Homage to Emily Carr

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Squamish

Watercolour and gouache

Charlene Brown

I recently entered a competition The Underlying Spirit, for artworks in all media produced as an homage to Emily Carr.  The Victoria College of Art entry guidelines included the statement, “In the same way Emily searched for the ‘underlying spirit’ in the landscapes, indigenous artworks, and people she painted, we are looking for entries that reflect that same  motivation in contemporary West Coast creators.” Focusing on the mention of ‘contemporary’ I began with a small sketch, ‘Rush Hour in Squamish’ with spectacular Mt. Garibaldi reflecting the last rays of the setting sun… but then I decided to go with something probably more to Emily’s liking, the same scene, but along the shoreline of Howe Sound before you get to Squamish.

Hand-painted postcards from round the World

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Hieroglyphic stairway at Copan

Watercolour and ink

©2011 Charlene Brown

This is the postcard I sent to Albrecht Rissler in Germany  – my July contribution to A Postcard from my Walk. I mailed it from the island of Utila in Honduras in late July and Albrecht received it about a month later.  I noticed when I read his write-up about it, his scan of the painting was much better than the photo I'd taken before I sent it (love the name he gave the file too -- Karte von Charlene) so I've used his file here. 

This painting shows some detail of the hieroglyphic stairway that was part of a painting of Copan I wrote about in August. 

There’s a new post every couple of days on the Postcard from my Walk blog, and the quality and variety of the artwork is fascinating! Have alook at the latest post.

Have you tried painting a themed series?

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Washington DC

Watercolour, ink and crayon

©2011 Charlene Brown

While deciding on what location to paint next in what I hope will become a fairly comprehensive series of paintings of Canada, I got to wondering what kind of a start I’ve made on a series of American landscapes…  Not much, as it turns out.

If I don’t include the American mountains that I slip into the backgrounds of as many of my Victoria paintings as I possibly can, I have only done 12 blog posts about American locations!  So here’s one more.
Have you given some thought to which of your paintings might be considered a start of a comprehensive series? Have a look -- you may be surprised!

Virtual Paintout in Fairbanks, Alaska and points north

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Koyukuk River crossing

Watercolour, crayon and CP

©2011 Charlene Brown

The Virtual Paintout is in Fairbanks, Alaska and points north this month. I spotted this mountain in Google Streetview from a spot on the Dalton Highway (North Slope Haul Road) northwest of Fairbanks, then switched to Google Map view to find some water for the foreground.  Just north of the Koyukuk River crossing looked like a pretty good bet… and it was! Here’s a link to it.

Keeping up with the kids

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Archaeological site at Copan, Honduras

Watercolour and crayon

©2011 Charlene Brown

The setting of Copan reminded me a little of Tehuacalco, a place I wrote about in A surprise near Acapulco   last year. Copan is far more extensive, with way more structures and stelae and huge, epiphyte-laden trees, whereas Tehuacalco was more spread out and less jungle-like. And it seemed easier to climb…  Of course, that may have been because at Tehuacalco we weren’t all trying to keep up with our grandkids!

Construction at Copan began in the 3^rd century C.E. (page 5 in Timeline - History of Design) and the corbelled arch, temple, hieroglyphic stairway, and ball court shown here were built in the 7^th and 8^th centuries. BTW, the hieroglyphic stairway is currently under a protective tarpaulin, making it tricky, but not impossible, to paint – it is pretty much impossible to photograph!

Hand-painted postcards from round the World

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Comox Glacier

Watercolour postcard

©2011 Charlene Brown

This is the postcard I sent to Alison Staite in London – my June contribution to A Postcard from my Walk. There’s a new post every couple of days on this blog, and the quality and variety of the artwork is fascinating! Have a look…
There’s still no sign of the postcards I sent from Honduras last month, but I am absolutely thrilled with the July postcard I received from Desiree in the United States – I talked about it here.

Day 2 on the reef, and a spectacularly paintable discovery

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Pico Bonito, as seen from the island of Utila

Watercolour, watercolour pencils and crayons

©2011 Charlene Brown

The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef extends from the northern tip of the Yucatan peninsula along the Mayan Riviera, past Belize and Guatemala to the Bay Islands of Honduras, Utila is the smallest of these islands.

The first painting I started on Utila focused entirely on what I could see of the coral beds looking down into the shallow water close to the shore (augmented by what I could remember of the underwater view I’d had during an inept couple of minutes of snorkeling.)

It wasn’t until the second morning we were on Utila that I discovered this stunning view looking back toward the Nombre de Dios (Name of God) mountains on the mainland of Honduras. They get a fair bit of rain on the mainland, so none of this was visible when we first arrived. Pico Bonito, on the right, is the tallest peak in this part of the range.

Coffee day on a Road Scholar inter-generational adventure

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A different sort of coffee truck

Watercolour and crayon

©2011 Charlene Brown

We’ve all heard great things about shade-grown coffee – well, here’s another one. If you’re going mountain climbing on a coffee plantation, a shady one can be wonderfully cool on a hot July day in Honduras! I should mention we didn’t actually climb up the mountain, but were taken up in the truck you see here (first coffee truck we’d ever seen with seating for 25). At the top the kids planted a couple of dozen coffee bushes, sort of ably-assisted by all of us grandparents – it couldn’t have taken us more than 10 times as long as the regular workers…  Then we climbed down 1143 steps carved into the steep slope, through a jungle ravine past lush coffee and flower gardens to the processing area, where we had a picnic of hot tamales and coffee (what else?) beside this waterfall.