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.

Fabric cards, Portrait and Landscape Quilt

As I told you last week, I have a few things on the go at the moment. Often I have the ideas but I can't start on the final product because I don't have the supplies. I have an idea for a painting but I don't have the canvas in the house yet so it's on the back burner for now.

I have been receiving some of my fabric cards back and have been tacking them on my design wall to work out a suitable composition. Below is a photo of some of them and I'm sure the composition will change depending on the colour, orientation and style of the cards that come back to me.

I also just finished the latest baby portrait. This one is of my niece's first child, Aria Elizabeth.

And here is a glimpse of a section of the landscape quilt that I was able to get done this week. Not much is recognisable as yet but the red are the two minor canoes in the composition.

So far I am happy with my colour choices and am already forming plans as to how to add stitching for the details in the rocks and grasses as well as the water when the quilt top is finished.

Summer Landscape Quilt

I finally decided on a plan for a landscape quilt to complete my "Seasons" series. This one will be the summer one and I've decided to choose a photo from last year's canoe trip. This wall quilt will not be quite as big as the others. It measures 42"X31" and will have approximately a 3 inch border around the whole thing. I've been spending the last couple of weeks working out the pattern and deciding on fabric to use in it. I will be using mainly cottons but also some silk that I hand dyed myself and also a bit of organza.

I did a drawing and a small painting of my subject to get a
feel of how I want the quilt to look. The two canoes on the
right will be the focal point so when I designed the
pattern, most of the seam lines point to those canoes to
bring the eye to that spot.

You can see that even on the pattern the two central canoes
are prominent.

The fabrics that I have chosen for this quilt also have reds
included because I decided to make the canoes red instead
of the white that they actually were.

I'm hoping to be able to start sewing today, however, I have a few other projects on the go as well, so we will see. I'll give you periodic updates on the progress.

Inspiration in my Neighbourhood

I've been reading another book by Danny Gregory titled "An Illustrated Journey". It is full of sketches from other artists, designers, and illustrators. These artists have shared segments of their illustrated travel journals. They don't go anywhere without their sketch books. Although most of these artists are sketching foreign places, I was inspired to sketch my neighbourhood. There are several really old homes with some history on my street and in the area. We tend to overlook the beauty close to us and so I sat down and sketched two of the homes on my street.

The first is my next door neighbour's home which is called Elm Bank. Elm Bank is comprised of not one but two homes and is designated as a heritage property and is therefore protected. The original home was built for John Grubb in 1836. John arrived in Canada in 1831 and acquired the property along the West branch of the Humber River where he established two farms, "Elm Bank" and "Brae Burn". Grubb subdivided his land to form a village around the intersection of Albion Road and Islington Avenue. This village was first called St. Andrew and later renamed Thistletown.

Elm Bank

The above home is presently in very bad condition. The owners actually have plastic draped over the roof and the whole house is looking pretty dilapidated. This one sits across the street from Elm Bank and is purported to sit on the foundations of the barn associated with Elm Bank. This house is also listed on the City of Toronto Inventory of Heritage Properties.

Inspiration on the Gentle Island

I am on vacation in Prince Edward Island and there is inspiration everywhere here. From the rolling farmland, the fishing villages, the pristine golf courses to the dunes lining the ocean. It often takes me a while to relax enough to sketch. Sunday was our first day here and we had a relaxing afternoon so I was able to do some sketches. We've been golfing the last few days, two rounds a day so no sketching time but today the ladies only golfed 18 holes in the morning and spent the afternoon relaxing . I was able to produce another sketch during this relax time.

Algonquin Inspiration 2

This week, I am recalling all the hand-made fabric cards I have made and sent to people. So if you have any sitting around at home that you no longer want, feel free to send them back to me. If you would like to keep them, all the better, but if you don't, I am planning to put the names of those I sent them to on the backs and then I am going to sew them all together into a wall quilt. I'll be working on the quilt this winter so you have lots of time to get them back to me. When it's done I'll post a photo of it. Thanks for your help with this.
Now.....

....as promised, here are the rest of my Algonquin cards.

"Pen Lake Campsite"                               Pen Lake, Algonquin

"Boulders on Pen Lake"                          Pen Lake, Algonquin

"Pen Lake Campsite Pine"  Pen Lake, Algonquin

"Pen Lake Campsite 2"   Pen Lake, Algonquin

"Pen Lake Falls"                             Clydgale Lake, Algonquin

"Tree Stump"                                         Pen Lake, Algonquin

"Portage into Clydegale"                 Galeairy Lake, Algonquin

"Clydegale Lake Campsite"  Clydegale Lake, Algonquin