Playing With Sharlene

Sharlene and I have known each other since 1976. We share a long personal history of synchronised tastes and art styles. Sometimes, with our earlier work, I can't tell who painted what without checking our signatures; they  themselves are similar; Saltiel, Stusnov. When we were young mothers, living closer to one another than we do now, we made art together. In recent times there have been only a couple of opportunities to paint side by side; in Beacon Hill Park (2007) and on Gabriola Island (2010).

 

In Sharlene's studio - happy to be creating together again  

 

Bill and I are spending February in Victoria, British Columbia. He is completely adept at entertaining himself playing tennis (yes, he's found a geezer group here to play with) photographing, scouring antique, book and other shops which gives me ample time to play with Sharlene in and out of her studio. She, and her husband Ray, have been pulling out all the stops extending their remarkable hospitality, entertaining, feeding and watering us!

 

 

Sharlene trying on an abstract style

The efforts of our first day - I'd started three before leaving home

Sharlene takes over on the Door

Sharlenes's delightful background before she handed it off to me

Day two

Sharlene continued in acrylics

I laced into the portrait using oils

 

Unexcited about how work our was progressing (above is how we left those two pieces) we allowed ourselves to be distracted. We went shopping for art supplies and mixed media toys. And now that the weather has turned, from grey and gloomy to glorious, the outdoors beckons ...

 

 



 

Historic Pendray House, home of the Coast Collective on the shore of the Esquimalt Lagoon  

Magnificent arbutus trees on Yellow Point, Vancouver Island

 

Sharlene and I may or may not get back to those collaborative paintings or her studio this month. We're not terribly bothered about it. We're secure in the knowledge that the future holds many more opportunities for us to work together!