A virtual trip home to Banff

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Banff from a different angle

Watercolour, crayon and ink

©2013 Charlene Brown

Here’s the result of a virtual paintout on Google Streetview. For a change, I carried it out without waiting for direction from The Virtual Paintout blog upon which I’ve been traveling around the world for three years now.  

And this time I knew all the best places to look, finally settling on this view, the fairly famous shot straight up Banff Avenue to Mt.Cascade combined with the view of the Banff Park Museum that you see if you turn the Google camera slightly to the left. This building, a National Historic Site, is designed in the ‘railway pagoda’ style favoured for rail station construction in the early twentieth century.

Virtual Paintout in Valparaiso

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Puerto Valparaiso

Watercolour, gouache and crayon

©2013 Charlene Brown

The Virtual Paintout is in Valparaiso, Chile this month, and I had some difficulty finding a really great view on Google Streetview. After some maneuvering, I finally came upon this appealing composition – more of a design than a landscape, really.  Here’s a link to it.  

It reminded me of a painting I wrote about in 2011 after a river cruise in Europe.  That painting was heavily influenced by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, so I let him have a go at Puerto Valparaiso as well.  

Another Twentieth Century Flashback

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Three Sisters

Watercolour and Photoshop™

©2013 Charlene Brown

Last week’s painting reminded me of a picture I painted in 1991 at a workshop led by California artist, Barbara Nechis.   

When I searched out that 1991 painting of the Three Sisters (shown on the left, below) I also found a floral painted at the same workshop.  The first was done as an exercise following Barbara’s demonstration of negative painting, the second after her demonstration of wet-in-wet painting.  I was asked why I had chosen to split the shading of the gradient on this second painting right in the middle.  Of course I couldn’t answer that as I hadn’t actually intended to do it that way.  But now I have my answer… it provides a nicely balanced overlay for the first painting (Photoshop Blending mode>Multiply>Opacity>70%).  The 2013 Three Sisters exists only on my computer.

Where these wild things aren't anymore

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His old stomping grounds

Watercolour and crayon

©2013 Charlene Brown

Moose have pretty much disappeared from the Bow Valley west of Calgary.  Some say they were susceptible to a parasite or disease carried by, but not as harmful to, the elk which overran the area during the 70s and 80s. Whatever the cause, they aren’t often seen in the area shown here, but can still be found in Kananaskis Country, a Provincial Park just to the south of these mountains.

I had originally intended to include a moose calf, or possibly twins, as they are among the most adorable of baby animals – all head and legs, held together by a tiny little body – but then recalled that I’ve never actually seen a bull moose and calf together… and I don’t think anyone else has either.  They’ll just have to be in a separate painting.

Where the wild things really are

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October on the Opabin Plateau

Watercolour and crayon

Charlene Brown

Unlike the polar bears on the Isle of Man that I painted last week, these Mountain Goats really belong in this location… much more so than the photographer, according to the looks on their little white faces.  I wish I had been that photographer, but in fact this painting is based on the October picture in the 2012 British Columbia Magazine calendar, credited to Maru Photography. 

When my daughters and I climbed to the Opabin Plateau in 2009, I sketched the surrounding mountains and plotted the locations on an interactive Google map of the area, but the only wildlife we saw was one tiny pika.

Virtual Paintout on the Isle of Man II

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Wildlife on Pulrose Road

Watercolour and crayon

©2013 Charlene Brown

 

I don’t usually do more than one Virtual Paintout picture a month, but I couldn’t resist adding this entry while the Virtual Paintout is on theIsle of Man…   It’s so completely unlike my other Isle of Man painting – or any other Isle of Man painting as far as I know. 

I really did find these bears there – on the side of a Graylaw Freight Group reefer truck. Check them out by clicking here... and if you turn the camera a little to the left you can see the rest of the truck.

Virtual Paintout on the Isle of Man

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Prospect Hill, Douglas

Watercolour

©2013 Charlene Brown

This month, the Virtual Paintout is on the Isle of Man, most of which is lovely, pastoral and easy to paint. For some reason I decided to head into town and take on some of the equally lovely (but nowhere near as easy to paint) architecture – and quickly got bogged down in detail.  

Speaking of which, I moved forward a bit to get a better look at the relative positions of some of the details on the church on the right…and was amazed to discover that, in the time it took to get across the street, someone had made off with all the flowers from the white building on the left! (Check out the Streetview I used for this painting compared to the view from about ten meters away) 

In my Streetview drives around various countries, I’ve noticed sequences like this before, usually manifesting as abrupt weather changes, and I think it’s great how Google manages to weave together pictures that were taken on different days, sometimes weeks apart.

The Plan for 2013

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Balboa Park II

Watercolour and crayon

©2013 Charlene Brown

Since launching this blog in January 2009, I have written 245 blog posts.

As I start the fifth year of 1150 Words, I hope to continue shifting from representational landscapes toward more stylized paintings. This second Balboa Park painting was started while I was still working on the picture I posted last week, and shows the area about half a block to the west.

I’m planning to continue travel journaling (and, of course, traveling) as much as I can.  So far I have just one definite plan for 2013, and that is to take my youngest granddaughter to Paris in late July. I’ll be doing some virtual traveling and painting on the Virtual Paintout  as well – to 12 destinations, all but the first of which (watch for it next week) are complete mysteries…

I will publish Plein air Painting: the drama as soon as I’ve completed converting it for Kindle Direct Publication, and it will be available on Amazon.