Weeks are going by faster, and days have become a blur. We’re almost halfway to 100 days of art, and still ideas keep flowing. Thank goodness!
Later in the week I embraced painting away from home. I packed my watercolours, determined to get more proficient with them, and headed to Nanaimo.
Day 43
The prompt was night sky. I spend many hours looking out at the dark sky, whether that be after the sun has set or before the sun rises. On a clear night we see the mountains on Vancouver Island, and as I sit drinking coffee in a morning I can watch the trajectory of planets as they go behind the mountains, the blinking lights of water hazards and sometimes the car lights as people drive up or down Mount Washington.
The middle peak is Mount Washington. The island is Texada. The blur of cloud above Texada represents the light haze I see emanating from Courtenay. The light on the higher portion of Texada is the mast, the light near the tip of Texada is for the rocks on the entrance to Blubber Bay, and the light in the middle of the passage is for Rebecca Rocks.
As for the sky, at the moment we see Jupiter on its arc across the morning sky, and it disappears behind Mt Washington. I thought I would try the Big Dipper in the top right, although things got a little more curvy than they should be. Put that down to artistic licence!
Day 44
The prompt was transportation. We have a couple of bird feeders attached to our fruit trees in the backyard. I love watching the birds and their acrobatics. Some of the most interesting are the pigeons and doves. They hold onto the feeder with their feet and then flap their wings continuously as they push up their abdomens to reach their beaks into the upper holes.
I decided to experiment. I had some used cellophane in my back pocket from a muffin eaten at a cafe that morning, and so I flattened it out. I put some runny white, black and raw umber paint down and put the cellophane on top. I tried crinkling it into almost a fan shape and hoped for the best.
A few hours later it was dry…and stuck! It was hard to peel the cellophane off, but eventually it all lifted, leaving a textured pattern beneath.
I had hoped it would be feather-like. I thought the colours would make it more like a pigeon wing, however, that takes a bit of imagination. I likely won’t try this process again, but for now, it’s a pigeon wing submitted as transportation.
Day 45
Boots! I love these boots. They are my all time favourite wellingtons (gumboots to some). I’ve had them since Christmas 2018 and they are my go-to boots for wet weather, cycling in the rain, and going out into the garden.
They’re currently a little muddy, so I included dried mud on the bottom. The soles are that lovely greenish teal. They are black, however, being rubber, they reflected the window light, which made painting them a little more complex.
Day 46
This was our first day in Nanaimo. I was left at a table in a cafe after we finished lunch. Hubby had a meeting to go to, so I got out my art magazine and started to read. I soon found out that the editors had created a new challenge to connect with readers. They posted a photograph at the back of the magazine and suggested people be inspired to create something similar. As luck would have it, this first picture was of a cup of coffee and a dessert in a cafe.
So, my subject for that day was predetermined. I took photos and then created a painting in my hotel room.
Day 47
I went for a walk around Nanaimo and came across Old Town Nanaimo. The shops were nicely painted in pastel colours and the block had an old, yet looked after, feel about it. It made a nice painting for the day, and a challenging study for perspective. I find vehicles very difficult to paint.
Day 48
In the morning I took a walk down to the harbour to look at the boats and hopefully find something interesting to paint. It was a calm day with great reflections, and soon enough I found this little yellow boat tied to a dock.
The yellow is a very cheery colour to paint with. I found the moulding of the interior of the boat difficult to get right. The reflections of sailboat masts were a little tricky too. I was glad to be able to use my pens for some of the finer line definitions.
The trip to Nanaimo had been an opportunity to try out a Viviva Sketchbook. The paper was surprisingly bumpy, however, I got used to it over the three days, and I like the size for making relatively quick sketch-like creations.
Day 49
And now for something a little different! When in Nanaimo, I picked up three art books from the second-hand Literacy bookstore. One is a tabletop Georgia O’Keeffe book, written by her, containing many of her known and previously unknown paintings. It is wonderful to read and quite inspiring.
This day’s prompt was to be influenced by an artist in history. Lucky me! I used a small rock as my foreground, because I found a few of Georgia’s rock paintings, then created a background night sky in a way that I had seen depicted in one of her New York paintings.
I know, it is nothing like an O’Keeffe. However, it was great fun to create.
That brings us to the eve of halfway through the 100-day challenge. What would you be inspired to paint if the prompt was Boots, like it was for me on day 45?
Janet and Janet 