Progress on the Sunset Painting

I am really enjoying painting the sunset because I'm using pinks and yellows and oranges and purples. It's a big difference from blues, browns, greys and greens. There's so much more energy in this painting than in my regular landscapes. Most of my landscapes are of a more calming, serene nature so this is a nice change.

Here I've completed the sky for the most part and started painting
over the purple I put in for the land masses and the trees. The dark
of these subjects is starting to make the sky colours pop.

Due to the fact that this painting is for someone, I won't be posting the finished product until I have given it to its owners. Below is a small portion of the nearly completed painting.

I was also able to get a large section of the Summer Landscape Quilt done this week. It is truly addicting, I have to admit. I just want to keep working on it every minute. I get such a rush with each section I complete.

Here you can see I've begun on the main canoes.
I am taking my time with this section making sure everything
lines up properly as this will be the focal point of the quilt.

Gathering Northern Inspiration and a New Painting

Due to being on vacation last week, there was no post on Thursday. I was once again in Northern Ontario with my tent and my kayak. I took along my sketch book and acrylic paints in the hopes of getting a lot of artwork done. I can't say I got a lot of artwork done but I did manage a few sketches and started a new painting.

As always, I have to relax enough to produce anything and so my first sketches are rough and not that great but I've learned that it's not about perfect sketches, it's about just sketching. If I'm not afraid to fail, I can take chances. Even bad sketches can be an inspiration for something better.

I was about to get out of my tent one morning to sketch the campsite but
then it started to rain so I sketched the campsite from inside
the tent.

I am mesmerized by campfires and can stare into them for hours.
I decided to try to capture those licking flames around a
large chunk of wood.

I walked down the beach on a cloudy day
and sat down among the rocks to sketch
them with the beach and bay in the distance.

The new painting I started is from a photograph from my 2012 Canoe Trip and is a northern island in the sunset. I'm using acrylic to paint it and because it is a sunset, I've had to purchase a few colours that I don't usually use. This painting will be a little more colourful than what I'm used to painting and so I'm finding it challenging.

 

This is the initial blocking in of shapes. These shapes will be the
darkest in the painting so I painted them in purple to give me
their placement. I will be painting the sky and the water over
top of the purple shapes making sure I can still see their
placement.

 

Here I have blocked in the sky and cloud shapes as well as the water.
At this stage, it still looks very rough, however, as I keep working
it will start to blend and harmonize together.

Oh, also, in case you are interested, I forgot to eat the protected pear before I left on vacation but it was still waiting for me when I got home and so I ate it immediately. It was DELICIOUS and totally worth the wait and vigil.

The Protected Pear

Outside my office window is a pear tree which looks beautiful in the Spring with its delicate blossoms and in the Fall of our first year living here, it was heavy with ripening pears. So heavy, in fact, that it attracted the deer that usually hide out in the ravine behind our house.

Alas, with the current bans on spraying chemicals in the City of Toronto, our poor pear tree has rust on its leaves and has a hard time producing any fruit at all. Last year there was no fruit what so ever. I was very disappointed. BUT, this year, I have seen the odd pear hanging between the leaves and the squirrels have also noticed them. I have caught them scurrying along the tree limbs to collect the meagre meal.

There is one pear left on the tree, as far as I can see and it hangs right in front of my window. I have been protecting that pear from the squirrels for weeks now in hopes that it will grow big enough to make a tasty treat for me. I'm sure it is hard for the squirrels to get because it hangs right at the end of a small branch and they can't get to the pear without falling off the branch before they reach it. The branch also hangs too high for the deer to reach. So far, so good.

The pear has grown to a size that I think will offer me a delicious desert when it ripens and so, I'll  not tempt the wildlife any longer and pluck that prize today to finish ripening indoors. I'll let you know if the wait and close monitoring was worth it.

And.....here's a little glimpse of my progress on the Summer Landscape Quilt.