Another Award Winner!!

Yes I am really on a roll, two awards this summer! I have won an Award of Excellence for my picture "Far From the Maddening Crowd" at the Federation of Canadian Artists Chapter Show at the Fort Langley Museum. I am quite excited about it, I really liked this picture and I felt it was a good fit for this show "A 100 Mile Harvest". I just loved the way the duck was settled in by the old sickle cutter and the way the old machinery came alive with the graphite. I had the picture for awhile before I named it and when I did I just felt just right: that little duck is really far from the maddening crowds of the city.
I don't live on a farm, my reference material for this picture came from Kilby Store and Farm, a historical site that has costumed people presenting life in the early 1900's, a small gift shop and café. It is a wonderful place and I have been involved with it for about 6 years.

My Jack Russells

Well they are not really my dogs, they belong to my cousin but I must admit I have really enjoyed drawing them. I took lots of reference pictures with us on our trip and worked on them during the quiet times of the day. We had quite a heat wave while we were there so they proved to be a great distraction from that. I thought it would be easy to 'whip off' a few pictures but I was in for a surprise. Working on the smaller pieces can be very slow, especially around the face; one tiny mark can really make a major change. Also, white dogs are harder to draw then I thought, I didn't want to use backgrounds all the time so it was a real learning curve to find ways to draw a white dog on white paper. The other thing I played with was a spot of color. I know for you colored pencil artists that is not a big deal but I have limited experience with colored pencils. I was particularly pleased with Look at Me as that bit of color for his collar works really well.

Wishful Thinking wins a Prize

My picture Wishful Thinking won a prize at the Oil and Water Juried Show in Delta, BC. The jurying was done while we were away and I was thrilled to learn I had won when I got home. I know many of you had great comments about her when I finished her in March and I was very pleased with her myself. It is funny though how juried shows go, I entered her in a spring show and she was declined and now she wins a prize!! It is really a reminder to not be discouraged by a decline as there are always other opportunities around the corner.

I am Back with new Stuff!!

We had a great camping trip on the southern part of Vancouver Island. We stayed at several provincial campsites and all of them had beautiful stands of firs and cedars. My husband and I had a wonderful time sightseeing, swimming, and catching up on our reading. When the heat was bad we were up to a book a day!! We saw lots of wildlife: a deer with two fawns, a large black bear standing right in front of us on the trail, a pod of killer whales, birds of every kind and a young barred owl sitting on a telephone wire taking everything in.
My miniature picture Pathway through the Giants was completed at our campsite on Lake Cowichan. The trees were huge and beautiful and I just couldn't get enough of them.
While I was away I also worked on some fun pieces – my Jack Russell series. When visiting my cousin earlier this year I took lots of pictures of her Jacks. I wanted to try different things and pick some poses that are not for your usual portrait. I even tried my hand at mixing a bit of color pencil and graphite. I will post my pieces later this week as I get caught up with things but here is the first one for now, which I called I'm Sorry.