Last Thursday we had a special guest at life drawing at Santa Fe Gallery...Garry Hamilton who is the CSPWC Regional Director for Quebec. Garry stopped by my place on a vacation on the Bruce Peninsula and I invited him to join us. Garry works directly in watercolour over a loose ( and beautiful ) pencil sketch and made several small watercolour studies that evening. It was great to watch him work. I have posted one photo of his sketches.
Thenthe next day we decided to meet for some en plein air painting so I took Garry up to one of my favourite places to paint here on the peninsula - Halfway Log Dump. It is a magical place that I have painted several times. We had a successful day of painting and good weather. It was a real pleasure to spend time painting with such an accomplished watercolourist. I have posted a pic from Halfway Log Dump too. Dont be fooled by its name, it comes from the fact the loggers used to dump logs over the cliffs down to the shore for boats to pick up.

This past winter, I was feeling like painting something totally different so my 2 dogs, Holly and Brinkley, became my subjects. I also switched to acrylic on canvas for these.  Most are 6x6in.

Thursday evenings a few of the area artists meet at the Santa Fe Gallery in Owen Sound and do some life drawing. Some nights we have a nude, some we have a costumed model. All are interesting and challenge our skills.

This was a 20 minute pose so I had to scramble a bit since I tend to draw slowly. I used a 8B pencil and am drawing of newsprint.

I will post some of the other artists' work too, some very nice work being done!

This is by Patti Waterfield.  Interesting view with Carl in the background.

I just delivered this painting, Primordial Mound, watercolour, 22x30 inches, to Riversong Gallery, Neustadt, Ont, for an exhibit of the art for the 2014 Art Map Calendar Images. Opening reception is Aug 3, 2014, 2:00 to 4:00pm.

It is one of my large pieces where I begin with a detailed pen and ink drawing, then pour saturated watercolour over the drawing (very scary!), then finish with a brush in traditional manner. Ive posted a few photos of the steps below.

Below is the finished pen and ink drawing. It was done on 200 lb Saunders Waterford watercolour paper with a Sakura 01 Pigma pen (archival and waterproof ink). 

And after is the first pouring of watercolour. I continued with several more saturated pours, drying in between, then finished with a brush. I'm using a palette to start of French Ultramarine, Cerulean Blue, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Permanent Rose, and  Cobalt.