August is Great for Painting at the Lake

The only thing better than plein air painting in August, is painting in September when it is a bit cooler.

We are thankful to live so close to a big beautiful lake. It is so relaxing to go camping there which we did this month.

Aqua Chair from Winnipeg

Watercolour by Eileen Gidman

When I saw the sun shining on an aqua blue camp chair at about 10:00 one morning, I made sure I was set up ready to paint it the next day when the sun was highlighting it once again. 

Here I am sitting in the shade of our campsite, out of that hot sun, enjoying a couple of hours of painting that aqua chair. Just wow!

Family Time at the Lake

I was sitting in my camp chair with its little attached table, perfect for plein air painting. Note the watercolour above.

Plein air painting again this week near Creston, BC.

Brittany's Flower Farm

Watercolour Sketch

by Eileen Gidman

On Thursday, my friend Linda and I cycled over to partake in the opening of a flower shop.  Brittany's Flower Farm . Touring the colourful Flower Shop and garden was just delightful. Thank you Brittany for welcoming us.  You are truly talented. 

Painting on Location at Valley of the Swans

The Creston Valley has also been known as Valley of the Swans. Fortunately a friend alerted me that there were Trumpeter Swans feeding in the farmer's fields on the 'Creston Flats'. This was the first time I was able to see them so close. The first day I went to see them, it was sunny and the water sparkled and the geese appeared so very white.

Watercolour by Eileen Gidman 7 1/2" X 10"

The next day, I went back and set up for painting on location. It wasn't as bright but I wanted to capture what was still in my mind from the day before.

Gushul Art Residency: Open House

 To Win a Watercolour Sketch painted in the Rocky Mountain Foothills: comment on my blog or Facebook posts during Sept 2015.  I will make the draw the first week in October. Good luck!

Gushul Studio Open House, Blairmore, AB
 Sat, Sept 26 from 4-6 pm
Karen Arrowsmith, myself (Eileen Gidman), and Kristen Lyttle warmly invite you to attend and view their art:
watercolour paintings, painted textiles and Maori weaving

I'm in the third week of my art residency and I continue to paint plein air everyday rain or shine. This week it seemed to be about cows.

The DU ranch has a preserved log homestead on their land. After painting for the morning, it was a delight to walk down the hill to the log cabin for a close up viewing. Can you see the cows far in the distance?

Yesterday, in order to get the cows this big in my painting, I had to sit on the edge of a secondary highway. Amazingly when you are painting, it is easy to ignore the distractions of the zooming vehicles. Someone from Washington stopped to ask for directions and I am happy to say I was able to help them. I'm getting to know this Crowsnest Pass. They didn't even ask to see my painting. Hmmm..... 

This is what I painted today. I thought I would switch the colours up and I chose a split complement: purple with yellow-green and orange-yellow. What do you think?

After a three hour painting stint, look who decided to show up!

Rocky Mountains Plein Air Series: Aspens and Fernie Art Station

To Win a Watercolour Sketch painted in the Rocky Mountain Foothills: comment on my blog or Facebook posts during Sept 2015.  I will make the draw the first week in October. Good luck!

 Completing a Painting on Location:

Yesterday I finally completed a watercolour painting on location. Well... okay it was 99% completed on location. I glazed back a few white trunks in the studio to draw attention to the aspens in the front.

 Monday's Plein Air Painting:

After visiting the Fernie Art Station on Monday, I decided to try a change of location and plein air paint in Fernie. Here is my set up: a folding chair and a TV tray. I was near a well used biking trail and had many bikers and dog walkers going by. Lovely to experience such an active community. 

 

 

This is as far as I got before the rain started. When beginning I thought I would sit for an hour and see how far I could get. Two hours went by before I could even consider it done enough to finish in the studio. I completed the painting in the studio this afternoon.



Title ? (I am open to ideas)
11" X 15" (fits a 16 X 20" frame with mat)
Watercolour by Eileen Gidman

Rocky Mountain Foothill Series: Field Patterns

To Win a Watercolour Sketch painted in the Rocky Mountain Foothills: comment on my blog or Facebook posts during Sept 2015.  I will make the draw the first week in October. Good luck!

Plein air painting in the Rocky Mountain Foothills:

Another longgg... view. The patterns of the far fields were captivating as were the dusty silver coloured shrubs in the foreground. This 11 X 15" watercolour painting is, so far, untitled. I'm happy to hear ideas.

Set Up for Plein Air Painting:

I had a comfortable set up for painting on one of the days last week as the other painter and I were parked along a road and thus close to our vehicle. It was very windy so I huddled down beside the car for some protection. This folding chair has a little table attached which fits my palette and water dish. On the ground you can see a metal case that holds my supplies. Once I get everything out, it makes a nice table for extra things. If I don't take an easel, I rest the board with the watercolour paper taped on it, at an angle, on my knees. To the left of the photo are other essentials: rain coat, water and bear spray!

Dusty silver coloured leaves dotted the foreground so I chose to highlight one of them in my painting.

The fence post was smack right in the middle of my view. Why didn't I move? Well the wind protection the car provided that day was really necessary. After awhile though, I totally forgot about the fence post.

 Another Day's Set Up:

 

A different set up on another windy day. As we packed into this field searching for a view and protection from the wind, we found it was best to sit low to the ground. The one flattish spot, on the side hill where I was, had two dry cow patties on it. I decided it best to place my foam insulated square and my cushion on one and my hard side case on the other. The case on the ground then became a table for my palette. I am pretty sure that was a long john day.

The following paintings, shown in previous posts, are now titled and ready for sale. For further details, email me at eileengidman@kootenay.com

Watercolour painting: 'Nestled in the Rockies' - 11 X 15
by Eileen Gidman

Thank you to the viewer who gave me a title that I think perfectly suits this painting.
Watercolour painting: 'Tree Tessalations' - 7.5" X 11"
by Eileen Gidman

Painting the Rocky Mountain Foothills

They are ready for framing. For those of you who paint, do you like to leave your paintings a bit before framing them? I painted these 3 watercolours last September on location and just tweaked them a little bit in the studio this spring. 'Fresh eyes' helps a lot for me. At a recent painting critique, after our West Kootenay Chapter meeting of the Federation of Canadian Artists, one of the artists mentioned viewing your paintings in a mirror to get another perspective for assessing your painting. A time or two I have done that technique but for me, waiting awhile to finish a painting before framing really helps. Perhaps I am not so emotionally attached to the painting then. How about you other creators of art, what do you do when assessing your art in it's final stages?

 

Now for the titles. Any ideas?

All the watercolour paintings are 7 1/2" X 11" and are $179.00 (unframed) plus shipping and handling. You can contact me at egidman@kootenay.com

Do You Ever Do Something Just For Yourself?

Have you ever done something just for yourself? Recently I went to the Rocky Mountains to plein air paint for 5 days. Wow, the whole experience was enriching, from:

• meeting a very generous couple who hosted us,
• meeting the farm couple who invited us to their ranch to paint,
• witnessing the changing autumn colours throughout the week,
• being in the company of dedicated plein air painter friends,
• to experiencing the vast views of the foothill area of the Rocky Mountains.

This will be a week to remember for life. If you can organize something like this for yourself, I would highly recommend it.

One of several watercolour paintings that were 90 percent completed on location

The view that was my inspiration

Thread & Fabric. A textile person couldn't resist that sign! Although I didn't have time to paint this on location, I still might paint it.

Blue and yellow, big sky prairie sunrise.

Yes, this is a REAL photo. Those wind-tortured tree trunks made intricate patterns. I did two paintings at this location which will need some details added in the studio before showing you.
Textile Art: Can't wait to paint this image on textile with dyes. Can you imagine it?

Check later for the rest of the paintings from the trip or you can follow my Eileen Gidman, Watercolour and Textile Artist, Facebook page by going here and clicking on 'follow'. If you prefer email notification of new posts, enter your email on the upper left near the top of this blog. Thanks for stopping by.

Mono Printing Backgrounds for Watercolour Painting

Preparing for 5 days of plein air painting, I thought I would mono print some backgrounds before leaving home. Sticking to neutrals as the watercolour paints will add the color, I monoprinted some leaves.

1. First I placed a thin layer of acrylic paint on the gelli plate surface using a brayer to even out the layer.
2. Secondly I laid down an arrangement of leaves. With the maple leaves I added some marks simulating branches.
3. Next I laid a piece of 90 lb Arches hot press paper and rubbed on the back to transfer the image.
4. If the shapes seemed to stark in contrast I removed the leaves and pressed them into the white shapes.
5. Then I laid another paper on the gelli plate to get the reverse print. Magic happened.

These may be to dark for the backgrounds I envisioned painting landscapes on but they are intriguing nonetheless and I am looking forward adding other media to complete them.



Mono printing with a gelli plate. Maple leaves.

A small section of the second pull of the maple leaves giving a 'ghost' print.

 In the dark area between the leaves, I pressed down lace in several places to remove some of the colour and to add texture. First print.

Second print

Same technique as the above but with burnt umber acrylic paint

 

Second print. This one has enough white space, I may be able to add a landscape in the background.

Textile. Do these prints call out to you, as much as me, to be printed onto fabric? I can't wait to try it. Over dye after? To many ideas to sleep well at night!!! For a post on gelli printing on fabric click here

Watercolour Tutorial: Berries

Do you know the blog '...And Then We Set It On Fire'? You've got to love that title. I am honored to have two photos of my fabric shown on today's post. Click here  to see samples of depicting texture on fabric.

Watercolour Painting: Arrow Creek Saskatoon Berries
by Eileen Gidman

 

 

 

Today I thought I would go into a little more detail with my second attempt at painting Saskatoon berries this year. This session, painted in the studio, was a little more controlled than when I painted the Saskatoon berries on location which you can look at here .

On a walk with my Border Collie, I collected one sprig of Saskatoon berries. Later in the studio I sketched it onto 140 lb cold press, Arches watercolor paper using a light F pencil. I turned the branch twice more and created a composition across the page. When I was satisfied with the sketch, using a pigma .05 black pen I went over the graphite lines with different pressures to create a variety of lines for interest.

A few light washes of colour.

Using a colour tool, I selected the colour scheme for the painting: a string of harmonious colours from blue-purple to a purple-red with a complementary chartreuse.

The background was washed in with a graduated wash going from light on the bottom to darker at the top using  a variety of purples. After that was dry, details were added to the background using a light purple mix applied with a round brush.

Additional layers were added in the background including painting around some leaf shapes (negative painting). To draw your eye through the painting, the colour of certain berries were deepened. Am I satisfied? Another watercolourist once said to me, "It is good to exaggerate your center of interest" so for the next berry picture, I would like to try enlarging the berries.

 

Just for fun, I have included two photos of textile pieces I have done. One uses the same colour scheme as I did with the saskatoons, and the other just the reverse with the harmonious string of colours in green and the complementary one colour in the purple.

 

Hand dye painted textile by Eileen Gidman

Hand dye painted textile by Eileen Gidman

 

Wildflower Series: Sketching to Printing on Fabric

The wildflowers are blooming! Since I told many people I planned on doing a wildflower series for reproduction onto fabric, there were no two ways about it, I had to get out there and get sketching this week.

Glacier Lilies or Yellow Avalanche Lily: Erythronium grandiflorum is one of the earliest flowers in the British Columbia Kootenays and thus is very important to Crestonites. Every year you will hear someone say, "The avalanche lilies are out". Here they grow on moist open slopes, often facing west it seems and at the edge of the forest.

 

Two other people joined me for sketching the glacier lilies. We basically sat in a ditch and I am sure the passersby thought "What the heck are those people doing?" We ignored them being so engrossed in what we were doing. D couldn't believe two hours had gone by before the sun shone on us and we were too warm to stay longer.

This is not my finished piece but I find it imperative to sketch or paint from life to really get to notice the finer details. I think I now have enough information to work up a piece in the studio. My plans are to work within an 8" square for later reproduction of the black and white sketch onto cloth.
 

 

Trillium: The flower grows on one stalk and is often white. In the deep forest where I have seen it grow, the white seems iridescent. I didn't have to leave my yard to sketch these three blooms as they grow beside a path I walk daily. For years there was only a single bloom and this year for the first time there were the three blooms! If you like sketching flowers, now is the time to get out on location. Enjoy!