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

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

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!!

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

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

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

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

\

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

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!

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

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. 

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

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

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

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.

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

  

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.

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

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 

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

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?”

Ralph Marston

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

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"

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

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

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.  

  

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

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.

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

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

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

100 PAINTINGS IN A 100 DAYS #49

Title:  Evening Aspens

Medium: Acrylic

Size:6x6
sold

This is the true joy in life - being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.  ~George Bernard Shaw

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #48

Cliffs along the Pelly Valley

Medium: Acrylic

Size: 6x8
sold

It took me 5 hours to drive back from Whitehorse last night.  It was snowing and the wind was blowing but it wasn't a bad trip- I just took my time.  Unloading the car at the end is the worst part of it. And then putting everything away.  I ordered my new set of oil sticks.  This is my Christmas present to myself - I can't wait for them to come in the mail.

 I delivered 25 paintings to the Yukon Artists At Work and had a lovely visit with Harreson Tanner and his wife Pat.  Harreson is a gifted sculptor and really the founding father of YAAW.  I saw his newest and very beautiful clay mask which is going to the Tombstone Interpretive Centre.

A Quote for Harreson and Pat:

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a 

love letter to the world.  

~Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojarhiu)

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #47

Title: Northern Alpine Lake

Medium: Oil Pastel

Size: 5x7
sold

This piece is done totally from imagination.  I used oil pastel but not all pastels are equal I intend to buy some new oil sticks. I have an artist friend who hails from Kansas and he not only makes beautiful pastel paintings but also makes soft pastels and oil sticks (what a talented guy). When I get back to Faro I am going to order some.  If you would like to check him out his name is 

Paul deMarrais - he is a gifted colorist and you won't be disappointed.

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #46

Title:  Northern Lights

Medium:  Acrylic

Size: 6x8
Sold

I am driving into Whitehorse today and is the it is coldest day yet.  The temp is -26 but the sky is clear and no heavy snows so we should be good. I am taking 25 of the 46 paintings I have done thus far in the 100 in a hundred to YAAW, my gallery in Whitehorse. The return drive will be tomorrow.

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #45

Title: Faro from the Mine Road

Medium:  Acrylic

Size 6x8
SOLD

The Pelly Mountains and Tintina Trench would be the Valley area and technically you cannot see Faro.  There are some beautiful views if you drive all the way up to the mine and on the return trip it is downhill all the way with views of the Pelly Valley.

Thanks to  Dave Rogerson for the lovely photo reference.

Quote:

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it…Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

Goethe

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #44

Title:  Winter Sunset on Swim Lakes

Medium:  Acrylic

Size 6x8

Sold

Oh - I am back to sunsets!! 

I have been told by a lot of people that I should just paint sunsets.  

It was my specialty in watercolour - acrylic is relatively new to me and I find it challenging (and even frustrating) to get the effect I want but I persevere. Thanks to my friend Jasmine Djabri whose photo inspired this sunset.  

I love the dramatic and brilliant sunsets in the Canadian North. 

Quote for the Day:

"Practice makes perfect"

English Proverb

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #43

Title:  Alders on the Magundy

Medium: Acrylic

Size: 8x10
sold

Sometimes the Alder trees will retain their leaves for the whole winter.  When the sun hits them they glow a beautiful rusty orange colour. 

Makes for a nice complementary colour composition.  

Quote for the Day:  

A river sings a holy song conveying the mysterious truth that we are a river, and if we are ignorant of this natural law, we are lost.  

Thomas Moore

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #42

Title: Evening Sonnet

Medium: Acrylic

Size: 6x8

These are the kinds of paintings that I so enjoy doing.  First I mix some naples yellow with molding paste (lots!)  and lay it down on the canvas I use an old pencil and make lines and shapes and grooves.  I let it dry and then I start blobbing paint on the painting and I keep dabbing all the colours in until I get the effect I want and lots of texture.  This painting was of a memory when Jeff and I walked down our lane at Magundy and the sun was setting on the snow covered trees.  It was breath-taking. There is a painter whose work I really admire - his name is David Langevin and he does this style of painting - his colours just glow.

Quote for the Day:

“Wholly unprepared, we embark upon the second half of life… we take the step into the afternoon of life; worse still we take this step with the false assumption that our truths and ideals will serve as before.

But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning - for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie."

Carl Jung

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #41

Title:  The Far-End of Fisheye

Medium: Acrylic

Size 6x8

Fisheye Lake is about 10 Km from Faro on the Robert Campbell Hwy.  This is actually quite a good fishing spot and there is a beautiful little road that runs to the end of the lake. The water is really green at this spot.  I believe this is also a boat launch. 

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #40

Photo taken in daylight is above as opposed to photo of painting below

taken under artificial lighting at night. Big difference.

Title:  Spring Break-up on the Magundy

Medium: Acrylic

Size: 8x10

sold

Our acreage is along the Robert Campbell Highway about 30 km from Faro. 

Walking by the river in the spring is such a lovely time. The river opens up and you see the aqua water with bits of ice meandering along. There is a trail all along our property and it is my favourite place to walk.

Quote for the Day:

"Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?"

That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future."

From Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #39

Title: Aspens at Fisheye Lake
Medium: Acrylic
Size 6x8
SOLD


Tomorrow my autumn scene will be featured on the UK blog:
 art-landscape.blogspot.com 
for any of you who want to have a look.


Quote from Desiderata:
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. (in honour of Erica!)

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #38

Title: Deadfall - Magundy River Forest

Medium:  Acrylic

Size 8x10

sold

I love walking in the forest around my home in the bush - you see see little scenes like this all over the place and I find this really beautiful.   I suppose some people would want to firesmart all this dead underbrush as it could be a fire hazard but I think of the little squirrels and a male spruce grouse strutting his stuff on top of that log. Nature replenishes my spirit and is a necessity for my painting process.

Quote for the Day:

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it

took to blossom.

Anais Nin

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #37

Title: Pond - Robert Campbell Highway

Medium:  Acrylic

Size: 5x7

Sold

I am always a little tired after the weekend as my teenagers stay up so late - I tend to do the same.  Gone are the days when you put the kids to bed at 7 or 8pm and have

the rest of the evening to yourself.  But having my teens around makes me feel younger!  I know the top 20 songs and I can see what's in and what's not!!

I know one thing: I would never want to go back - I am very happy being in the stage of life and age that I am. I finished my painting last night at 11:30 pm.  I tend to start painting later on the weekends.  What really works well is if I start my painting 1st thing in the morning and then I can finish it off in the early afternoon.

Quote for the Day: 

"I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity"

 Albert Einstein

100 PAINTINGS IN 100 DAYS #36

Title: Aspen Glow

Medium:  Acrylic

Size: 8x10

sold
Quote for the Day:

For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin- real life.

But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first,

some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid.

At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

This perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness.

Happiness is the way.

So treasure every moment you have and remember that 

time waits for no one.

Happiness is a journey, not a destination...

Souza

These Aspens are growing along the trail that leads to the Far End of
 Fisheye Lake near Faro Yukon.

It was September so this is a classic  autumn scene.  In regards to Autumn - there is a blog that I follow called the Art of Landscape; it is the UK's third  most popular blog out of the top 25 Blogs list.  The Author is now inviting artists to submit their fall scenes to be shown daily on a Feature that is called "Seasonal Changes" . I have submitted my October 6 (Day 6 in a "100 in a 100") and it was accepted and will be posted next Wed (Nov. 9)
To view :  art-landscape.blogspot.com