Fall Painting Begins!

In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the crowning glory of the year, bringing us the fruition of months of thought and care and toil. And at no season, safe perhaps in Daffodil time, do we get such superb colour effects as from August to November.

Rose G. Kingsley
The Autumn Garden.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Since textiles class is cancelled this week due to Canadian Thanksgiving, I have two new paintings/studies to show you.

First of all, a small confession: Up till now I've pretty much stolen my sister's paints to paint with, and I can tell you she's got a good assortment! I've added a few tubes here and there, but the time came last week where my sister decided she'll be keeping her paints with her.

At first I was sad. then a little panicked. And then reality set in. This means a paint buying spree at the art store! Better yet, paints are on sale! And I have a student card which entitles me to a discount!

The nice thing about a painting spree is that I know the colours I like to work with, so there won't be much waste in that department. And I decided to make the executive decision to stop painting in gouache and switch over to watercolour. the difference isn't grand, but water colour is more transparent and so more suitable for washes of paint so I'm excited about experimenting with some new ideas.

I also want to being painting smaller, quicker studies. So I started off with these two paintings.

Hola

As you know from my felting blog, I'm house sitting and there is a resident cat here. Hola and I didn't love each other at first but we've made our peace and we are downright chummy now. No more growling or hissing, and Hola's pretty quiet too. ; ) I sketched Hola for an entire day, took the three best drawings and made a little pencil/watercolour sketch of her. It was difficult to get her markings in the right place, but she's undeniably Hola! This painting is for Erin, Hola's regular staff.

Looking for the Perfect Pumpkin

Next, I did a fun painting about choosing the perfect pumpkin for carving. As a kid, my mom or Dad would take us to the store where the pumpkins would usually be in a giant cardboard box. We'd try to move the pumpkins around, to see if there was a better one at the bottom, if that one had a scar or a rotten spot, or if it had a side of the pumpkin which lent itself to carving. My sister always went for a perfect funky shape with a long stem. I just went for big until I realised big just meant more work! Pumpkin carving is something I am really looking forward to, since this is my first Halloween at home in over five years. (Yay! No carving watermelons this year!)

I really had no idea who I was painting in this picture- is it a mother daughter pair? Or two sisters? Either way I wanted to make it look like the two were related, wearing almost the same clothes, with the same features and sanding position. Carving pumpkins is a traditional family thing to do, and I wanted this painting to reflect that.

On that note, I'm heading back to the Okanagan this week to spend some time with my family before we all split up again. Perhaps there will be some carving in our near future.

xxMelanie