Close To Home- The Hundred Mile Painting

This painting was juried into the West Kootenay Chapter of the Federation of Canadian Artists show that starts tomorrow at the Kootenay Gallery in Castlegar. If you get a chance to visit, it will be up until the 11th of november.

I am proud to be a part of this group of very talented artists.

 This show is well worth the visit.

The theme for this exhibit was "Close to Home" -the Hundred Mile Painting-

My subject was chosen from a visit to Greenwood, BC last summer. 

This town is very appealing to me since they have tastefully given a facelift to their main street, with brightly coloured storefronts.

I decided to work this piece with a black gessoed background and apply thick, opaque layers on top.

The skewed reflections in the window was the point of interest for me.

The title is; "Time Is On My Side"

18"x24"

acrylic on canvas.

Painters’ Retreat At Mount Carlyle Art Show

I am pround to announce and invite you to Rossland`s Rouge Gallery, where local artists Jenny Baillie, Brigitte Desbois, Louise Drescher, Mirja Vahala and I, will be kicking off the Christmas season with our December art show.

The exhibit of new paintings is based on the artists’ september 2012  saga of hiking to over 7000 feet within the Selkirk mountains for a painting bonanza. Blue skies, a full moon, golden backlit larches, rocky ‘scapes and towering crags were the inspiring views for this new body of work. The comfort of Brian Cross’s snug Mount Carlyle Lodge provided respite during their five-day trip. An amazing 52 studies were painted on location. A selection of these studies, plus larger works by each of the artists, will be displayed.

We definitely have a great new painter’s group, and we believe we can build on this and continue to show, through our paintings, the majesty of Canadian landscape, especially here in the West Kootenays.

 Painters’ Retreat At Mount Carlyle

 Art Show 

Opening reception with artists and refreshments
 Friday November 30th
6:30 pm to 9:30pm.


Through the month of December 2012

 at Rouge Gallery

Rossland 

2004 Columbia avenue

Brigitte Desbois

http://www.brigittedesbois.com;

Louise Drescher

http://www.louisedrescher.com;

Mirja Vahala

http://www.mirjavahala.com.

Jenny Baillie

http://www.jennybaillieartworks.com;

Stephanie Gauvin

http://www.artiststephaniegauvin.com;

Painter`s Retreat at Carlyle Lodge

 Hiking up to Carlyle Lodge which is situated at 7 200 feet is not your usual

tailgate painting experience.

After hiking for 3 hours with painting materials, food and clothing for 5 days,

we were welcomed by a very homey lodge.

A new group of enthusiastic plein air painters has formed!

Jenny Baillie, Mirja Vahalla, Brigitte Desbois, Louise Drescher and I.

This is our first trip together, comrades from the Kootenay region, we

have shown our work in the same venues and been members of a common

 cooperative art gallery for a few years now.

All were very excited to go and be a part of a plein air painting trip

in the Selkirk mountains.

It was 5 days of sheer beauty. Sunshine everyday, golden larches were the main subjects

of our focus and we even witnessed a full moon.

With heightened senses we set out to paint everyday using up every hour of daylight and turned the inside of the lodge into a mini art gallery, achieving 52 studies in 5 days between 5 of us.

Taking time to plan at least one painting trip together every year is definitely our new goal.

Realizing how much we can learn from eachother and how much our work benefits from the heightened senses and excitement of a common interest-painting-,

we are very grateful!

Assiniboine studies

In my last few pieces, I have been getting aquainted with Mount Assiniboine by rendering it in many different ways. At first, it was with minimal brushstrokes on a small 8x10 canvas support, then painted the same but larger 30"x36". When asked to create an image that could be used for the printing of t-shirts for Assiniboine Lodge, I worked on "claybord" a hard smooth surface, and made a more graphic poster looking piece. I have also tried "Aquabord" as a new surface, a watercolor paper mounted on hardboard made by "Ampersand". I prefer this one so far but I am having fun playing with this project. Doing different studies on the same subject enables me to stay better focused on what it is I strive to capture in the big picture!

"Growing up on the Hill"

Lately my interest has been focused on a series of paintings about little kids skiing.
Spending quite a bit of my winter at the ski hill (Red Mountain), I noticed all the cute little kids having fun together from the time when they start learning to ski (As early as 1 1/2 year old) all through to growing up as little skiers.  I chose to do my series on small 12"x 12' squares. I used my iphone to film them skiing around and then in my studio, I worked from the stop motion of that video on my computer. I feel so privileged to be where I love to be; on the hill, skiing and getting my inspiration while I`m there, to then transport it to the studio, where I can create a painting from it!

"Little by little"

"Skittles"

"Still in diapers"

"The Chase Is On"

"Lil Racer"

New work at Rouge Gallery

Downtown Rossland

This painting is a small 9"x12"representing the very cute little mountain town that I call home.

This IS how it is looking this week with all the snow we`ve had.Winter is here!

It was painted with acrylic, wet on wet. I am very happy with it and

I sold it today at the Christmas craft fair, yay!

Many more small paintings on the go...