Splashing Through Life - Art by Patricia Henderson

I seem to paint a lot of geese...I just find them so comical! This was a fast, little tiny painting, done this morning. I added a bow to this guy and he looks so proud! Christmas Goose Watercolour and Ink 2.5 X 3.5" (Border is computer generated) Find this cute goose in my Etsy store!

Part of the fun at the Watercolour Meet was a guessing game. We were challenged ahead of time to paint a watercolour of a scene around the Dundas, Ontario area. There were 13 paintings submitted and it was really tough trying to figure out who painted what! The winner got 7 correct.  That person got to choose their favourite original watercolour from the bunch to keep. Second place chose next, and third after that. Once the first three chose, the paintings  were turned upside down and we randomly got to choose. I was lucky to receive a wonderful watercolour of a waterfall by Ursula (Uschi) Rodrigues. Here is my submission of a little run-down shed in a conservation area: These are some of the prints that were part of the game: (Photo by Sandee McMullen) And here is the painting that I won! A lovely waterfall.

I have been showing my Work in Progress on this little lady on my Facebook page for the last couple of weeks. I gave myself quite a challenge, since this is the largest collage I have done so far, and the first animal that is not a bird! I think she is complete now, but I'll give it a rest for a couple of days, then take another look to make sure I don't need to make any changes. Check out the WIP on my Facebook page HERE . I used a lot of paper in the background that I printed with my Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plate , that I just love! Lots of papers from old, beat up cookbooks and storybooks were used on the cow. Sometimes, I use photocopies of the pages that I like and then paint over them, so I can use the words more than once. Cow Collage (Untitled - for now!) 18" x 24" $560 (click to enlarge) Here are a few closeups:

I've been thinking of ideas for collages, in particular ones to enter into the Desmond Juried Art Show this summer. It always has a farm/small town theme. I was looking at some cow reference photos and trying to pick out a good one. This girl had a nice face so I thought I'd do a quick watercolour study. I think I would change a few things for the collage, or even do a different cow, but this was good practice! How Now, Brown Cow? 5" X 7"

Phew! I've been working on this one for over a week. It's been a while since I've done a larger full collage, and I forgot how much work goes into it. But I enjoyed every minute. It's quite meditative. Since I don't have ducks and geese walking around my back yard, I've based this on a couple of fun reference photos, from Paint My Photo and Wetcanvas. This is:                                               Duck, Duck, Goose!                                                                    12" X 24"                                                           ...

I missed last Wednesday's watercolour, but I decided to do a little ink and wash sketch of a little family of geese that we saw at the Brigden fair this past October. Just a little quickie painting to end the year! Happy New Year everyone! Mother Goose and Goslings 5" X 7"

Here is a quick sketch of a gaggle of geese in the snow. Reference photo courtesy of the great website Paint My Photo . It has given me an idea for a potential collage painting in the future....stay tuned! Gaggle of Geese 5" X 7" Watercolour and ink on Arches 140 lb CP

I decided to work on a companion piece to "Puzzled". I had such fun with that one, I thought I'd go the same route again! You can't drive very far in the country around here without seeing one of these guys. The Red-Winged Blackbird and it's song really says summertime to me. I decided to call this one "Country Singer". The background is covered with old sheet music and the bird and cattails are small pieces of hand painted paper and a few pieces of other found papers. This and Puzzled will be entered into the Annual Desmond Juried Art Exhibition and Sale this summer.

I thought I had finished this piece 2 or 3 years ago. I had entered it into a show, but it was rejected. It's been hanging on the wall in my studio ever since, mocking me. I had just finished another piece ( Corny ), and I had all my collage materials spread out in front of me, so I started adding to it. I'm  much more happy with it now! And thanks to my good friend Lauren , it has a great title! I've already entered it in the show show where it was rejected before. I'm figuring there will be a different juror, so we'll see what happens! Here it is now: And how it was before: The Aftermath!

I've had a couple of weeks off from work and have been using some of that time to work on a new Paper Collage Painting to submit to the Desmond Juried Art Show and Exhibition. I thought I'd paint something we see around here A LOT. Corn. A lot of corn! I kind of like how this turned out. It's a bit more "abstracty" than some of my collages and was a lot of fun to do. Corny 24" X 12" Paper Collage on Canvas

My newest collage painting "Our Daily Bread" and two others, "Frenemies" and "Marshland Morning" have been accepted into the 7th Annual Desmond Juried Art Show and Sale. Stop on by the Ridgetown Campus of the University of Guelph from July 22-August 2, 2012 and check them out! Our Daily Bread Frenemies Marshland Morning (formerly titled Elegant Ecosystem)

The lady who bought my "Spring Chicken" collage piece asked me if I could do a companion for her. She raises chickens, so I asked her if she had a favourite rooster, and she sent me some great photos of this fellow. He is a "Lakenvelder" rooster, very handsome, and although the hens adored his fancy feathers and ruby comb and wattle, he wasn't up to snuff in the baby chick producing department!  He has gone to live at Circle R Ranch near London, Ontario where he will,  as my client says, " live a happy long life" Happy Retirement Mr. Rooster!

The two paintings in my last post have been sold!  I guess they were pretty popular, quite a few people showed a lot of interest in them. Not so interesting to the judges I guess, since they didn't win any prizes, but who cares!

You've heard the expression, "She's no spring chicken!" Well this girl is! Okay, so maybe her comb isn't as grand as the Rooster next door, but she's got attitude and can tiptoe through the tulips with the best of them! This painting is 14" X 10" and consists of handpainted and found papers applied to gallery wrapped canvas. I discovered that I had almost no rusty brown or gold papers, so had fun making some with various textures. My friend Sue Galos and I spent a fun blizzardy afternoon a couple of years ago in the dollar store picking up things that we thought would make a good texture when pressed on wet painted paper. I made use of a lot of them! Maybe on another post I'll show you some if you'd like.

Okay, I've become obsessed with this technique already! A couple of days ago, I reorganized my studio and obtained a few more storage containers which act almost like a very large pallette. Now I have 3 large containers for the primary colours, red, yellow and blue and 3 for my secondary colour, orange, green and purple. I would really like more, for my warm and cool blues for example, but I'm afraid my room will be taken over by containers! I've started thinking ahead, and since I always enter the Desmond Juried art show at the Ridgetown Agricultural Collage each summer, I have already finished a piece that I might enter. The theme is always farm and rural living so I think this piece will fit in nicely! "Time to Wake Up!" 14 X 11" on gallery wrapped canvas I want to make a companion for this piece but I'm waiting for my canvas order to arrive. In the meantime I thought I'd do one on kind of a similar theme on a tiny 6 X 6" canvas. "Su...