paint light coming through and bouncing off flowers. Hope the light bounced off and came through all of you today as well. 

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.