Night Harbour

Have you ever spent a few moments just watching how the lights reflect on the water at night? I am drawn to photos and other art work of night scenes. So, always overestimating my capabilities, I decided to try and complete a few paintings of the the city lights reflecting on the harbour.

The first painting I completed, was for a silent auction fundraiser to raise money for the Nova Scotia's Provincial Men's Choir;  Nova Voce. I am happy to report that the painting sold.

Harbour at Night

11 X14

Oil on Canvas

2011

The second painting I did is a close up of the one above. I chose to  play around with acrylics again and completed a 4X5 painting.

Harbour View
4 x 5 Acrylic On Canvas

The next one I completed, used a slightly different palette with less oranges and reds.

Harbour Lights
11x14 Oil on Canvas
2011

I decided to call the three paintings "Night Harbour Series". The shimmering of the water was a challenge, but I like the way they turned out.

Stomping Through the Tulips

A few years ago, when my daughter was four, she really wanted to paint a large picture with me and asked if I would buy some large canvases. I was interested in starting to paint again so I bought one canvas for each of us and some acrylic paints.

She did a wonderful job. I love children's artwork, they are so creative. 

This is her painting. 

The Rainbow and the Flood - Acrylic and Finger Paint
2008

For my painting I decided to try and paint a picture of tulips. At that time I was pretty proud of the painting when it was completed. I hung it up at my office at work, then I hung it up at home for awhile. I had really liked the colour choices I had picked. 

Tulips  - Acrylic
2008

I came across this painting again a few weeks ago. It is funny but now that I have been painting for several months, I no longer felt the same connection to it. I was just going to paint a completely different picture over it. 

I changed my mind and decided to try and redo the same painting. I used acrylics again and then finished it with oil paint.

This is the result...

Tulips - Mixed Media
16 X 20

Painted Garden

It's the beginning of April, spring is here, though the weather doesn't seem to be warming up that quickly. I may also be a little impatient. The days are longer which I am enjoying.

I am looking forward to getting into the garden to plant a few flowers, though that still seems like a long way off. Because I can't plant any flowers yet, I have been busy painting them. I have done three more small paintings which I have really enjoyed doing.

The first painting was inspired by a photograph I saw in a magazine of crabapple blossoms. I contacted the photographer to obtain her permission to use her image. Her name is Virginia MacDonald and her work is amazing, particularly her personal work.

Night Garden - 5 X 4 Oil on Canvas

The second painting was from an image I took last summer of a hummingbird in my garden enjoying the honeysuckle. He visits often but completely ignores my very pretty, awesome feeder. I guess there is nothing like the real thing. I decided to play around with this one a bit and try something different.

The Hummingbird and the Honeysuckle
8 X 10 Oil on Panel

The third painting has  more meaning for me. I love daffodils, and always buy them each spring from the Canadian Cancer Society. This is a cause I feel strongly about so this year I decided to volunteer to sell them for a few hours, I really enjoyed myself and was happy to participate. The month of April is considered Daffodil Month, in honour of Spring and Daffodil Month, here is my latest painting.

Daffodil - 6 X 6 Oil on Canvas

Well, if I can't have my garden yet, I am just going to paint one.