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Week 1 – Gone to the Birds
I joined in another challenge to paint 30 Paintings in 30 Days. The first week quickly became about painting chickadees!I knew the challenge was coming up so between Christmas and New Years I braved the elements to attempt to get as many photographs as possible. I stood out on our deck for hours. Freezing my fingers off while waiting for the perfect photo opportunity. Interesting enough, it did not take me too long to figure out that these feathers cherubs are much faster than I. I managed to get many empty feeder shots. And a few with the snow flying as the little cuties flew off the feeder. …
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Great News “Call of the Raven” Won an Award at the CPSWC Open Water Show
Dear Helen, we are thrilled to inform you that your painting Call of The Raven has been awarded theD.L Stevenson Award, (Gift certificate award)…. Congratulations on this prestigious prize. Pretty exciting. Especially since I embarked on a project to paint ravens with the CSPWC Open Water juried show in mind. Last year when we visited Yellowstone National Park there were a number of particularly friendly ravens in the parking lot at Artist’s Point. They were walking around the travel trailers looking for handouts and cawing their hearts out. One raven in particular was following me around and without being intrusive, I was able to get many really nice reference photos.…
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I see you – painting of a sparrow
I See You is an 8″ x 10″ acrylic painting on Claybord of a white throated sparrow watching me from my apple tree. Luckily, I almost always have a camera on the ready within reach. On this particular day I was perched on my deck, hunkered down, camera focused on our bird feeders. The birds were so active. Swooping in for a sunflower seed and then rushing off with their treasure to peck it open. And then swooping back in for another. Over and over and over again. The only problem is how fast they move. Just as soon as I would get one little bird in focus, poof it…
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Duckie Duet and trouble with my easel
So today I had one of those days in the studio Everything I touched went wrong. Easel Troubles. The bottom support on my big easel dropped to the floor right through my fingers with a loud bang and a bad word. The ball bearings in the crank mechanism hit the floor and rolled all over the place. Unfortunately we were unable to recover all of them. Does anyone know how to reassemble a crank easel? The air in the studio has to be exceptionally dry this time of year with the electric heat going all the time. Because of the dry wood on the easel frame we couldn’t tighten it…
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Painting Returns Home with Two Awards
My painting “Sitting Duck” just returned home the 89th Annual “Open Water” juried art show recently held in Toronto. This show is the major event in the Canadian Society Painters in Watercolour (CSPWC) exhibition calendar. Open Water is open for jurying to artists working in transparent watercolour. With my painting were two award certificates; the “Sally Sloan” Award and “The Artists Magazine” Award. This is all very exciting – I was pretty proud to have a painting selected for the show. Then just prior to the show opening I was notified about receiving the Artists’ Magazine Award. Pretty happy about that. Then I received a call awhile later informing…
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The Naming of a Painting of a Raven
Naming the bird Here is my yet unnamed and unfinished painting of a raven. My friends at Google tell me that there are three names for a group of ravens. Unkindness. Conspiracy. Constable. When I embark on painting a series I do quite a bit of research on the subject, in this case ravens. I like to title my paintings with meaning whenever possible, especially if I can come up with a name that includes somme tongue-in-cheek humour. What’s in a name? I know ravens are important in the culture of First Nations (and I have this lineage on my mother’s side) so my curiosity is naturally piqued. An Unkindness,…
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Call of the Raven finished
It is always an exciting part of the painting adventure to call a painting finished. I looked over the “Call of the Raven” numerous times and then called in my critiques er family to scrutinize. I appreciate their honesty, fresh eyes and ability to see what I may be missing or just not seeing anymore. The happy moment is when a painting passes the family test. I have been hunting crows and ravens with my camera for a few years now with a series in mind. This is the first of that work. I delivered this painting into my framer and asked Mario to order in enough of the same moulding for…
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Call of the Raven
I admit that from the moment I started planning this raven painting that I was unsure what to title it. While I was uploading photos of the work in progress it occurred to me to name it “Call of the Raven”. This makes sense as it is certainly cawing about something. I did quite a bit of research with my good friend Google to find out “what do you call a group of ravens?” The search came back with a few possibilities such as “unkindness, constable, conspiracy and parliament”. I played with “Call to Parliament” but when I tested it with a few friends they really didn’t understand it…
