Dumoine River Art For Wilderness Retreat 2018

I am delighted to announce that I have been selected to attend the 2nd annual Dumoine River Art For Wilderness Retreat in Quebec this August.

July Plans: Plein Air Painting, Urban Sketching and Quebec Artist Residency

I expect that my July posting will be spotty but for all the right reasons. I will be too busy painting and sketching outdoors!

So for now, I leave you with these photos taken in past years at some of my favourite locations.

My plein air painting of the Lavender farm, Quebec

Thanks Again Ferme Lavender Ridge!

Many thanks to Ferme Lavender Ridge for sharing my blog post "Summer Plein Air 5/6 - Ferme Lavender Ridge" on their facebook page.

That explains how it moved into the #1 spot on my top ten popular blog posts so quickly!

Ferme Lavender Ridge Links

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

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!