What a suprise the other morning to find that I had been given a "Sunshine" award by Christiane Kingsley of Christiane Kingsley's Art.

Thanks so much Christiane! I really appreciate it, and it did give my day a little extra sunshine!

I've been very busy cheering on Canada at the Olympics, so haven't painting anything new to post. I think I'll start something this morning, and hopefully will have something next weekend to show you!

GO CANADA!!!

Bittersweet ~ An Acrylic

Something totally different from my last painting, an acrylic on canvas! I had botched an earlier attempt at watercolour over gesso'd canvas last summer, so I thought I'd gesso over it again. My jar of black gesso was screaming out, "Use me! Use me!" (I guess it was lonely!) So I did.


The canvas sat there, a blank black square for a few days, while I decided what to paint on it. It almost became the background for a collage, but while looking through my reference photos I came across one of some Bittersweet berries I had taken at Rondeau Provincial park in the fall. My original intent was to use the photo as a basis for a watercolour painting, but I thought, what the heck, I'll do this in acrylic!


I almost left the background black, but decided it needed some zip. I liked the way some of the black showed through around the berries and also through the background in places.


I think I'll still do this as a watercolour....I told you I couldn't stick with one medium or method for long!

Poppies Finished!

I finally finished my poppy painting, and I'm pretty happy with it. It's very loosely based on a photo of some poppies in my garden. I wanted to keep this fairly loose, so I had to keep myself from overworking it by walking away, sometimes just after a few paint strokes! So for a small painting, it seemed to take a long time to paint!

I have this whole week off from work, so hopefully I can get started on something else. Now I just have to decide what!

Day Dreamin'

8 X 10"

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here's a little valentine to all my followers. A few weeks ago, right after the new year, I gave myself the challenge to make something new from something old. The original idea was to use an old painting that I didn't really like and make it something new.
What I ended up with was a painting made from three old paintings, and it turned into a little something I called "Modern Romance".

This is the first painting that I ended up using as the bottom layer. I used these old left over sheets from Christmas labels, stuck them on the painting and coved those with gesso. I peeled them off when dry and then painted over them.

Then I dug out these old experiments:

Did some cutting and pasting and stamping and ended up with this:

Happy Valentine's Day!

Blog Neglect!

Well, it seems I've been neglecting my blog. Probably because I haven't been painting very much!

I think one of my problems was that I had gotten into the rut of thinking I had to have "a project" or a "series" I should be working on. Then my friend Lauren told me to JUST PAINT! I have to remind myself that it's the process of painting that I love, just watching the paint flow on to the paper, and the colours mingling together. I also have to remember to "paint what I love". I love flowers and animals and nature. I have tons of photos to inspire me over the winter, so I'm going to just paint! I may jump from subject to subject, using many different techniques and mediums, whatever catches my fancy on that day. So off I go!

I was in a mood for juicy reds today so am painting poppies.

Here's a small 5 X 7" doodle I did the other day when I was in a blue mood!



I'm taking a break from milkweed for a while!