Yellow Roses: Friendship - Joy - Good Health

Yellow Roses 

Just finished "Yellow Roses" - 10 x 20 " watercolour.

Garden shopping

Instead of going to the market this morning I was able to go to our "garden" -  it has been a long time  since we actually had a vegetable garden so it felt really good to know we will be enjoying some fresh vegetables alongside our beautiful flower arrangements.  So nice to smell the roses and the peonies came out yesterday!

Two boxes made… one more to build.

 Doug built these garden boxes, I planted with a few starter plants and seeds as seen here.  Now everything is growing and we even have one tomato which is 'almost ripe' - had to cover part of the garden boxes to keep the birds from demolishing the swiss chard!

lettuce, swiss chard, basil, dill and mint 

"unnamed"…..

Just finished this painting and am searching for a name for it … always a conundrum for me! 

In the meantime, I'm pleased to be finished.  It is a 36x30" acrylic painting which has taken several weeks to complete … and I have reached the point where I don't want to 'fiddle' with it anymore. So I guess that means it is indeed finished!

A few small studies...

I've been busy working on a few smaller paintings.  I'm rather at a loss as to what to say about them except that:

1.  I like how yellow and blue complement each other - which makes our Saskatchewan landscape so lovely in the late summer,

2.  The clouds have been magnificent this summer!!

3.  I've missed sitting by the lake this year but will always find peace by the shore - even if a storm is brewing and the waves endlessly splash against the rocks.

So perhaps these paintings will remind you of summer on the prairies.

Still  [6x6" acrylic]

Summer Fields [6x6" acrylic]

Turbulence [8x8" acrylic]

Clouds Falling  [8x8" acrylic]

Sunrise [6x6" acrylic]

Prairie Summer [8x8" acrylic]
 

Storm Brewing [8x8" acrylic]

Evening [8x8" acrylic]

Rhythms of Water & Sky [8x8" acrylic]

Candle Lake [6x6" acrylic]

Sunset Begins [12x16" acrylic]

travelling with the clouds...

Today we travelled and visited for 12 hours with most of that being the travelling part.  This past month the skies have given incredible cloud displays and today did not disappoint.  The clouds seemed to go before us, follow us, surround us and hover over us!  I felt enveloped by the skies while the land took the lesser place.  Here are a few photos.

Moving towards the night...

This turned into a rather dark and somewhat foreboding painting. Some evenings are like that… especially when there are a lot of clouds.  The clouds reach down to envelop the earth in darkness but the sun sends forth its last few rays of light.  Night after night, light and dark settle into a peaceful co-existence.

A good vantage point to watch this is on the river hills looking along the river towards the city.

"Moving Towards the Night"  [36x30" acrylic on canvas] 

Lavender fields

Last summer while visiting family in Langley we were surprised to hear about a Lavender farm.  I was delighted to be able to visit this farm south west of Cultus Lake just steps north of the Canada-US boarder.  Since then I have found that there are a number of lavender farms scattered around BC.

I've tried to paint this field in acrylics - using two different techniques - one, using a paint brush and you can see this is quite 'smooth' and the other with a painting knife, referred to as impasto.  The first takes much longer and requires a lot of blending while the impasto I find much quicker but it takes longer to dry so changes may be delayed which adds time.  It is also more impressionistic. Both are on board which is new to me as I generally paint with acrylics on canvas.  These are small - 6 x 6" and I did enjoy doing them.