"THIS IS MY COUNTRY. WHAT I WANT TO EXPRESS IS HERE AND I LOVE IT. AMEN" - EMILY CARR (MAY 1934)

Saturday 31 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #92

"Back country - Magundy"
5"x7", Acrylic
sold
I can remember standing here as if it was yesterday.  It was 30 degrees Celsius - we had hiked early in the morning and finally we came to this spot around lunchtime.  It was scorching hot. We could see right down to Little Salmon Lake far in the distance.  
 I am posting early today because I am going out to the New Year's Dance with my husband.
Happy New Year everyone!

Friday 30 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #91

"Yukon Alpine Meadow"
5"x7", Acrylic
sold
The orange that is in this painting is brighter than the actual painting.  I do not have a flash on but it still comes out much brighter.  I am no photographer!

"What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit."
 ~John Updike

Thursday 29 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #90

 Rose Creek, Anvil Range, Faro Yukon
6"x8", Acrylic
Photo Credit: Nina Toeller
Sold
"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures"
Henry Ward Beecher

Wednesday 28 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #89

Evening Pond on the Mitchell Road
5"x5", Acrylic
SOLD

"Blessed are the single-hearted, for they shall enjoy much peace. If you refuse to be hurried and pressed, if you stay your soul on God, nothing can keep you from that clearness of spirit which is life and peace. In that stillness you will know what His will is."
Amy Carmichael

Tuesday 27 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #88

"Keno Hill, Yukon"
6"x8", Acrylic
Time for a summer scene.  Lots of green and arctic cotton.
Photo Credit:  Nina Toeller

“You become most powerful in whatever you do if the action is performed for its own sake rather than as a means to protect, enhance, or conform to your role identity.”

 “Don't let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.” 

Monday 26 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #87

"Winter-Pond at Magundy"
6"x6", Acrylic

"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love."
~ Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180)


Sunday 25 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #86

"Impression:  Winter Sunset"
5"x5", Acrylic
SOLD
I felt like painting from my imagination just letting the image and colour 
take shape on the  canvas - this makes it easy for me.  
My family and I had a big Christmas dinner and I went for a walk with my husband afterwards to clear my head.  It is a beautiful winter evening here in the Yukon.
The walk did me good as I ate so much today - so grateful for the good life!

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
~Henry David Thoreau


Saturday 24 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #85

Sunset on the Pelly River
6"x6", Acrylic
SOLD

"The world in solemn stillness lay"
Edmund Sears
Wishing you all a peaceful and joyful  Christmas 

Friday 23 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #84

"Lapie Lakes , the South Canol"
6"x8", Acrylic
Sold

"If my heart can become pure and simple,
like that of a child, I think there probably
can be no greater happiness than this."
- Kitaro Nishida

Thursday 22 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #83

"My Front Yard at Magundy"
6"x8", Mixed Media
(Gouache)
sold
Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty, if only we have the eyes to see them.
John Ruskin 1819-1900


Note:  for those of you who don't know where I live.  We have an acreage on the Magundy River which runs out of the Pelly Mountains off the South Canol and meanders along for many miles  and makes its way to Little Salmon Lake.  Our house is built 60 metres from the Magundy River on 8 acres of land in the forest. Our lane is about a km long and is off the Robert Campbell Highway about 30 Km from Faro. I have often said that I could spend rest of my life painting around where I live and never run out of inspiration 



Post & Beam, Piece on Piece (Squared Log Home)
My husband built 

The Country behind our Place 
We were on a two day hike when this photo was taken

The Magundy River out our front door

Wednesday 21 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #82

"Dancing with the Moon"
5"x5", Acrylic
SOLD

 It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done.
From The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to his Brother, 
1872-1886 

Tuesday 20 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #81

" Cliffs and Pond Near Magundy"
5"x7", Mixed Media
sold
I spent from 12:30 to 8:30 tonight ( with a break for dinner) at the Local Recreation Centre with the youth of Faro making watercolour Christmas Cards.  I love watching children paint.  They are very spontaneous and don't think about making mistakes. It was amazing all the different cards they made.  We used transparent yellow, rose, and pthalo blue and had angels and reindeer and  Spruce trees.   We sprinkled salt on the wet paint to make snow and stars
I loved working with the watercolour again.  I was exclusively a watercolourist for years.
There is watercolour in the above painting and it didn't take very long.  Needless to say it has been a very long day!

"The pursuit of truth and beauty is a
sphere of activity in which we are
permitted to remain children
all our lives."
- Albert Einstein
~


Monday 19 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #80

"Pond Reflections at Magundy"
5"x7", Acrylic

"If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing."
Marc Chagall

Sunday 18 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #79

"Lower Blind Creek Road, Faro Yukon"
6"x8", Acrylic
SOLD

If you drive down the Blind Creek Road you come to a steep section where it drops off on the one side and the sandstone cliffs are on your other side.  I think this is a really lovely spot.  The moose like it too!

"Nature is the art of God eternal
"
Dante 1265-1321

Saturday 17 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #78

"Sunset at Blink Creek"
6"x8", Acrylic
Sold
I have done this scene in watercolour - this is a first in acrylic.
I have been very busy with the Christmas season upon us - I never thought of Christmas when I planned this project.  If I start one next fall I will start in September!!

Friday 16 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #77

"Pond at Magundy from the lane"
6"x8", Acrylic
Sold
"Winter is on my mind
 but eternal spring is in my heart.
"
Victor Hugo 1802-1885



Thursday 15 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #76

"Magundy Valley looking to Atherton"
4"x4", acrylic
"The forces of nature are huge, and we are tiny, and in the mountains it's easier to remember this.... I live in, or rather below, the mountains for two basic reasons: because I think the mountains are one of the last huge and wild and magnificent things we have left in this country, one of the last few things we have not yet, in places, grasped and squeezed and sculpted into some unrecognizable, and diminished, shape - a landscape, therefore, in which possibility still exists."
- Rick Bass, Why I Came West




Wednesday 14 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #75

"Evening Approaches on the Magundy"
4"x4", Acrylic
SOLD

Ice and water, again.  I really like the play of these two elements in a painting.  
It is hard to be objective with your own work but I think my brush work has loosened up since I started this 100 paintings in 100 days.  My work is not as controlled.
I am three quarters of the way done.  Wow!  I don't know what it  will feel like when I am finished.  I know that I will start another project but not sure what yet.  I have a show in March at Yukon Artists at Work so I will begin preparing for this.

"What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet."
~Gerard Hopkins

Tuesday 13 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #74

"Sunset At Fox Lake"
6"x6", Acrylic
SOLD
"Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty, if only we have the eyes to see them."
John Muir
\

Monday 12 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #73

"Pelly Mountains from Blind Creek Trail "
6"x6", Acrylic
sold
Last fall, my friend Yasmine and I went for a hike along a beautiful ridge not far from their Farm.  I love the way the aspens grow stunted and twisted along the side of cliffs.  We could see the valley all along the trail this was in late September.

"Nature has given to every time, place and season, splendours of its own."
Unknown

Sunday 11 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #72

"Pond on Mitchell Road #3"
6"x8", Oil Pastel
sold

This is my second day in Whitehorse and I have brought some supplies with me from Faro so I could complete my painting today.  I Christmas shopped all day and went out to dinner and came back to the hotel and launched in.  I am really tired. I asked my son what he thought - he's seen better.  I have to agree, I guess they all can't be masterpieces.
Good Night!



Saturday 10 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #71

"Ketza River Valley #2"
6"x6", Acrylic
Sold
Some of you may recognize this place from a few days ago.  I did an oil pastel of the same place.  I wanted to try the same scene in acrylic.  I am not sure which one I like. I find the pastel was much softer.

"Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance."
                    
                   Samuel Johnson

Friday 9 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #70

"Far End of Fisheye Lake"
6"x6", Acrylic
sold
I am experimenting with painting the mist on the water.  I like the effect.  I was reading a painter's newsletter that I subscribe to the Painters Keys by Robert Genn.  It talked about how artists that use a lot of photo reference end up with paintings that look stiff and like a photograpsh.  I have been using a lot of photo reference due to the fact that it is, on average, -20 Celsius and time constraints.  I love using a good photo as a reference.  I take a lot of them myself and get permission to use others.  I think it is a good tool as long as the painter does not get too caught up in copying exactly. 

Thursday 8 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #69

"Moonlit Pelly Valley"
6"x6", Acrylic
*Sold*
"All my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name." 
Andre Breton

Wednesday 7 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #68

"September - Pond on the Mitchell Road"
6"x8", Acrylic
sold
For those of you who have been following - a few days ago I did this same pond ( with the ice and water) but looking the other way.  This is looking up towards the Campbell Highway.  It was a really beautiful morning when I was at the pond and I love it when the mist forms on those cool September mornings and yes it is a sunrise. 

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.
Helen Keller


Tuesday 6 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #67

"Fall on the Magundy"
6"x8", Oil Stick

I received my new set of Oil sticks made by Paul deMarrais of Tennessee.
  The colours are fantastic but I think I am going to have to practice a bit as they are quite soft. I really enjoyed workiing with them tonight.  Paul even made a new colour for me  called "Jackie's Yukon Gold"
I hope I can become as skilled as him in the use of these oil sticks.

I am once again in Faro, I started this painting after unpacking the car and putting everything away and having a little bite to eat.  The roads were pretty good.  A bit icy in spots but the Klondike and Campbell highways were all plowed - it is full-blown winter again.  When the temps go above zero and everything starts melting in December - us Yukoners get a little nervous because we know it spells trouble when everything inevitably ices over again.



"A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman.



George Bernard Shaw


Monday 5 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #66

"Early Fall at Ketza  River Valley"
6"x8", Oil Pastel
sold
I am amazed that I actually was able to do my daily painting today.  I was ready to leave Whitehorse today but when my son and I left the hotel it was raining at 8:30 am and it was plus 4.   By 11am it was -8 and we were in a full-blown blizzard.  I went to Yukon Artists at Work and visited for a few hours and after listening to a number of highway closures  and seeing the blowing snow - I decided to stay another day.  I do not have my paints with me so I had to buy a small canvas and a small box of oil pastels and the following piece resulted.  For some reason I could not crop the picture because I borrowed my friend's camera to take the picture but hey!  I am happy I was able to complete and post painting number 66. Hopefully the roads are plowed and 
it is decent enough to travel tomorrow.


Sunday 4 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #65

"Pond on Winter Evening"
6"X6", Acrylic
sold
 Photographer, Robert Postma has a winter scene with these colours in it.  Some of you may recognize it.  I did not copy the picture but the colours - my tribute to Robert's  gifted ability to capture the most beautiful and vibrant colours.  I wouldn't think to actually use this for a winter sunset but as soon as I saw this combination I instantly loved it. 

"Be soft in your practice. Think of the method as a fine silvery stream, not a raging waterfall. Follow the stream, have faith in its course. It will go its own way, meandering here, trickling there. It will find the grooves, the cracks, the crevices. Just follow it. Never let it out of your sight. It will take you...."
Sheng-yen
  

Saturday 3 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #64

"A Yukon Pond"
6"x8", Acrylic
*sold*
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion." 
On Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau

I am not sure why the orange tones in the background show up so strongly when you look at the photo of this painting because it is not this bright in real life.  This pond is across the highway from our place on the Robert Campbell Highway. It is very beautiful when you have the snow but the pond isn't frozen over yet.

Friday 2 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #63

"Snowy Alders"
6"x6", Acrylic

Another piece with lots of  texture and molding paste.  I know this is not as colourful as a lot of my paintings but I had an idea in mind.  I underpainted the whole canvas with brown and then added the white mixed with molding paste  and scratched out the trees. It looks three dimensional in real life.  I love the impressionists' works and this echoes their style somewhat. 

“All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.” ― Eckhart Tolle

Thursday 1 December 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #62

"Fiery Red & Gold Autumn"
6"x6", Acrylic
sold
Yukoners will know that this is the Dempster fall colours.  I have never been yet and I have lived in the Yukon for 13 years.  I flew to Inuvik in 2009 for the Great Northern Arts Festival but would love to drive the Tombstone area and the Dempster some day- it's like another world.
"So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land."
Peter Pan
James M. Barrie 






Wednesday 30 November 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #61

 "Dawn's Promise"
6"x8", Acrylic
Sold
 "Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark."
Rabindranath Tagore




Tuesday 29 November 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #60

"Pond Near Faro"
6"x6", Acrylic
sold
I have done a painting of this pond in watercolour.  I really like the location and it is just off the Mitchell Road near Tintina Subdivision, outside of Faro. There is a little skiff of ice on the pond.  I love painting ice and water together - I hope I captured it.

When was the last time you spent a quiet moment just doing nothing - just sitting and looking at the sea, or watching the wind blowing the tree limbs, or waves rippling on a pond, a flickering candle or children playing in the park?

Monday 28 November 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #59

"Midnight Moon"
6"x8", Acrylic
sold
This is another piece with molding paste mostly in the foreground.  I used the sgraffito technique again.  I use a a palette knife to scratch into the surface and create all the lines for the willows.  
"O wild and wondrous midnight,
There is a might in thee
To make the charmed body
Almost like spirit be,
And give it some faint glimpses
Of immortality."
~James Russell Lowell, Midnight

Sunday 27 November 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #58



"Golden Autumn at Magundy"
6"x8", Acrylic
SOLD

Our lane at Magundy is almost a kilometre long.  It is nice to go for a walk in the morning or evening - it is ever changing.  In the spring it is lined with Lupins and then come the wild roses and then the fireweed and in the fall you have the glorious yellows from the aspens.  "My little piece of heaven"

Saturday 26 November 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #57


"Northern LIghts"
6"x8", acrylic
Sold
It has been a very long day.  The Ladies Tea was a success. The grads raised lots of money and it took me quite awhile to do this piece and I am very tired.  Good Night!


"The future depends on what we do in the present."
Mahatma Gandhi

Friday 25 November 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #56

" Kluane Autumn"
6"x8", Acrylic
sold
Another imagination piece - I have been to Haines Junction a few times in the fall and the colours are breathtaking and they have such beautiful mountains.
I have a very busy day ahead as I am preparing for the Church Ladies Tea in Faro. My daughter is a grad and they have a table and the Church needs baking and I am going to have a table with some of my paintings there.
To Do: Make Chili, Broccoli and Cheese Soup, Bake: Lemon Iced Cookies, Shortbread, Lemon Raspberry Cake and make lots of labels signs and .......
Anyway I'm hungry now so I did my painting early today because I knew  I won't have time tonight.
"For it is in Giving that we Receive"
St. Francis of Assisi

Thursday 24 November 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #55

"The Lane at Magundy"
5x5, Acrylic
sold
I felt like painting without looking at any reference material so I painted from memory.
I asked my daughter what she thought of the painting and she asked me if it was the lane at Magundy. This made me feel happy and became the name of this painting.  
  

Wednesday 23 November 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #54

Northwestel Road - Looking to Little Salmon
6"x8", Acrylic
Photo Credit:  Bettina Simon
SOLD
An artist  must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language.
Henri Matisse

Tuesday 22 November 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #53

"Northwestel Road by Little Salmon Lake"
6"x8" Acrylic
Photo Credit: Bettina Simon
SOLD

There is a Telephone Tower at the top of this Road it is a four wheel drive road.  Very steep in  some spots but the views are spectacular.  You can see all the way down Little Salmon Lake and you can see Rose Mountain in the distance.  You are in the alpine so in the fall the colours are spectacular. My husband and I have gone on day trips to the top - we usually ride our quad up the trail and then hike when we are at the top. I will be doing some more paintings of this area in the days ahead.

Monday 21 November 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #52

"Driving to Little Salmon"
6"x8", Acrylic
Photo Credit: Bettina Simon
sold

Faroites will recognize this section of highway as you approach Little Salmon Lake.  
Driving around Little Salmon there are lots of twists and turns and I have seen some spectacular sunsets along this stretch.  



"Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon

Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the landscape;
Twinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest
Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together." 
Evangeline- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow







Sunday 20 November 2011

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #51

Moon and  a Yukon Burn, 
6"x8", Acrylic on Canvas
sold
I would like to give photo credit to fellow blogger 
and Yukon Photographer Nicholas Dory.
I recently e-mailed him and asked if he would mind if I used his photos for reference and inspiration and he graciously agreed - Thank you Nicholas. 
His photo is very much like this minus the moon.
It is very cold today - 37 in F or C - both the same at these low temperatures. I picked this subject with the cool blues and moon because it makes me think of cold.
"The night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand."
Frederic Lawrence Knowles

Saturday 19 November 2011

Guest Artist: Catherine McCann

Title: Yukon River at Eagle Rock
Medium: Acrylic
Size: 8x10

Title: The Road Less Travelled
Medium:  Acrylic
Size:  8x10

Catherine is an artist living in Faro as well, she works in many mediums - oil, encaustic, pen and ink and has recently delved into acrylics.  I really enjoy our coffee time as we discuss in great detail the artistic process and exchange lots of ideas.
Photo Credit: Herve deRibaucourt
(Doctors Without Borders)

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #50

Title:  Looking to Rose Mountain: Sunshine Trail
Medium: Acrylic
Size: 6x8
Photo Credit:  Horst Berlow
sold
Up behind the Faro Mine there are some phenomenal hikes and I love the colour of the underbrush.  There  are such brilliant reds, oranges and yellows.  We may not have brilliant red maples but we have aspen, bearberry, willow, cranberry, fireweed and lots more. 
Our autumn is incredibly beautiful and fleeting.

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." 
 ~Albert Camus