Author Archives: Elizabeth Gaye MacDonald

Paint Dexter Plein Air Festival 2014

20 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Art, Event, Landscape, Oil, Oil painting, Plein Air, Urban City Scape

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I am very happy to announce that my painting “Paint Your Wagon” was awarded 2nd prize in the Quick Paint catagory at the Paint Dexter Plein Air Festival by the 2014 awarding Judge,

 


I painted 4 paintings during the week, and started on a commission. I could have painted more except we had rain Monday and Tuesday. I painted 3 evenings on Nocturne paintings. First time ever for a nocturne and it was loads of fun, except it was freezing cold in the 50’s.

The most exciting part is that all 5 of my paintings from the week (commission included) SOLD!!!  What an incredible week!  I had so much fun.  It was also a grueling week.  Standing  from 8 A.M. until Midnight at my age is quite painful and exhausting, but I survived.  We had some real cold weather where the temperatures dropped into the 50’s.  I chose to paint a nocturne, and I got a commission while painting it, so I ended up painting in those cold conditions for three nights in a row.  I developed laryngitis, but thankfully I got my voice back quickly.  The voice probably was from talking as well.  There were a lot of visitors to my easel.  One gentleman brought me pizza while I was painting at night!  It was YUMMY!  Dexter has great pizza.

Painting and Sketching at our Cabin

09 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by in Art, Graphite, Julia Kay's Portrait Party, Landscape, Oil, Oil painting, Plein Air, Portrait, Sketch, Watercolour

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We spent a week up at our cabin. It was just my husband and I.  Usually my sister and brother are there too.  We lost my sister to cancer in February, and my brother is traveling across the U.S. in his Bluebird Wander-lodge R.V.  It was hard not having them there.  My sister and her hubby usually parked their toy hauler trailer next to ours and we would have coffee together every morning.  August 3rd marked 6 months since she passed.  My brother in law held a memorial motorcycle ride for her back in Colchester.  I wish I could have been two places at once.

It was a miracle I got any painting or sketching done.  We’d not been up yet this year, so the first few days were spent waging war on the mice and their mess.  They are disgusting, and there is just no way to keep them at bay.  They will find a way in no matter what preventive measures you make.

I played at doing portraits on my tablet, but I’m not really ready to share any of that yet.  I did a pencil sketch portrait from the Julia Kay Portrait Party group.  A small plein air watercolour,  and an oil painting of the rifle river.

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Visiting Margaret

17 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by in Art, Flowers, Plein Air, Sketch, Urban City Scape, Watercolour

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Mary and I went to visit our friend Margaret today.  Margaret is the co-founder at the Windsor & Essex County Plein Air Society.  She and I founded the group back in 2009.   She’s been laid up with a broken leg for over 6 weeks, and we all miss her.

I first got the watercolours out after having them tucked away since fall.  The pot was sitting in the shade, and lack of sun made it difficult to give it depth.  I should have put a cast shadow in, but I forgot.  Oh well.  It was just a quick sketch.  You always see your mistakes once you photograph your work.  I don’t go back in and fix my plein air paintings in the studio.  Why?  Discipline.  My mistakes will glare at me and hopefully make me get out of bad habits.

I also brought along my vintage Sheaffer fountain pen to try out. Everything was going swimmingly, until I tried to add watercolour. OOOPS!! The ink was not waterproof. So… I rescued the sketch by washing the ink. It was fun. Need some waterproof ink though.  There is no one who sells it around here, so I will have to go online and have it shipped in.  That of course raises the price beyond reasonable.  *sigh*  … and people wonder why artists charge so much for their work.

Ambassador Bridge at McKee Park

14 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by in Art, Landscape, Oil painting, Plein Air, Urban City Scape

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Had a lovely sunny day on Monday July 14th.  I found some more 8″ x 8″ canvas’.  I’m really liking the small square format.  Unfortunately, McKee Park is over run with Canada Geese.  They are quite bold, and will hiss at you.  I shooed them away, but geese can be quite aggressive.  My brother was attacked by domestic Geese when he was in his teens.  They left huge blood blisters all over his legs.  I was trying to eat my sandwich and they had me surrounded!  While I was painting, quite a few people came down and fed them entire loaves of bread.  Bread is not good for them.  People… don’t feed the geese!  Not only does it make them un-afraid of humans, they make a mess of our parks with their poop.  Did you know that one goose can poop out 1.5 POUNDS a day??!!  Do you know what that’s doing to our parks, lakes and streams?  When you cry that you can’t go in swimming because the ecoli count is too high, look around, are there geese on the beach?  I swear the Canadian Geese and the racoons are going to take over the world!  (Thank you Jack Miner, Walt Disney, and the bleeding hearts of the world.)  McKee Park needs to change its name to Goose Poop Park.

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Kingsville Lakeside Park

10 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by in Art, Landscape, Oil, Oil painting, Plein Air

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It was difficult trying to get out last week.  Everyday the weather decided to do something new.  We ended up rescheduling our paint out from Monday to Thursday July 10th.   I headed out around 9 A.M. on a bright sunny day.  It’s an hour drive out to Kingsville, if you stop for coffee, and I MUST stop for coffee!  It was so sunny that I had to cover my left arm and face or I would have fried.  Looking ahead of me the scene was very different.  I was headed south to Lake Erie, and the clouds were dark, ominous and massive.  What to do?  It looked clear to the west, and that’s the direction the storms come from, so I continued.  I was also concerned that someone else might be headed out there too, as the leader I had to be there to greet them.

As I pulled into the parking lot at Lakeside park it was just sprinkling.  Maybe it would blow over?  Then it hit!  A deluge, I was thinking we may have to build an ark!  I started to text our members telling them it was a washout.  Most would be coming from the lovely sunny northern part of the county, so they, like me would be unaware of the storm.  One member, Wendy, was at the outskirts of town when the storm hit.  She had voice to text on her phone and told me it was not bad at the edge of town.  By the time she got to the lake it had blown over.  But the news she brought was a bit disconcerting.  She thought she saw a funnel cloud over the lake on her way to me.  Well, we found out later on the news she did indeed see a funnel cloud.  In fact there were several of them that touched down on the lake that morning.  They call them water spouts.  They pull the water up into the air and it can cause very bad flooding on land.  They are not as strong as a tornado, but can be dangerous to boaters.

We hunkered down in the park’s gazebo to paint just in case it started to rain again.

Monday, June 16 Painting Peche Island

18 Wednesday Jun 2014

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Peche Island, Detroit River

Peche Island, Detroit River. Plein air painting 8 x 8 oil on stretched canvas.

Peche Island is located at the entrance of the Detroit River.  Monday was a lovely day.  There was rain in the forecast, but I was delighted that the weather network was way off on their predictions.  The day was sunny, warm with a bit of a breeze.  Some of my group had difficulty hanging onto their paintings, but I had no issues at all with my new Sienna all in one Pochade Box.  I have mixed feelings about my new box.  There are some great features, but a few drawbacks.

Positives:

  • The price is great!
  • There is a lot of room to carry paints and brushes.
  • It’s well built.
  • It stores 2 wet paintings in the base.
  • It can be attached to a tripod.
  • It has a brush holder station that sits on the side of the open box
  • It has a large easy to clean wooden pallet that slides out to the right.
  • It has a suitcase type carry handle that doubles as a towel holder.

Negatives:

  • It weighs 10 lbs empty, add your supplies and it gets worse.
  • Because of the weight it requires a very sturdy tripod.
  • The tripod head must not be a ball type.
  • The tripod head should secure with a screw rather than a spring load.
  • The towel holder is useless and falls off.

I had to buy a new tripod to hold the box because of the weight. I thought I found the perfect tripod on ebay, but when I attached the box, the head could not hold the weight of the box at all.  Lucky though the head could be removed and I purchased a new head that ended up working out just fine.

Sienna All in One Pochade Box

Sienna All in One Pochade Box