Sturdy Roots - Strong Foundations

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Blue Atlas Cedar at St. Ann’s Academy

Watercolour and crayon

©2012 Charlene Brown

On the occasion of the 150^th Anniversary of the founding of the City of Victoria, ‘Artistic Renderings of the Heritage Trees at St. Ann’s Academy National Historic Site’ were requested.  We each picked whatever tree or trees we’d like to paint, a process which took way longer than I expected.  They have a wonderful arboretum from which to choose, and I finally selected the Blue Atlas Cedar, described in their Botanical Guide as ‘Native of Africa, conifer. Very popular as an ornamental garden tree, it features silvery blue needles and cones up to 10 cm in length.’  It’s absolutely beautiful, but I think I should mention it would only be suitable for huge ornamental gardens.

Painting with the Al Frescoes at the Chinese Cemetery

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Feng Shui

Watercolour and gouache

©2012 Charlene Brown

This was going to be the outing where I completed a painting that included the other people in our group… but they just didn’t line up properly with the obligatory mountain background and the grave markers I wanted to include in my picture.

What did line up was the cemetery itself, the site having been chosen for its excellent Feng Shui. It is flanked by the Azure Dragon, Qinglong, to the east and by the White Tiger, Baihu, on the west, and embraced by the Living Water, Shengshui, of Juan de Fuca Strait and Gonzales Bay, Those who are buried here command a Grand Hall, Mingtang, in front and face a distant Worshiping Mountain Range, Chaoshan, the Olympics.

Virtual Paintout in Tasmania

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Cockle Creek Road

Watercolour

©2012 Charlene Brown

The Virtual Paintout is in Tasmania this month.  I have a painting of Lake Oberon in the Western Arthur Range on my website, Paint Every Mountain, so I looked in that spectacularly beautiful part of the state for a Google Streetview first of all. I soon discovered, however, that the Google camera car didn’t make it south of Scotts Peak Road. So I went looking for more accessible spots and found this lovely Streetview of Cockle Creek Road on the coast only about 50 kilometres southwest of Hobart. Here is a link to it.

Adding people (at a safe distance) to a painting

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Painting at Willows Beach

Watercolour

©2012 Charlene Brown

Whenever I’m painting with a group, I’m fascinated by the painters who can incorporate the people around them, including the Roving Art Critics, into their pictures. Katherine Tyrrell does this a lot and does it very well, so I decided to have another look at her article about sketching people … and was particularly encouraged by a couple of things she said not to do:

• “Don’t draw faces. If people can't be identified they can neither object nor can they be upset if your drawing of them isn't flattering.”  Katherine simply concentrates on getting the bodies and posture looking right… to which I would add clothing – it’s pretty easy to get that looking approximately right.
• “Don’t assume they'll be annoyed. I've had people (approach me) more than once to see how the drawing of them turned out.” That’s easy for her to say, you might be thinking, because her drawings always turn out beautifully…

But she’s right! Even other artists, who could probably do it better, got a kick out of recognizing their hat or something in my picture. Admittedly, I only began this drawing while on location at Willows Beach – actually completing a painting with people in it will be the next big step in the Drama of Painting Plein Air.