LT’s beau had brought some of his metal miniatures to paint and that interested my 2 daughters and my younger daughter’s beau…so they worked on those over the course of our cottage time…the miniatures involved painting tiny details and each one took hours and hours to do…
My elder daughter also put together a sculptural piece from a piece from a falling apart, weathered wooden boat and some interesting branches; she painted it white and blue and made herself a really neat piece to hang her jewellery on…
LT and I had 4 plein air painting sessions and we also did some funky painting on furniture…
At first we thought that we would canoe all around and set up to paint at a different location each time we went out…but in the end we decided to set up in the same place each time, paint the same scene and see how we progressed…it isn’t that easy to just bop about painting plein air…you do get so that you can carry everything in one load – we had got to that point part way through our course in Haliburton…but it still takes at the very least 3 hours per session…our first 2 and last sessions were 3 hours, our 3rd was a bit over 4…it would be a different matter if LT and I were there solely on a painting trip for ourselves…but we couldn’t just disappear on everyone…so choosing a spot right close-by worked well…
We settled on painting one of the out buildings on the island…we call it the Ice House – it was once used to store the ice that was chopped in the winter…in the days before refrigerators, when people had ice boxes…it is a cute little structure perched on the rocks with cedar trees beside it and pines behind…also, it was just a short paddle across to a flat island where we could set up…
What a beautiful place to paint! Here we are all set up and the view around us...
LT Painting...
Our session 2 paintings with the Ice House in back...
My dog would swim beside the canoe and stay with us as we painted…he was a good painting companion!
Shea on location...keeping an eye on the island...
Of the 4 sessions, 3 of them were in a row and I really noticed progress in my paintings…then we couldn’t get out for a few days…my 4th painting has improved perspective…but I found that unless I moved from doing the monotone-initial-roughing-in-the-lines-phase into adding colour, then I would get too carried away with monotone details and didn’t want to add colour…
Here is my session 1 painting...
Our session 2 paintings about to go into the ice house to dry...
LT's session 3 painting...
My session 3 painting...I am gatting happy with my rocks (one of my goals) but my trees are a bit wild!
Here are our paintings from the first 3 sessions up in the ice house drying...
My painting from our 4th session...
LT working on her 4th session painting...
I am a long way and many practice paintings away from producing anything anywhere close to being ‘finished’…but it is nice to see progress in the little bit that I have done!
As our gift to the cottage this year, LT and I painted 2 lamp stands…we are also going to paint one of the couches but only managed to get it primed this year…the lamps took way longer than we realized they would…they also are not finished, but are looking pretty good so far!
The lamps before we started...
Here they are so far...
The couch as far as we got this year...we primed the parts we are going to paint...we are going to leave the arms and the front board natural, so those got sanded down and one coat of varathane applied to protect them until we get back to it next year...
1 comment:
Loved reading this post. Hope you are being productive out there now. I will call on the weekend. I really like the lamps ... are they metal? How did you prepare them and what paint did you use?
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