Lamb and Ewe in watercolour and ink

Lamb and Ewe
7x7 inches watercolor and ink on mat board
daily painting #54
view or purchase on my Daily Paintworks page

As winter carries on her fickle thing here in Southwestern Ontario (shorts or snowsuit?)

I continue to draw inspiration from my collection of reference photos taken last spring.

A short drive from my home lands me in the thick of agricultural Chatham-Kent,

where fields of gold and green are sown.  Dotted in among the fields is the odd hobby farm where one can spy donkeys, sheep, cows, and horses.  

In this 7x7 inch watercolour and ink painting, 

I employed the use of shadow from the ewe

 to provide the necessary contrast to the lamb's form. 

Watercolor study of Madame Gautreau based on the sketches by John Singer Sargent

Watercolour & Graphite sketch of Madame Gautreau (Madame X)
5x7 inches on 140lb cold press Arches paper
Daily painting #55
view or purchase on my Daily Paintworks page

It's no secret that John Singer Sargent has been my biggest inspiration - 
If you missed it a few years ago, you can read about my road trip to Cooperstown, all for the love of Sargent, here: 

https://christyobalek.blogspot.ca/2010/09/road-trip-to-cooperstown-or-long-way-to.html

Working on the daily paintings last week, I kept looking at the magazine clipping about Sargent that I have taped to my studio cabinet. It shows a sketch he made of Madame Gautreau, and I decided to play around with it in watercolour. 

After sketching the scene as close as possible to the original, I started laying down the midtone values.  In the end, I also added some opaque white to the background to roughen up the wall a bit - the focus is still on the figure, but there is now a bit of interest to encourage the eyes to move around a bit. 

Laying down the first washes over the graphite sketch that I made as close as
possible to the original.

Madame X watercolour sketch

Winter Marsh Landscape daily painting 58

winter trail

6x6"

Watercolour

Daily painting #58

Today's painting is the trail along the Marsh in the St. Clair National wildlife area of Chatham-Kent, Ontario. 

This is the first time I've visited the Marsh so early in the year. February here is often bitterly cold, with freezing winds along the trail. But this week we have had warmer than usual days and although I still had to bundle up against the wind, I was also able to enjoy the scenery: fewer reeds than in spring meant a clearer view of the water.