Buffalo Jump Hills

Still playing with oils a bit.  This is a second go at this acrylic painting I did two years ago.  It's kind of recognizeable as hills now.

There's a few good things going with this picture, and a few other things I really ought to change.  Maybe I still will.  One can futz around with oils pretty much indefinitely if that's what floats one's biscuit.

Life Drawing

Last pose of the evening.  45 minutes, graphite.  I tried to work on my accuracy and drawing skills.  Some days it feels like I just can't draw at all.  Other days it feels like I can't draw because the model keeps moving. :/

Life Drawing

The weather sucks so it must be time to go back to figure drawing.  I thought I'd do some different things this time around.  I did all the gestures in ink or ink and marker.  Like all new things, most sucked and were not worth posting.  This turned out not too badly.

DSP - Three Wheels

I really wanted to draw a passenger leaning out of the car madly and futilely grabbing for the tire but I couldn't make it work within the 30 minute limit.

I apologize to the person whose canyon photo I referenced.  This picture is nothing but personal practice.

Fishing

Really just an excuse to stare at a lake.

Finally finished this one up.  Phew!

The Red Barn

All summer my guy and I trained to do a metric century bike ride. After trying out a couple of highway routes that proved to be absolutely awful for cyclists (no shoulder, shoulder that disappears, shoulder that exists on one side of the road but not the other, shoulder that is three inches wide and next to a curb... what kind of moron put a curb in on a secondary highway? Really now) we found one route that worked.

So as I've been riding on the overpass above this farm every week I've been staring at the barn thinking "OH GOD I'M GOING TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK hmmm... I should paint that thing. It looks nice. Would it be more of a quinacridone red or cadmium red middle? Shit here comes a pothole. Only 60 more kilometers to go!"

At the end of the summer I finally got out to paint the farm. It was very different painting it from the dirt road than looking at it from the highway overpass. Less spandex, for one. And many, many more thistles. After a pleasant afternoon of baking in the sun and sitting in a thistle patch, I tried out the huaraches at a food truck in a nearby town and then dragged this painting back to the studio, where I applied many changes to it. I think I'm finally having a breakthrough in painting.

Sketchcrawl - Bison Sculpture

After the Urban Sketchers group had lunch, a couple of us went back for another round of sketching.  We wanted to draw this crazy bison sculpture.  I don't know why I thought it would be a brilliant idea, in general trying to make art of other different art is a mistake.  Still, I'm glad I went back to get some more practice.

Sketchcrawl - Great Ape

Our Urban Sketchers group went to the Shaw Conference Centre the weekend after Hallowe'en.  While I was painting on the second level, a crew was preparing the hall behind me for some sort of party happening later that evening.  Eventually they dragged this plaster statue of King Kong (I assume) out of the hall and put it smack in the middle of the floor.  After I finished my watercolour sketch I had to draw the monkey.

Sketchcrawl - River Valley

Muttart Conservatory, painted from the Shaw Conference Center.  Now that I'm looking at it, it could have used some ink.

Oh well, all this stuff is still there, it's just covered in snow.  Next year I'll snap a photo and use this as the basis for a proper painting.

International Self-Portrait Day

Pencil crayon on paper.