A Gift for my Daughter

Once my eldest daughter caught wind that I was painting, she asked if I would paint something special for her. I agreed, thinking that I would paint something from a picture one of her cousins took. A landscape from Colorado that had some gorgeous colours. She seemed content to let me chose, but after a few days, changed her mind. She sent me a picture and instantly I knew why she wanted that as a painting.

This picture is one that my daughter took on a trip with her boyfriend, to Banff, Alberta. It was part of our pic-a-day event. This event we started specifically for this daughter, as a way to help her deal with her anxiety, loneliness and depression. This trip was a wonderful, special time for her and she was very proud of herself for going to a new place, with new people and experiencing these things. 

So I started my next project for her.

It won't be exact, but it will be full of love.

New Project

The next project I decided to attempt in painting was based on several things. I was really enjoying my photography, especially since my kids and I are engaged in an ongoing Picture-a-day event of our own making. I was taking some pictures that, while I didn't use for the pic-a-day, I still wanted to memorialize and thought that it might be nice to paint them.

As we were walking around a local park, I was sharing with my children how my grandmother used to take us there. Most especially, she would take my brother fishing there. And while I have no memory of participating in this, I could nevertheless picture it in my mind. I took several shots of the area, as well as having some of my daughters pose at the bridge in the park, so that I had an idea of how to manage this. I'm not thrilled with the end result and have decided to keep it for now.

This is the initial picture that inspired my memories of my grandmother.

I decided that this was sort of the perspective of the bridge that I wanted to paint from.

As usual, I started with the sky and then began painting in the far landscape. I sketched in a rough bridge and some figures so that I knew where to paint around. I used mainly acrylics, but used some pastels for the tiny work and the fishing rod. My brother laughed when he saw it, because he remembered having a blue and white striped shirt when he was that young, but not red shorts or a baseball cap. I guess I got something right.

And this is the finished product. As I said, not my best. Not the worst, but perspective and angles are something that I can do a lot of work on!

Falling By The Wayside

So it seems as if knitting has kind of fallen by the wayside these past few years. Instead, my children and I have discovered a new passion.

Painting!

We have been having so much fun with it that I thought I'd post a few pictures of what I've done so far...

This was the first painting that I attempted. I watched a YouTube series of painting lessons by Allison Prior from Eastern Canada and was fairly pleased with my initial attempt. I gifted this one to my mother for Mother's Day. She says that it reminds her of a place her father took her to fish. 

This little one I painted simply to play around with brush strokes. It is extremely simplistic, and best viewed from a distance.

Since I had found some photographs that friends had taken, to be breathtaking, I decided that I might start branching out.