Splashing Through Life - Art by Patricia Henderson

Here in Southwestern Ontario, we seem to have plunged directly into Autumn without any transition! Brrr! Looking out into my garden, it's starting to look pretty sad, compared to its glory days in July. Recently, I completed a garden collage painting commissioned by one of my favourite clients. (Thanks, Jennifer!) She wanted something to remind her of her cottage garden in the depths of February.  If you would like your own personalized collage painting, just contact me and I can work with you to create something fun and beautiful and "just yours"! The completed painting:  A portion of the garden: A quick concept sketch: Some closeups:

Yesterday, I thought I'd get out my watercolours, and have a practice. I chose one of my favourite photos of our dog, Maggie. She can be a bit of a clown and this was taken a year ago when she was just about one year old. As you can see, she has very expressive ears! They seem to have a mind of their own...sometimes both up, or both down, or one up and one down! Here is our Maggie, breed "Unknown". :-)

I haven't decided on a title for this one yet. It might be because most of the time I start out with a title already in mind, but this painting kind of came about by accident! I had started a really cool painting with the background a collage of road maps with a very thin wash of gesso, and clear tar gel swirled over top.  I washed on some really nice blues and aquas. Over that I was going to collage some monarch butterflies, using my pre-painted papers.... Well, the background was great. The butterlies, not so much. I hate giving up on a painting, but I went for the gusto and took a big brush and gesso'd all over it. Not really knowing where I was going with this one, I took Mary Todd Beam's favourite colour trio of Golden Fluid Acrylics: Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold, Quinacridone Crimson, and Turquois (Phthalo), and did some random washes. The crimson kind of got left behind! The result reminded me of the sun and some twigs or branches. I had recently taken some phot...

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.

Has it really been four months since I've posted anything? Time flies and life gets in the way of my creativity, but I've just completed my newest Mixed Media/Collage. I'm not sure why I seem to be attracted to Crows in my artwork, since lately they have been a real pest in our work parking lot. (Don't park under the tree!) Maybe it's because they seem to have real personalities and they just look kinda cool! Here is "Puzzled", 16" X 20" on canvas. This painting will eventually framed in a black "floater" frame.

The other day, when I was wandering around the yard, I noticed one brave dandelion that had gone to seed. It seemed unusual to see it at this time of year, surrounded by the golden autumn leaves. I was inspired to paint these three small watercolours. Each one is 5" X 7" and are available in my Etsy Shop . Buy all three and get a 10% discount!

I was very pleased to see that my "Follow the Leader" geese collage was sold at the opening reception of the Desmond Juried Art Exhibition and Sale last night! Thank you to Jennifer Wilson's mom for purchasing it! It's going to a good home.