I put this aside for a little while while I worked on some Ontario scenes, but I had some time to return to Calgary over the last week. It's still not done, but there are some more details and colour in. I'm still having fun with it, which is the important part! Carol
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I had to think about how to portray this spot for a long time. How can rush hour at a busy intersection surrounded by high noise-reducing earthen berms and a nondescript shopping mall inspire me? I tried lots of vantage points - standing on the corner, standing on the other corners, standing on the median between west-bound lanes and the turn lanes, from the mall parking lot looking down at the road, from the top of the berm on the southeast corner, along the bike path, a view of the mall from the top of the berm .... But then I became fascinated by the patterns of the vehicles entering, crossing, turning, exiting. It seemed as if the intersection was a pile of cars, trucks, buses, all heading in different directions and about to collide.
And then I saw the bike rider braving the onslaught of endless columns of fast moving metal. Here we have all kinds of traffic on the Trans-Can - private vehicles with drivers heading home in the afternoon, commercial ones making late-day deliveries, school buses carrying kids, and a boy on a bike who reminded me that it's people who live in the city and along the road, and people who use the road to go from place to place and city to city. This scene could be anywhere and everywhere, but it's in Calgary that I saw it. And, like the edge of the prairie that Calgary occupies, this is a scene that stretches out horizontally, with folks on the move across it. And I'm having a lot of fun bringing it into the project. Carol We have been absorbed in our Trans Canada project, painting and travelling for a good sixteen months now. Other events have occurred during that time that are milestones as well. I have gained two grandchildren during this time, my last one arriving just a week ago. I have travelled six hours to help out the new parents for a few days, and while the baby sleeps, and hopefully the Mom and Dad get caught up on badly needed "Zzzzzzz's", I am gridding a new canvas to be painted when I get back to Saskatoon. Of course, I have spent a lot of time just holding and enjoying this new person in my arms.
I wonder if a style can come from discovering a favourite brush? I have certainly found two in my toolkit that I am thoroughly enjoying these days. I counted on one of them when setting out to create this piece..... ALL THAT GREEN!!!!!! It caused me to ask myself, "How do I do justice to all the different tints and tones? How do I separate them and have them make sense on a flat canvas?" I leaned heavily on my recently rediscovered fan brush.
The colours in this view captivated me. In reality, they are definitely NOT as bold as in my painting, but my paints wouldn't allow me to calm the colours down and finally, after a few attempts, I just went with it. |
Carol Loeb
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