Great News!

I am so pleased to report that my latest painting "Saugeen Spring" was accepted for the 2018 Art Map Landscape Calendar!  It is such an honour for me.  The painting will be hanging at the Southampton Art Gallery by May.  Barb Pearn does such an awesome job organizing the calendar, contacting all the artists, arranging for the jurying of the submissions, having the paintings photographed professionally, etc.  It's a lot of work, and the finished calendar is an excellent quality.  I'm proud to be in it!  

Saugeen Spring

I have finished a new painting that I've entered into the Art Map Landscape Calendar contest.  I don't get too excited about painting large spaces of green in landscapes, so it was a challenge to use this particular photo reference!  It was taken at a spot between Durham and Hanover, that I spotted a couple of years ago.  It was such a gorgeous sight in early spring that I stopped the car to take the photo.  The water and the sky were a brilliant, clear blue that took my breath away.  My dislike of painting pure landscapes (can't there be a barn? a house? at least a fence?) meant that I put off using the photo until I needed something exciting for the next calendar.  But there were all those cedar trees, looking the same except for their size.  I tried a couple of different styles for them, until I stayed with the shapes that you can see here.  Simple shapes.  Abstracted shapes.  Stylized shapes.  I like those shapes.  Simple shapes are good.  Even the reeds in the foreground turned into shapes.  Simple shapes.  Abstracted shapes.  Whether it gets in the calendar or not, I have learned lots by working through it.  But I still don't care for large spaces of green!  

Saugeen Spring
acrylic
20 X 30