From the Garden

 These six small paintings are done 'en plein air' in my garden over the course of the summer. I am not a botanical painter but I thought that it would be fun to keep a record of flowers that bloom in my garden. I was quite pleased with how most of these paintings turned out.

SIDE NOTE:  I learned just last week that a serious Botanical painter would make sure that there were the right number of petals and leaves and stamens  on each flower otherwise it would never get accepted into a botanical art show! I, on the other hand, was just aiming to have my flowers be recognized for what they are.

Plein Air Painting

Mer Bleu

It has been almost six months since I last posted any of my paintings but it doesn't mean that I was idle; actually I was quite prolific this summer. 

Miller's Market

Each week I went out with several other artists to do what is known as 'plein air' painting which simply means to paint on location. This summer was an ideal year to do this. We went to several locations in and around Ottawa starting at the beginning of June right through to the end of October. 

This is my second year of participating in these paint-outs. Last year I would do pencil sketches at each location and this year I decided to do pen and ink with water colour. Mer Bleu and Miller's Market are just two of the twenty-eight paintings that I did this summer.

I have found that painting 'en plein air' has been a very valuable experience for me since I feel that I have evolved a little bit more as an artist over the course of a summer. Of the twenty-eight paintings that I did in my sketch book I can point to two or three of them as turning points in how I approached my paintings. Mer Bleu was one of my turning points.

Perhaps over the course of the next month or so I will attempt to photograph and upload some of my other  plein air paintings.