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

Summer Plein Air Tuesdays: 3/6

The vrtucar ready to be loaded with art supplies

Our location was the shady park on the Rideau River opposite Billings Bridge Shopping Plaza.

Google map of painting location

The park had ample parking, plenty of shade and there was a pathway along the Rideau River where everyone in the group set up their easels.

We all faced Clifford Allen Island from various vantage points and we were entertained by the many birds, ducks, geese and gulls while we painted.

First painting 

I decided to do a small painting to start and I focussed on a beautiful tree that sloped out over the river. The rocks on the shore had interesting shapes and colours.

For my second painting I wanted to have water in the foreground. The water was shallow and an interesting shade of blue-green-burnt umber. My composition featured horizontal tree trunks in the middle ground that sat on a small sandbar that jutted out from Clifford Allen Island.

My second painting (incomplete)

Both paintings need some sprucing up at home. 

Painting number one (below) was a small piece ( 5x 7) and only took one hour. I love the colours (blue-orange-burnt umber) but the quick and loose style that I was using meant that the upper left section could use some more attention.

Painting number one needing a litttle more attention

Painting number two (below) was a larger piece ( 8x12 ) and took three hours. This painting also needs more attention. It was slightly damaged in transport (wet paint) which needs fixing. 

In addition to the repair, the background and foreground need some adjusting .

I was happy with the middle ground though - the horizontal trees, the shoreline along the sandbar.

Middle ground detail

I would like to add some of the geese and gulls that came and went as I painted.

Geese and ducks visited and left over the three hours

Would like to add some geese and ducks here

A gull on the large rock.

My reference photo

I took a reference photo at the end of the session so that I would be able to touch up my painting.

The plein air group reviewing potential locations for our next session.

Looking forward to the next session. 

Through consensus we agreed to paint at the Experimental Farm next.

Summer Plein Air Tuesdays: 2/6

The group had a wonderful day plein air painting at a farm called "Rideau Pines Farm" situated on Fourth Line Road, very close to the 416 highway and Brophy Road.

Rideau Pines Farm offers more than 9 varieties of strawberries and raspberries, including fall bearing plants. Today, the raspberries were being pruned by the farm workers and folks were showing up to pick the red currants which were plentiful.

The owners, the Vandenbergs, grow everything from pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, corn, and broccoli to potatoes, cauliflower, onions, garlic, honey... and much more!

This field that I painted had beautiful purple cabbage ready for the picking.

Plein Air #3

First location

I started the day by doing a bunch of quick sketches of things that caught my attention: the forked dirt road, the workers pruning the raspberry bushes and a bright red shed surrounded by pines.

Quick sketch of "Tree"

Quick sketches in my art journal

Quick sketch of David

David W. Jones gave us a great lesson on colour mixing - there were so many variations of green on the farm!

Colour mixing lesson with David Jones

Quick sketch of red shack

I thoroughly enjoyed painting at this location and, before leaving. I made sure to stop and purchase some of the great jam that they sell.

Ashton Naturals jams

"Rideau Pines Farm"

Plein air painters

Plein air painter

Summer Plein Air Tuesdays: 1/6

Day 1 of 6 of plein air painting sessions and the weather was wet and damp again. The rain started early and later there were 50 km winds that had developed by lunch. Easels and canvases were falling all over but the group of nine persevered.

Rockliffe Pavillion (close-up)
(Acrylic)

The rain location again was the Rockliffe Park (which I have written about previously). I decided to locate myself in a corner of the pavillion and paint a view with a gentle, red  sloping hill, stately  pines and an interesting curved path.

I did a thumbnail sketch and decided to include the pavillion's concrete column and wooden roof as a frame for my composition.

The thumbnail sketch

The winds, rain and changing light created a challenge that I struggled to overcome and I grew more unhappy as the painting developed. The transparent palette that I chose was a mistake.

My easel (after two hours)

So I made a decision to rework it at home. I abandoned the transparent palette (except burnt umber) and used Ultramarine Blue PB29, Cadmium Yellow PY35, Cadmium Red Med PR108 and Titanium White.

I made a decision to only spend two hours on the remake which I ended up liking so much more than my original effort.

My two hour rework of the original plein air painting
 (with a different palette)

During our lunch break, David offered a demonstration and within one hour had created a brilliant painting of the iconic Rockcliffe pine tree.

Our plein air instructor David W. Jones
giving a lunch time demo

I am hoping that our next outing will be less challenging and that the weather will be more pleasant than the past two Tuesdays!

Update: July 8, 2015

David Jones generously shared the names of the oil colours on his palette:

• Cerulean blue 
• Cobalt blue 
• Ultramarine blue 
• Cadmium Yellow Middle/Medium 
• Cadmium Orange 
• Cadmium Red Middle 
• Alizarin Crimson 
• Sap or Chrome Green 
• Viridian or Phthalo Green 
• Yellow Ochre 
• Titanium White

He purchases his oil paints from Stevenson's Paint, a Toronto company that produces "Artists Quality" paint at "Student Quality" prices. David has used them exclusively since 1978.

Here is their website: http://hwww.dlstevenson.ca/

Stevenson Paint