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.

Ottawa Urban Sketchers- Week II

Week 2 - Ottawa alleys

Really enjoyed this week of urban sketching. I managed to pull off four sketches in about two hours.

The light was great and there were plenty of friendly folks travelling through the alleys.

My stamp!

I liked the graffiti art in the alley

The light was casting interesting shadows.

The back of Bramasoles caught my eye.

Looking forward to next week in Hintonburg. Date and place TBD.

The Saturday Farmers' Market

Some fun sketches from last Saturday's visit to the Ottawa Farmers' Market at the Nature Museum.

Art journal sketches of the Main Farmers' Market

Notre Petite Ferme ~ Our Little Farm booth

I love this booth and bought some delicious broccoli from the vendor. Having the Nature Museum as a backdrop to the farmers' booths made for an interesting composition.

The tablecloth caught my eye

Friendly vendor

My non-vegetable non-fruit purchases
Apple cider donuts from Hall's Apple Market
Maple popcorn from the Garland Sugar Shack

Main Farmers' Market

http://mainfarmersmarket.org/

Welcome July!

Summer Quotes

Ada Louise Huxtable

Stanley Horowitz, a poet, published this tranquil 18 word poem
in the November 1983 issue
of  Reader’s Digest magazine, page 109.

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

"Blessed Are The Weird People" Puzzle

My art work "Blessed Are The Weird People" was the featured 

"Daily Jigsaw" puzzle on June 27 at JigsawExplorer.com

Jigsaw Explorer: Blessed Are The Weird People

I used Internet Explorer to open the puzzle because of issues between 

Google Chrome and Microsoft Silverlight. 

It was lovely to see it on the opening page.

Once you have clicked on the puzzle you arrive at the direct link page https://www.jigsawexplorer.com/puzzles/weird-people-jigsaw-puzzle/

The puzzle had 108 pieces

It took me 17:10 minutes to complete the entire puzzle

and there was thunderous cheering and applause 

from the silhouetted folks at the bottom

Once the folks at the bottom disappear

full credit is given to me and Jigsaw Explorer also provides a link to my page

"cindi's art journal"

About Jigsaw Explorer

Jigsaw Explorer was created with the intent of providing jigsaw puzzle enthusiasts with a great selection of high quality, family friendly online jigsaw puzzles. We have thousands of hand picked puzzles available and new puzzles being added every day. Most of our jigsaw puzzle subjects are chosen from the photos of Flickr photographers who have either graciously made their photos available through Creative Commons licensing, or who have given explicit permission for their photo to be featured here. In return, we give credit and links to the photographers on both the puzzle pages and within the Jigsaw Explorer puzzle program. We hope you will use those links to visit the photographers’ pages and leave a comment on their photos if you are a Flickr member.

Links

The website for Jigsaw Explorer is 

https://www.jigsawexplorer.com/

And you can find them on twitter at 

https://twitter.com/jigsawexplorer

Urban Sketching Working Class Ottawa - Quinn's Row

Both buildings that I chose to sketch on Friday are located on Nepean St. at Kent in Ottawa.

Quinn's Row
ink sketch

255 Nepean St., Ottawa, Ont
Mixed media 30 minute sketch

I was surprised to find a old 1938 photograph of both of them (below) and the two buildings, 255 Nepean and Quinn's Row, haven't really changed that much at all in seventy-seven years.

On the left: 255 Nepean St. and Quinn's Row, Ottawa - 1938

Source: Ross Dunn's Flickr

Photo taken from same angle June 27, 2015

Quinn's Row

Quinn's Row is located in what was working class Ottawa and the present day Heritage Ottawa plaque on Quinn's Row reads: "A clssic and simple design in clapboard this row was built for Patrick Quinn and is the only surviving 19th century working class terrace in Centretown."

"This four-unit row house was owned by Patrick Connelly Quinn and likely housed some of the labourers hired to build nearby Saint Patrick’s Basilica.It is the only 19th-century, working-class row house to survive in Centretown. "

"The first record of housing on this site occurs between 1889 and 1890, but Quinn’s Row is styled after other 1870s homes. This raises the question, was this row house newly built on the site or moved from another site to this one? Many believe it is the latter."

"Patrick Quinn immigrated to Canada from Ireland as a very young man in the 1850s or 1860s. He ran his own construction business and owned a number of lots and houses in Centretown including his own home on Gloucester Street. "

"In the 1980s, the Centretown Citizens' Community Association was successful in obtaining a heritage designation for Quinn's Row."

Text Source: Capital Neighbourhoods: Quinn's Row

Source:Heritage Ottawa NewsletterJanuary-February 1986 Vol.14 No. 1 

Quinn's Row Photo

Quinn's Row

June 26, 2015

255 Nepean St. Photo

255 Nepean St.
June 26, 2015

Heritage Ottawa Archived Newsletters

Gratitude

Special thanks to "My Artworld" for featuring my tweet in their
paper.li "The Art Daily Part 4

FemArt Friday: Miriam Schapiro (1923–2015)

Miriam Schapiro, Canadian-born American painter and pioneer of feminist art, died June 20, 2015.

Miriam Schapiro (1923–2015)
Photo source: Hyperallergic

"Miriam Schapiro was born on November 15, 1923, in Toronto, Canada. Her artistic training began at age six when her father gave her weekly drawing assignments. She attended classes at the Museum of Modern Art and learned to draw from the nude model at age 14, when she attended Federal Art Project classes. She received both her undergraduate (1945) and graduate (1946, 1949) degrees in art from the University of Iowa, where she studied printmaking with Mauricio Lasansky. While at the university, Schapiro met and married fellow artist Paul Brach. They moved to New York in 1951, when Abstract Expressionism was exerting a powerful influence. Schapiro's Cubist-derived style was transformed by that influence, leading her into a series of painterly, calligraphic figural and landscape works. Known as one of the "second generation" Abstract Expressionists, she began to show at the Andre Emmerich Gallery in 1958. " (Source: Your Dictionary)

The “Shrine for Two Paint Tubes” 1962

Photo found at Brooklyn Museum
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/feminist_art_base/gallery/miriam_schapiro.php?i=2295

“Curtains” 1972, (Miriam's first femmage)

Curtains image found on Pinterest

Femmage: "An Invented Word"

Miriam began to layer “femmages,” a term she coined, as a “container for her feelings.” In these works she incorporated the female icons, the apron, doilies, curtains, hearts, the fans, the house and more.

From Melissa Meyer Studio

From Melissa Meyer Studio

Miriam Shapiro In Her Long Island StudioPhotographed by Gordon M. Grant for the New York Times

Links

• Jewish Women's Archive: Miriam Shapiro: (1923-2015)
• The New York Observer: In Memoriam: Artist and Feminist Miriam Schapiro Dies at 91  
• The Flomenhaft Gallery: Miriam Shapiro: Feminist Visionary
• The Flomenhaft Gallery: Miriam Shapiro's Artwork
• The New York Times: Miriam Schapiro, 91, a Feminist Artist Who Harnessed Craft and Pattern, Dies
• The East Hampton Star: Miriam Shapiro Died on Saturday at 91
• WikiArt: Miriam Shapiro
• Stanford University: About Miriam Shapiro

Video

• Stanford University: Miriam Shapiro 1990

Audio

• 1971 Educating women artists / Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro ; interviewed by Clare Spark (starts at 2:20)