This past Sunday, I went to the Jack Bush retrospective at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. I loved the show, primarily because the paintings were so bright and colourful. My favourite paintings were called the "Sash" paintings, which he did in the mid-1960s. When I went home, I decided to try some drawings in the style of these Sash paintings.
This is my first effort. I discovered that it is not easy to imitate a Jack Bush Sash painting. His colours and shapes and lines worked so well together. But I had fun trying.
This is my second attempt. I was imitating one of my favourite of his paintings, called "Tight Sash". Again, I found it really difficult to replicate what he had done with his work - the almost perfect composition of colour and shape.
Here is a photo of Bush's "Tight Sash", from a National Gallery brochure. Isn't it amazing? I really liked Bush's work when I looked at the paintings, but I have even more respect for it now that I have tried doing the same sort of thing myself. Anyway, it is a good show - highly recommended.
I was off work sick today - very bad cold in my chest. At one point I had to go out to the pharmacy to get more supplies to keep my cold under control and I walked through the Byward Market in Ottawa. The farmers' market was a mass of beautiful autumn colours!
Everywhere I looked, there were stacks of produce coloured orange, russet, brown - perfect for the first day of Autumn.
This table full of gourds was amazing!
It wasn't very warm out (only about 17 degrees Celsius) but there were lots of people milling about. I bet most of them were just like me - enjoying the wonderful sights and colours of the market.
Isn't this display of peppers wonderful? Almost makes up for the fact that summer is over.
It seems like ages since I spent time in my studio. The summer always presents a lot of distractions - like gardening and mowing grass and just lounging on the porch. But two weekends ago, I managed to get back in the studio again, and it was so much fun.
I had taken a photograph earlier this summer when out walking through a park, and there were such wonderful colours in the landscape I really wanted to try painting it. I started with a super rough sketch, just plotting the position of things and having fun with the underpainting.
A week later, I worked on it again, softening some things and sharpening others. Again, it was a lot of fun. It still needs a lot of work but I think I will keep going. Life would be so boring without colour, wouldn't it?
On the last Saturday of August, the intrepid members of FEH (Fran-Evlyn-Holly) set off into the Park to create another "found materials" installation. This was the 3rd installation we have set up. The first one was an assemblage of various things we found on site - I blogged about it earlier this summer. The second involved making a woven sculpture using branches, grasses and vines. For the third one, we decided to do something quite different.
Our intention was to make garlands using vines and other plants. We found a great spot for this, then Holly and Fran and I began collecting things we could use. We kept finding more and more interesting plants and got excited whenever we saw something that we thought would look great in our creations.
We collected rushes and goldenrod and asters and a beautiful flower which I think is called Joe Pye Weed.
Fran began assembling her garland using this rock as a table.
We approached the making of our garlands in different ways. Holly made a wreath. It was fun to see the variations in the way we created our works.
I used a really long thick piece of vine and wound many plants and rushes around it. Holly helped me hang it between some branches on a couple of trees near the path.
Fran attached her garland to one end of mine and looped it to another tree branch. We continued to add more plants and wove more flowers into them.
The finished garlands were fabulous. I had to have my picture taken, standing behind my creation. I think we were channelling our inner Druids this day!
Holly decided she wanted to float her wreath on the water. There was a pond near the path and that's where she launched it. It looked so beautiful among the water plants. What a terrific day - we were very pleased with our creations.
Because I live in the country and the city, I get to experience the pleasures of both. Some things are the same in both places, but with little differences. For example, I have outdoor balconies at both my city apartment and at my country house. This is my country balcony (a deck, really). It is spacious, surrounded by trees, and has a view of my garden. It is very private and there are no people around, just a lot of birds (especially hummingbirds, who come right up to say hi to me) and the occasional small wild animal.
This is the balcony at my city apartment. Unlike the deck at my country place, it is very small, up high, and looks out over a city street with cars and buildings and people walking by. I enjoy sitting in the sun on both balconies and appreciate their similarities and differences. I like to think that there are lovely simple pleasures like this no matter where we live!
Last Saturday, I went to the wonderful country home of my friends, Bonnie and Greg, for dinner. We sat outside at this table. Isn't it beautiful? We decided that it looked like a scene from Tuscany. What a fabulous way to enjoy dinner on a gorgeous summer evening.
Just this past June, the people I work with set up an office pool for the FIFA World Cup. I was asked if I would like to participate and I said "Sure", not thinking very much about it. I don't watch sports and know nothing about Soccer (or Football, or Hockey, or Basketball, or anything like that). So I put in my money and made my picks and didn't pay attention after that. Well - lo and behold - I WON! I got the highest score! Wow! People in my office were as surprised as I was. Just last week, they took me out to a victory lunch and gave me my winnings. They also presented me with this fabulous little whistle, shaped like a soccer ball.
So here I am, holding my victory whistle!
A couple of blasts and everyone pays attention. This is going to be fun!
I decided to try it out on one of my colleagues - Alex. I told Alex that he should work harder or I am going to blow the whistle on him! As you can see, he took it very seriously!
