French Doors and Flowers

Original Oil on Canvas 8 x 10 Framed SOLD
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I demonstrated at the Night Market in my neighbourhood the other night, and decided to do this smaller version of a larger painting I did a while back. I'm quite pleased with the loose brushwork and spontaneity of it. It was a beautiful sunny evening and a good time was had by all.

French Doors and Flowers

In the Garden

Acrylic on Exhibition Canvas 24 x 24 SOLD

I'm pleased to announce that I have been juried into the Butchart Gardens Summer Art Show and Sale. The Butchart Gardens is our premiere Victoria attraction with 50 acres of the most spectacular floral finery and landscaping. It's a fabulous experience in all seasons. The above painting 'In the Garden' was a perfect fit for this show. When I first had the concept for this painting, I wanted to capture the pleasure of breakfast in the garden on a summer's day. When I actually set up the still life to photograph, it quickly became about light and shadow. I loved the shadows cast across the tea cup and table and onto the garden chair. I wanted to capture the bright summer sun, but give the impression of the freshness in the garden with the cool blue and white colour scheme. I'm really pleased with the result.

In the Garden

Baby Blue

Original Oil 8 x 10 SOLD


During our trip to Vancouver my son and I were driving together, and suddenly he said "You've go to paint that". I took a look, and turned the car around immediately. I loved that the car, a Ford Fairlane, coordinated perfectly with the apartment building, and the pale pink doors, just added that extra touch. When I was growing up, this building was the same color, but it was a corner store. I may just paint this one in a larger format.

Baby Blue

Waiting to Dock

Original Oil - Plein Air   8 x 10   $100+ s/h


This is another plein air painting from our recent trip to Vancouver. It's a view from Spanish Banks across toward the North Shore and Stanley Park. The bay is always dotted with freighters waiting for port entry. Spanish Banks has very warm waters for this neck of the woods, due to a big sand bar that keeps the water shallow for huge distances. You can spot people way out there and realize they are only up to their knees in water. I've always loved this view of beaching and boating with the mountains capped in snow. I found this painting difficult to do because I was sitting in the middle of blinding sunshine on the beach, without an umbrella but I really wanted to capture this scene, so I just kept going and I'm glad I did.

Waiting to Dock

Vancouver Skyline

Original Oil on Panel - Plein Air  8 x 10  $100 + s/h
Last week we were in my old home town of Vancouver. Gotta love the energy in that city! The first few days the weather was overcast and a bit cold but we had a heatwave later in the week. This is a plein air done on a cloudy with sunny periods day. A bit challenging. It's a view of the West End from Kitsilano, with those gorgeous North Shore mountains as a backdrop. We used to live just up the hill from this spot, and went here often, so I had to revisit and paint it.

Vancouver Skyline

Olé!

Acrylic on Gallery Wrapped Canvas  36 x 24  $600 + s/h


I had so much fun painting "Three Amigos", the post of July 9th, that I decided to take it to a large format. I added an extra bowl for height and a few things in the foreground because of the extra space in changing from a square to rectangular composition. All the objects are many times their life size, and seen in real life, the stack of bowls is quite impressive, like a feat of balance. So I called it Olé! Greatly enlarged objects are an interesting concept. Maybe something to consider in the future. I think I prefer Three Amigos, probably because the image was fresh for me, and it was so cute, it almost had it's own personality, but Ole has some power. Which do you prefer? Tell me what you think about this concept. This is the last of my Mexican theme.....for the moment.

Olé!

Ensalada

Ensalada Original Acrylic on Canvas 16 x 16  $350 
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Here's one more Mexican themed Still Life. My sister brought me this lovely plate from a trip to Mexico. I had a lot of fun with the composition, using the pattern in the tablecloth. The plate was very time consuming because of the light play on the fluted edge. This one is currently at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria for the Summer Small Works Show.

 

Ensalada

Fiesta

Acrylic on Exhibition Canvas 12 x 12 $225

Still on a Mexican theme, I thought that all the colours and patterns were an absolute party, so I called it Fiesta. I'm quite pleased with all the peppers, especially the one cut open on the cloth. It was a bit challenging painting the peppers over the patterns in the bowl, and getting them to read correctly.

Fiesta

Three Amigos

Acrylic on Exhibition Canvas 12 x 12 SOLD

I absolutely love hand painted pottery and have quite a collection from various places we've traveled to. This painting features three little Mexican bowls that looked like friends nestled in together. I'm really pleased with the light reflections on the shiny ceramic surface of the bowl, and the textural edge of the tablecloth.

Three Amigos

Island Living

Acrylic on Exhibition Canvas 20 x 16 SOLD

Here is a summer beach scene from Saltspring Island, one of several gorgeous Gulf Islands, between here and Vancouver. This is one of our favourite places for a quick getaway. Many of the beaches have rock shoals, as seen here, and feature beautiful Arbutus trees. Here's someone's little skiff, just waiting to go for a row and a cottage nestled in the trees in the distance. Of course I had to paint it! I'm pleased with the sparkling light that I managed to capture.

Island Living

Arbutus

Arbutus - Acrylic on Canvas - SOLD

Ahh the Arbutus Tree! One of the most lovely trees on the west coast. It only grows within a short distance of salty sea air, and has the most unusual green peeling bark that exposes beautiful burnished red under bark. It twists and turns and is usually clinging to a cliff or rock precariously. This lovely specimen was backed by a fallen Arbutus tree trunk, downed during a wind storm, and both just needed to be painted.

Arbutus