A bit short of subjects today.
Tag Archives: For Sale
Culture in Niagara
Pencil in Moleskine
I attended a seminar today, presented by a new group who are trying to promote culture in the Niagara region. One of the speakers was my friend Odette Yazbeck who is Director of Publicity at the Shaw Festival. The other was Angel Scappatura, arts writer at the St. Catharines Standard. The idea was to provide some of the smaller arts groups with some of the tools they need to get themselves heard. I took the opportunity to sketch the speakers. Neither a good nor a flattering likeness of either of them but at least I tried.
I am going to try to get back into the daily posting habit. Use it or lose it is certainly true for my drawing skills and I find that if I don't draw or paint every day I lose confidence in my ability to do anything. So I may be posting some dross over the next few weeks, but with any luck it will get better.
I attended a seminar today, presented by a new group who are trying to promote culture in the Niagara region. One of the speakers was my friend Odette Yazbeck who is Director of Publicity at the Shaw Festival. The other was Angel Scappatura, arts writer at the St. Catharines Standard. The idea was to provide some of the smaller arts groups with some of the tools they need to get themselves heard. I took the opportunity to sketch the speakers. Neither a good nor a flattering likeness of either of them but at least I tried.
I am going to try to get back into the daily posting habit. Use it or lose it is certainly true for my drawing skills and I find that if I don't draw or paint every day I lose confidence in my ability to do anything. So I may be posting some dross over the next few weeks, but with any luck it will get better.
Hacienda Lamberti
7"X5" Acrylic on board
The orange farm is in the "Montanas de Uroyan" outside of Anasco; 300 acres of jungle and 25 acres of oranges. Apart from picking, most of the work seems to involve ensuring that it doesn't revert to 325 acres of jungle.
These are not nice neat flat rectangular fields like the orchards in the Niagara Peninsula. Just patches of 25-50 orange trees wherever the ground is almost flat enough to work. Sometimes they seem to be clinging to the side of a cliff, sometimes they are in a steamy hollow that by 10 am feels like the first realm of Hades. The working day starts at 6 am, just before daylight, and ends at 11 am. It isn't too bad until 9:30, after that things start to slow down.
Not too many palm trees here, but tree ferns, bamboo, mangoes, bananas, and orange trees of course. There are little green parrots living in the big mango tree but I only saw them from a distance. The orange trees are covered in tiny orchids and bromeliads. Part of the pickers job is to tear off the epiphytes.
I don't have a very good reproduction of this picture, too much glare and the colours don't quite seem right. I am also not sure that acrylic is the right medium, too hard to blend. I think either oil or watercolour would have worked better. Never mind, I have lots of pictures from the two mornings I spent at the farm and I expect I will have another go sometime soon.
Tres Palmas
7"X5" Acrylic on board
Rincon, Puerto Rico has the advantage of both Atlantic and Caribbean beaches. It is the most westerly point of the island and the coast which faces north-west provides excellent surfing while the beaches facing south-west, onto the Caribbean, are good for swimming and snorkeling.
I am told that the Tres Palmas beach has some great scuba-diving but we would usually head a little further south to the public swimming beach where the waves were sometimes a little choppy but perfectly safe.,
Dawn on the River
January Window Plants
Winter Sunset 2
Winter Sunset
8"X6" Oil on board
I am not getting very good reproductions, one of the problems with using oil on these short winter days. I can't scan them and by the time I am ready to photograph them there is so little light the results aren't good. The days are starting to get a little longer but it is hard to tell. We have been getting some real Canadian winter weather, overcast and snowing all day with temperatures around -9C.
I go back to work tomorrow and am not looking forward to the drive, it is around 20 kilometres (12 miles) on rural roads, white knuckles all the way.
Montreal Interior
7"X5" Oil on board
I spent a few days in Montreal after Christmas, in a lovely house on the edge of Westmount. I always find it very inspiring because, as well as being very beautiful in its own right, with lots of wonderful light, it is also full of great 20th century Canadian art. This is a further experiment in my attempt to simplify my painting and develop value studies.





