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This afternoon was the first class in a 4-week watercolour course, on Saturdays, offered through the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. The artist-instructor started us off with a warm-up exercise, painting autumn leaves using a few different techniques. These included mixing colour on the page rather than on the palette, using an underpainting colour, creating neutral colours by mixing complementary colours, and more!
All are techniques that I've used in the past, but it's always interesting to see how different artists adapt these techniques to their own artistic styles. This one's unfinished, but I like the way that maple leaf came out.

Have you ever noticed the fantastic shadows created by leaves, on sidewalks and paved roads? I wanted to recreate some of those almost serrated shadows in a still life, so I collected an assortment of colourful  autumn leaves today, arranged them in a vase, and placed it on a table in full sun.
In this watercolour study, there was light coming in from two different windows - creating two distinct light sources. This is always a challenge to paint, and this case was no exception!
The light was hitting the vase and table from the left side, as well as - higher up on the vase - from the front.
This 8" x 10" study was enough to show me that this composition would be better with only one light source, as the shadows are somewhat confusing. The diagonal shadow one on the wall, from one of the  two window frames. doesn't make much sense in the composition.
I'll definitely plan to do this one as a full painting, as I adore the shadows of the leaves on the vase and off to the side... but these would look much better without the interference of that diagonal shadow intersecting the vase.

I was putting out the last of our Halloween decorations, and noticed that the late afternoon sun was casting some intriguing shadows off one of the rubber rats that I'd positioned on the steps leading to our door. These decorations are fairly lifelike little rodents, so I decided to draw it as a wildlife sketch - just for fun.
The rat's shadow moved quite a bit between when I started this sketch and when I finished it, so the shadow in my sketchbook doesn't quite match the shadow on the ground when I snapped the photo. If you look closely at the tail in my sketch, and then compare it with the tail's shadow in the photo, you'll see what I mean.
This was a lot of fun to do, and a lovely way to enjoy the gorgeous weather. 
Have a Happy Halloween, however you spend it!

This week I'm participating in an online watercolour workshop with Andy Evansen, an award-winning American artist. One of his most important lessons is that watercolour artists in particular need to view compositions in terms of shapes, to allow us to better reserve the light areas of our cotton-paper.
That's why I called this set of exercises: "Seeing shapes, not sheep".
Unlike in acrylic or oil painting, in which an artist can layer light colours over darks, the palest colours in a watercolour are the paper itself showing through. Once you've laid down pigment onto a watercolour surface, you can't make it paler. You can lift the pigment off, in limited areas, but that doesn't work well with staining pigments like the phthalo blues and greens that I adore.

This weekend I participated in a two-day watercolour workshop, virtually but live, with an award-winning local artist; Michael Solovyev. It was a lovely two days of art learning, with a few "quick practice" sessions. As Michael said, the goal of an art workshop is "to learn new techniques, not to paint a masterpiece".
I had trouble keeping up towards the end of the session each day, as always, because of my 'mild cognitive impairment'. A result of my rare disease, these cognitive issues include concentration, focus, and memory - particularly over sustained periods... like courses and workshops.
If you look closely at my sailboat, you'll notice that the hull and details aren't quite right; this was the last portion of the painting that we approached, and my brain simply wasn't able to process any more information by that point.
Despite that, I'm happy with this one overall; as an 11 x 15" learning experience, rather than as a painting!

If you're in the Montréal area, stop by the Kirkland Library to view the 2022 Autumn Art Expo. Presented by the Artists' Circle of the West Island, this free public art event will continue until October 1, 2022. The exhibition includes original paintings in acrylic, mixed media, oil, and watercolour, with a wide range of different artistic styles and techniques.

This afternoon, the group Artists in Montréal presented the Virtual Vernissage for the online exhibition "In my childhood". This art event was organized in partnership with the non-profit Make it Matter, for children's well-being. One of my watercolours was included in this eExhibition, a 10 x 8" Cedar waxwing in a shrub. It's a bird that we see only occasionally now, but there seemed to always be flocks of them nearby when I was a child.

I use my art to raise awareness of chronic pain, and this art-as-advocacy was featured in a Montréal newspaper in August 2022.
You can read this article, in The Suburban.
Or hop over to the Art Despite Pain page, to learn more about my patient advocacy activities and my rare disease!