My First Post

Blogging is a whole new experience for me so I hardly know where to begin. Since this is all about my art work and artistic journey, then it seems fitting to show you some of my work that I completed prior to the blog.

I began painting in oils a little over a year ago after a 13 year hiatus from painting; needless to say, I was a little rusty. Much to my amazement, I did remember how to use a paint brush, must have been muscle memory. However, those first 10 paintings didn't turn out so well, due to inferior student grade materials, and a general lack of compositional know-how. Things are improving though after a good deal of research and help from the people at Wet Canvas and much personal trial & error.

I have also been learning a good deal about landscape painting from the online classes by the award winning Canadian landscape painter Johannes Vloothuis who can be found at:  http://improvemypaintings.com/.  Without Johannes instruction, I think my artistic development wouldn't be getting very far at all. Nevertheless, I still have far to go in regards to landscape painting.

I also like to draw and paint plants such as orchids and lilies and have been working with coloured pencil, hard pastel and pastel pencils. Unfortunately, I find that I need to put down the pencils since they are difficult to use due to a painful shoulder. So now I am beginning to paint with soft pastels such as Unisons and Terry Ludwigs, and so far they seem to be much easier to work with. More about that it my next post.

Here are some examples of artwork that I have completed:

Phag Bouley Bay hard pastel on paper 11x15

Paph Michael Koopowitz coloured pencil on paper 11x15

Paph Lady Rothschild coloured pencil on paper 11x14

Yellow OT Lilies Coloured Pencil on paper 11x14

Pink Lily coloured pencil on paper 11x14

Maple Rooted hard pastel on paper 11x15

Forest Spirits hard pastel on paper 15x23

Towards the Green oil pastel on paper 12x18

Two Willows Oil on Canvas 16x20