St. Boniface Cathedral

Today started out as one of those glorious beautiful days. The sun was shining with a slight breeze. Charleswood Art Group members were to meet at the St. Boniface Cathedral for 10:00am. I wanted to work with my oil paints today so I arrived earlier and was set up to paint for 9:00am. Today I brought along a piece of Arches oil paper to try. The old façade of the cathedral that remains is a stunning piece of architecture. It has a large circular opening in the upper part through which the blue sky was visible. The whole cathedral façade is too large a subject so I chose to focus on the doorway openings. The copper roofing of the newer structure was visible through the doorways and slashes of light were hi-lighting the steps. What was interesting to me also was that the façade circular opening showed up on the front lawn as an elliptical hi-light. I really enjoyed my painting time today. After 10:00am a few different student and tourist groups came to the cathedral for a tour. A few dropped by to see what I was painting.

Besides myself, Ruth, Anita and Ginette came out today. They chose to start with watercolor sketches of the Human Rights Museum and some later sketches of the cathedral façade. After sketching/painting, the plan was to have lunch at Chez Sophie. Unfortunately ... just call me stupid while packing her art supplies in the trunk, locked her keys inside. I had to sit and wait an hour for CAA to get me into my car so I could retrieve my keys. Because of this, I also didn't get photos of anyone else's sketches. I hope the rest of the group enjoyed their lunch!

Learning Lesson of the day: Always make sure you have your hands on your car keys or at least make sure you put them away. At least I had my phone with me to call CAA.

St. Boniface Cathedral

Fort Whyte - A day to draw boats

The plan was for the Charleswood Group of sketchers to meet at 10:00am at Fort Whyte. Angela and I were going to meet earlier with our usual oil painting gear. We decided to postpone the plein-air oil painting until tomorrow in hopes of better weather. I made the last minute decision to head out to Fort Whyte with my smaller sketching/watercolor bag just in case some Charleswood members showed up. At the very least, I could get a cup of coffee.

I was only at the center for a few minutes when Ginette found me. I was very happy to find her and together we walked outside the center to find a spot to sketch. The woman at the desk said it was OK to just go outside without paying if we weren't hitting the trails. We walked down to the area where the sailboats are docked. Two women were there and when we told them what we were going to do, they offered us a couple of lawnchairs. Mine had a cup holder which meant I had room for my takeout coffee.

This morning was going to be about learning to sketch boats. In our part of the world we don't often get the opportunity to draw boats and they are very challenging to draw! We weren't there for too long before a group of high school students from Vincent Massey came for an outing in the sailboats. This was great as it gave us some additional sketching opportunities. We were very comfortable in our "matching" bluejean jackets and weren't bothered by the warming and cooling of the air as the sun couldn't make its mind up whether to stay in or out. This was a lot of fun this morning and the lessons learned today are: Don't always wait for "fair weather" to paint and Just pick a spot and you will always find lots to paint. This was a good day and thankyou to Ginette for coming out and keeping me company.

A sketch from Sunday outing at the Forks

First sketch of sailboat

Vincent Massey girls waiting for their turn to sail

Preparing to launch

Final boat sketch - Lund boat and sailboats docked

 

Charleswood Art Group at Leo Mol Garden

The weather was perfect today ... not too hot; just nicely temperate with the sun shining. The tulips are out in full bloom in the Leo Mol Garden at Assiniboine Park. I arrived for 9:00am and set myself up in front of a scene where large lilacs framed a Leo Mol statue. This was particularly appealing because at this hour the trees were backlit.

Four other Charleswood members arrived at 10:00am and I departed for an appointment. Arrangements were made to meet for lunch at the Qualico Family Center. There were five of us for lunch at the Qualico center. Over lunch, other locations for sketching were discussed. It was agreed that the next two outings respectively would be Fort Whyte and Market Square. Let us keep our fingers crossed for good weather the next two Mondays.

Getting started ....

Statue and Lilacs by Luanne

Tulip sketch by Roberta

Another sketch by Roberta

Backlit statue and lilacs by Shirley

Rainy Day Sketching in the Library

What do you do when it's pouring rain outside? It's a great opportunity to head indoors. I hitched a ride downtown and following some lunch, I sat inside the Millenium Library and did some surreptitious sketching of people at the study desks. I used my LAMY pen and a few watercolor pencils that I had with me. I love the LAMY pen which does have LAMY ink in it. What I like about the LAMY ink is that it moves so easily with water and has subtle variation in the colors once wet. I became engrossed in my sketching and by the time I looked at my watch, it was three minutes before I was to be out on the curb to wait for my ride back home. As I was out on the street, I saw so many people that I would just love to have sketched. I will definitely have to come downtown again when there's better weather for being outdoors.

People Sketching at the Millenium Library

Rain, rain ... Indoors at Shelmerdines

On Saturday morning, I decided to take my sketching bag to Shelmerdine's. Garden Centers are such nice places to visit this time year. They are filled with an array of fresh and colorful new plants. I arrived early and started outdoors. I'm crazy about willows and decided to go through the willows to the field next door. My first really quick watercolor sketch was of the Shelmerdine building through the willows. It was starting to drizzle so I had to work quickly. You can see where the water was hitting my paper 

For my second sketch, I went indoors and found a quiet corner in the store where I had a view of plants through an entranceway. Although I thought I was out of the way, I had to move a few times to let plant shoppers get through with their cart. I drew this sketch with one of my Pitt pens and decided to add a bit of color so I bought a coffee and sat down at one of the tables in their little coffee shop. One of the special experiences about sketching and painting on location is the people you meet. While I was sitting there, I had three people "drop by" and talk to me. The first was another customer, the second was one of the two people working the coffee bar and third was Eileen Korponay who is a local artist that we all know.

The next CAG sketchout is back at the Forks on Monday, May 27. I look forward to going back there.

Shelmerdines through the Willows

The plants through an Entrance Way

Winnipeg ... the windy city

Weather:  Windy; up to 50kmph with temperatures reaching 24 degrees

The hope was that I could finally go out plein-air painting with my oils but the strong winds nixed that idea.  The Charleswood group had scheduled to meet at the Forks for 10:00am. Angela and I met earlier at the Conservatory given the too windy day for plein-air painting.

The Conservatory had completely changed since were last there; they had a gazebo set up and a zig zag of stone bordered walkways built. There were tulips, hydrangeas and daffodils all set off by the occasional Japanese Maple. I was intrigued by the Japanese maples ... it's difficult to capture the lacy texture and the contrasting greyed red colors with the bright warm reds of their upper leaves.

 Angela left at 11:00 so I decided to rush home, make a sandwich and join up with the Charleswood people. I found Ruth, Ginette, Bernice and Susan all sitting inside the Forks in the marketplace painting a display of shoes and mannequins. I was sitting directly in front of where the shop owner was sitting ... he came out and asked what we were doing. He was worried that we was copying his designs. I assured him that we were just a group of artists who liked to sketch and paint in the summertime outdoors.

After lunch, a few went home and Susan and I chose to stay until 3:00pm. We tried doing the shoes as they were such interesting shapes and colors. Of course, the somewhat bored sales girl kept rearranging the shoes on us. That's what makes sketching and painting from life fun. At the end of our session, I took our water containers and headed outside to empty them. I could see that the security guard out on his smoke break was about to say something to me and I thought, "Oh no .. what am I doing wrong". All he wanted to do was compliment us on the work we had been doing. He said that he had been standing on the second level and was watching us from there. Now isn't that interesting ... he was watching us watching other people that we were trying to sketch.

It was a good day even if I didn't get to paint with my plein-air gear. It was interesting listening to some of the conversation today ... there was some talk of goals for the summer. One person wanted to "paint looser"; another person felt they need to paint less loose. It's a good idea to think about what you want to accomplish when you start a new project or a new phase of your work.

The Charleswood Group at the Forks

Japanese Maples at the Conservatory

Shoes --- Same but different

Sketch of outside of buildings at The Forks

Shaft of sunlight through the courtyard

Still cold so back to the Conservatory

Weather: Overcast with temperatures around 0 degrees

Well, apparently we've made the record books with the unseasonably cold April we had.  They're predicting temperatures to be hovering around 20 degrees for Monday andTuesday which will be absolutely wonderful.  Because of the cooler temperatures,  we chose to abandon our plan to go to LaBarriere Park and go back to the Assiniboine Park Conservatory.

We had less time today so I chose to do some "quasi contour" drawings of flowers. I say quasi contour,  because in contour drawing you are supposed to keep your pen on the paper and do a continuous drawing.  I did lift my pen at times but they had the spirit of contour drawing in that I do drew long continuous lines. I'm not one who would generally gravitate towards doing paintings of flowers,  but it's a lot of fun to draw them ... the fluid and graceful lines of the stems and leaves and sometimes chaotic jumble is very appealing and of course the colors are bright and vivid!

I particularly like the daffodils as they make me think of young children happy and smiling. The tulips are also good subjects particularly when you can draw them at their different stages; from the tight, smooth buds to the overblown look they have when they are almost finished their bloom. Today, the staff were pulling a number of the tulip pots and throwing them into a garbage can.  Even in the garbage can, they were lovely.  Unfortunately, they don't have the space to keep them so out they go into a compost heap somewhere.

I look forward to the prospect of improved weather as I expect it will finally be time to get out my plein air painting gear and my oil paints. If I don't get out and get some practice in, I will feel somewhat awkward at my summer workshop.

A quick ink/watercolor sketch

Their time is over!

Happy faces of the daffodils

Ink drawing of tulips