Yellow Point Arbutus

There likely aren't many landscape painters who, having seen arbutus trees, are able to resist painting them. Certainly I cannot. The motivation behind this one was somewhat akin to, well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I am keen to get moved to Vancouver Island where these trees are plentiful. If the Universe insists on keeping us on the Alberta prairie I'll just paint the island landscape and consider it a form of visualization.

January 23rd, closing in on the finish of YELLOW POINT ARBUTUS in The Art Room at Linderman Law, Claresholm

        

It's been a few years (eight to be exact) since I've painted anything as large as this so it was time. In a most gentle fashion I worked on it for only a few hours in the afternoons for about three weeks. Here is the progression of my first painting of 2016 ...

Day one, I drew the arrangement of trees directly on the canvas using a brush and oils colours, burnt umber and burnt sienna 

Several days later it looked like this

I added the stick branch in the space on the right, but I didn't feel it enhanced the painting in any way so I removed it as well as the grasses in the bottom right ...

  

Only refinement to the foreground left to go



To me the beauty of this piece is in the intricate, dancing upper branches, the soft light of the leaves and gentle background. I could have happily stopped at painting just them but I felt the need to ground these exquisite trees which made the foreground necessary. It was this foreground that gave me the most grief, if I'm honest other paintings go this same route for me. It needed to remain in shadow, so as not to distract from the light above, and yet it had to have interest. Finally, exhausted from pushing paint around I had to say "Enough, it's finished!" ...

YELLOW POINT ARBUTUS   oil   24" x 36"

I have had opportunities to paint these trees en plein air as well as to portray them in other studio works. Many thanks to Tom and Mary for the time spent at their place on Yellow Point, a broad forested peninsula on Vancouver Island that juts out into the waters of Stuart Channel in the Strait of Georgia which is mostly undeveloped with some rural, country living. I scored the photographic reference for this painting while we were on a forest romp with them last February. You will find the photo here on this blogpost.

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!