Summer Plein Air 6/6 - Pinhey's Point Historic Site

Our summer landscape painting group

Tuesday was the last day of our six session summer landscape painting with famous Canadian artist David W. Jones. I am going to miss David and this great group of landscape artists.

David chose Pinhey's Point for our last painting session and I realized that I had accidentally ended up in that general area last fall. I had blogged about a fall road trip in October 2014 where we had attended an estate sale that was located next to a graveyard and old abandoned church.

Pinhey's Point is 30 minutes west of Ottawa

 I later researched the location and discovered that this was St. Mary's Church and Cemetery (N45.439722, W75.953056) erected in 1828 by Hamnett Kirkes Pinhey.

Blog Post: "Art Journal Pages", Oct 2014

I was excited about this last session. I was curious about what the area would look like in the summer.

Pinhey's Point Historic Plaque

Pinhey's Point, located on the Ottawa river, is exceptionally beautiful from every angle. 

Sketch from "Kite Arial Photograph" (KAP)
(see link at bottom of page)

The cumulus clouds were incredibly robust and plentiful. I could have easily passed the day just sketching the clouds as they rolled by.

Sailboats taking shelter in the bay at Pinhey's Point

Pinhey's Point provides a pretty little bay which serves as a very popular day anchorage, and a convenient overnight anchorage for sailboats. There were five sailboats anchored there when we visited on Tuesday.

Sketch of view from the bottom of the hill

View from the bottom of the hill

I made several small quick sketches as I explored Pinhey's Point. 

The sailboats anchored in the bay

The pines on the Point

I sketched the five pines midway down the Point. I liked the reflection of the pines in the water of the little bay.

Pinheyès Point reflection

I learned from David that access to the Point was closed to the public sometime ago. This is because it was found that the large number of visitors was endangering the ecology of this small strip of land.

Because it was our last session, we arranged a potluck picnic which was enjoyed by all while we were regaled with David's stories of his interesting encounters with jazz musicians. What a lovely way to spend our last day together.

The picnic lunch

Celebration of summer painting

The artists: 'The Group of Ten' (one person was missing unfortunately)
and our wonderful teacher David W. Jones

Although I painted eight landscape paintings, not one of them was ever entirely finished when it came time to leave the location. This is partially explained by the fact that I get carried away with sketching while I am exploring the location and generally didn't start painting until after lunch. This left me only two hours!

But I did learn something about painting, something about the landscape and something about myself at every single session.

Below is the painting I started after lunch on our final day. I loved the colours!

My easel with my two hour acrylic painting

Many Thanks David W. Jones!

I am reposting the video I posted earlier about our wonderful summer landscape teacher David W. Jones. He has been teaching art courses for a LOT of years and plans to continue doing so. If you have enjoyed these posts and are thinking of trying one of David's courses, check with the Ottawa District School Board.

If you are reading this on email, follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdvsD0RGlpU


The Kite Aerial Photographs of Pinhey's Point are here:
Pinhey's Point, Ottawa River - Kite Aerial Photography 2012-7

A Sunday Guided Walk at the Dominion Arboretum

Earlier this month I wrote about how I have always loved trees (link to my blog post : "Trees and Forests") and I mentioned that I would be attending a Guided Walk at the Dominion Arboretum this Sunday. Here are some photos from today:

The guided walk was hosted by The Friends of the Central Experimental Farm (FCEF)  

The tour leaders were Owen Clarkin and Roman Popadiouk. Owen Clarkin's enthusiasm for everything about trees was infectious. He and his colleague Roman (who has a PhD in Forest Ecology from Moscow University) shared their knowledge with the large crowd.

Roman Popadiouk

Owen Clarkin

10K run map showing arboretum

 Guided Tour Area #1

The map above is the detailed area where the first part of our tour took place. The group of folks that attended the tour was quite large and many were taking notes and photographs. There were lots of questions that our two tour guides were very happy to answer.

Due diligence

Tour guide Owen Clarkin

The trees have labels with their common name (in e/f)
and their latin name

The group explored the Arboretum and examined the many kinds of trees we encountered such as white poplar, silver willow, bald cypress, paperback maple, common hackberry, blue Colorado spruce, Japanese larch, easter white pine, jack pine, red pine, Ponderosa pine etc to name a few.

Artist David W. Jones in the group (upper right) listening to Owen Clarkin

I had attended this delightful tree tour because of an email invitation from my "Plein Air Tuesday" art teacher David W. Jones.

I met David at the arboretum and he told me of a video that existed of him painting at the Dominion Arboretum. David has painted at the arboretum many times.

I thought this video of David would be a perfect way to close this blog post about the amazing trees that can be seen at the Dominion Arboretum.

Summer Plein Air 5/6 - Ferme Lavender Ridge

Ferme Lavender Ridge

Our fifth session of plein air painting took place at Ferme Lavender Ridge, a beautiful farm located in Luskville, Quebec.

This farm is open to the public. It's 35-45 minutes from Ottawa (on Rte 148) The owner Joanne Labadie is amazing! There is a lavender shop with everything (soap, scone mix, sweets etc), and there are vineyards that produce three types of wine for sale in the shop: 2 white, one red (and a StOmp with a funny story)

Their lavender shortbread cookies that we sampled are beyond divine - especially when paired with their 2014 award winning wine "LaVigne".

My art journal sketches of the day
Ferme Lavender Ridge - Page 1

Joanne Labadie was warm and welcoming and walked all the painters around the entire farm (with her daughter and dog) before we started to paint. (That's Joanne pointing in my sketchbook at bottom left).

Owner Joanne Labadie pointing to her fields around the farm.

It's been a rough year on the farm - the late frost in May hurt farmers everywhere. To that unfortunate act of Mother Nature, Joanne shrugged and said "That's farming". You can see she loves what she does and she loves her visitors. It was SUCH a great day.

Joanne Labadie's tour of her farm was so informative and fun.
Joanne clearly loves what she does!

The farm, buildings and fields were all so picturesque and it was so difficult to decide where to paint or sketch first. So I began, as I always begin, making a series of quick sketches and taking photos from various vantage points around the farm.

Lavender Ridge farm house

My first quick sketch of the vineyards and Lavender Ridge farm house

Sketching Around the farm

The group is scheduled to paint between 10:30 and 4:30. Taking into account the wait for late arrivals and add to that the wondeful tour given my Joanne, I estimate that we actually started around 11:30. I then decided to sketch until 1:30 when we all stopped for our lunch and a wine tasting (of La Brise and La Vigne)

My art journal sketches of the day
(Ferme Lavender Ridge Page 2)

The wine tasting

The barn

Tree in the driveway
(I am not the only one who has been inspired by this tree)

My Plein Air Painting

I didn't actually start painting with my acrylics until after 2 pm (whenever lunch and the wine tasting finished) and I set my iPhone timer to 4 pm (to get my vrtucar back on time) So I was limited and worked fast and this is what I managed to accomplish in just under two hours.

My painting - after two hours
(acrylic, unfinished)

Ferme Lavender Ridge Links

• Ferme Lavender Ridge on Facebook
• www.lavenderridge.ca 
• http://www.lavenderridge.ca/english/

The Shop

The preserves, lavender scone mix,lavender cookies etc

Lavender lotions etc

Lavender bath salts etc

Ferme Lavender Ridge wines ($18-20)

Baked goods, lunches and pies etc
Want to try Tomato Pie next time

It was an overcast day that saturated the colours in the landscape
making for excellent practice with green colour mixing!

Summer Plein Air: 4/6

The fourth day of plein air painting took place at the beautiful Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa on Morningside Lane.

Google image of Morningside Lane around the Central Experimental Farm

I started, as I always do, by creating some quick and loose sketches of potential compositions.

I was immediately drawn to the image of the red barn with its silo right next to Morningside Lane. I loved the red and green together and the "mower lines" in the grass that would form the foreground and two-thirds of my panting's composition.

I had to edit a lot of details out from my view: the fenced in storage area in front of the barn and the tree on the left that blocked my ability to see the full silo ( I later had to capture the silo details from another angle where David Jones had set up his easel. See below)

My "Red Barn" painting in progress

David Jones' easel offering an unobstructed view of the silo

For my afternoon painting, I decided to let the cloudy sky dominate half of my composition with the quilt like patches of corn fields and canola fields forming the other half in the foreground.

My quick and loose sketch and setting up my easel to start

I wrapped up the painting session earlier than scheduled because in the distance I could see cows grazing in one of the fields and I really wanted to stop and do some quick sketches and photograph them. I love ALL farm animals, but, I have special affection for cows and horses. I could sit and sketch them all day.

Maybe next time.

I love cows!
Some quick sketches

Experimental Farm Cows