March 8, 2023

Lots of people think that watercolours allow no room for changing your mind.  Everything has to be done right the first time.  I used to think that, but gradually after playing around with oils and acrylics, I realize that it is possible to do watercolours without preplanning and to keep the creative challenges all the way through a painting.  Here’s an example, I worked on today:the bakery truck, at the market in uelzen, Germany.  In the first go round, I had a jumble of bread on the shelf in front of the sales person.  I decided that I needed to all a second baguette to sort of solidify the clutter.  I had left some white areas on the lower shelves to  try to get a feeling that they were covered in plastic. 

So I set to work with my tiny fitch scrubber and lots of clean water and scrubbed out another baguette on the upper shelf.  I also scrubbed the hard white splotches on the lower bread. 

Then we went to the market and bought a baguette and I decided on only one lower support because I felt the full one was too much in the centre and might really divide the image.

Here is the finished painting.

March 7 2023

Yesterday, I woke up at six-thirty this morning and all of the roofs and trees were laden with snow.  I immediately did a little sketch of it out the kitchen window.  It was beautiful but I am certain that Jim didn’t think so when he got up. 

We also found the way to the craft show.  It reminded me of why I don’t like craft shows.  All these poor people just hoping that you will buy something. The only way I enjoyed the Portaupique market and the Great Village market was that I bought something from everyone.  At the craft market that wasn’t possible.  And there was very little that was actually a true arty craft.  There were some wooden stumps with melted glass bowls on them that were great.Of course, it was the huge ones with more than one bowl on them that I liked.  There were some metal ducks that I particularly liked but they were all the same in different sizes and I wondered if they had copied the duck from something since the other animals and ants were pretty basic. They were colourful and if I had been sure the maker was an artist I would have bought one for Danica.  There were three purse makers and all the purses were quite lovely and well-made.  Of course, the one I liked best was made of salmon leather and cost almost four-hundred euros, too much for me.  And then I have the entire issue that since I am a vegetarian do I want to have animal products in my attire.  I do love my red leather shoes and they have held up for years and so I am iffy on this.  I decided I can either find a recycled purse at Louis’s, our second-hand shop and then embellish or dye  it to suit me or I can use my little back pack that has no leather in it and came for free with Susie, my walker. Anyway, there was nothing as wonderful at Danica’s jewelry at the craft market except the stump with two large molten glass bowls and so I didn’t buy anything. 

We were a little low on basics, wine, bread, butter, milk and cheese and so off we walked to the grocery store.  The butter here is fabulous as it is required to have more fat in it.  It is softer and more delicious than our butter.   I did find out that I have to weigh the orange, the apple and the pear that I bought in the vegetable section not at the checkout!  Before we came back home we had wonderful coffee and sweets at the grocery store, bakery, and restaurant.  Everything looked and smelt fantastic and there were lots of people waiting for their turn to get coffee or baked goods.  I wish we had someplace that served such incredible bread back home.

Yesterday, we bit the bullet and found accommodation in Amsterdam in the Museum area for March 15 to 21.  We also booked our trains so hopefully, we will be able to pull this off.  We only have one change of train so we should be able to accomplish the trip.

Today I got up at six and spent an hour or two working on a larger painting of night out the window.  When I got tired of working on that one, I decided to try a tiny sketch of stuff that was on the table in front of me.  Of course, I got hooked and spent the rest of the morning painting this tiny one. This afternoon I finished up the Hunderwasser Train  Station, which I started outside a few days ago and the Flower Sellers.

 

March 4, 2023

 March 4, 2023

Yesterday, I decided to go outside painting.  I only lasted an hour.  It was just freezing.  I did get a drawing of Hunderwasser’s train station done.  Every time a train raced by, I just held on to my stuff!  I felt a bit nervous, going off painting by myself which annoyed me but at least I gave it a shot.  I took my “Oma” my light weight walker/ painting chair.  It definitely should have been tried before we came as I can’t easily reach the ground and all supplies have to be held as well as the painting between my knees. 

Today, I started painting it.

Today we walked to the market and I got vegetables, cheese, and more bread. (One of my high school friends suggested I make bread pudding out of all the stale bread, that I have accumulated as I paint it and it was a great idea and used up allot of it).  I also got some fresh rhubarb at the market. Jim had some bratwurst on a bun and was so happy.  It is hard for him to be married to a vegetarian but I keep telling him that if learned to cook, he could make whatever he liked.  

As soon as we got back home, I stewed the rhubarb with some honey and made a vegetable stew for supper.  Then I did a hand wash.  And then after a couple of hours of painting, Jim and I set off to a craft market that is happening today and tomorrow.  Unfortunately we never found the craft market, and I was getting exhausted and eventually we gave up.  We will try to find it tomorrow before, I use up all my energy of other things.

I also finished up the tiny painting I did of the night view out our living room window. I might try a bigger one, which would give me the chance to actually draw the cars. 

March 2, 2023

 March 2, 2023

Recently, Jim and I did a day trip by train into Luneburg.  It was a bit unnerving even though Emily had arranged our tickets and given us directions.  The trains move so fast and I am slower to get to my feet. 

Our initial train was canceled and so we had to wait an hour at the train station.  I sat and did a little sketch of the wonderful Uelzen Train Station with its five coloured columns topped with golden balls.  Image my delight yesterday, when I discovered that the station was designed by one of my favourite artists,  Hunderwasser in 1999.  Hunderwasser died in 2000 and so I am assuming that this was one of his last projects.

Almost fifty years ago, I saw an amazing exhibition by Frederik Hunderwasser at the Saint Mary’s Art Gallery   It was part of a world tour and my German artist friend,  Brigitte Petersmann, had recommended that I see it.  I was hooked and have been a fan ever since.  It was only recently talking to a Parrsboro artist friend, Anna Hergert that I found out that Hunderwasser also started designing buildings in the middle of his career. Within the Uelzen Train Station, there is a small Hunderwasser art exhibition, which Jim and I visited this morning at ten am when the museum opened. Definitely this is one of the highlights of my trip.  I identify with  Hunderwasser’s love of water and of windows and I love his quirky, colourful architectural style that considers art and form before structure when designing new buildings.

I have always wanted to design a building.  After seeing the Hunderwasser exhibition, I asked Jim if I could design his greenhouse instead of purchasing a premade one. I promised Jim a greenhouse for his 80 birthday in January.   He said certainly I could.  Now I need a source of old windows!

We enjoyed seeing Luneburg which has been a town for over 1000 years.  It originally had a wall around it and was an independent wealthy town based on its profitable history of salt production.    I had a tour in the afternoon of the Rathaus, the government building.  Unfortunately, the tour was in German but there was a pamphlet on the building in English. I managed a lot of steps and walking and was totally exhausted afterward. 

I bought more bread this morning for my bread painting. We are now overwhelmed with stale bread. At some point, I need to bite the bullet and discard the stale stuff and get back to eating the incredible bread instead of just painting it and smelling it. 

 February 27, 2023

Market days in Uelzen are Saturday and Wednesday from 7 until 2.  Big market trucks pull into the main street which is blocked off and the market happens rain or snow, summer and winter. Several trucks sell meat, bread, cheese and there is a large vegetable vendor.  All of the vegetables are marked where they are grown so you can buy locally if you want to.  Yesterday we didn’t buy anything as our fridge is stocked but by next Wednesday we will get our food from the market.  I have started a painting of the flower truck and a close-up of the bakery truck.  This morning I bought some flowers and sweets for the paintings.

After going to the market in the morning, we hiked to the river and the park at the very far end of our street.  I was so tired by the time we got there that I didn’t cross the highway and go on the hiking trails.

Yesterday we went for a walk with Ivy, Kai, Michael and Emily and we found access to the river that is very handy.  Kai wanted to take Janice, my walker. We decided to rename the walker, Oma, since Janice is Kai and Ivy’s Grandmother.  Ivy is just three and she rode her two wheeler bike and Kai was the old lady, pushing “Oma”.

February 24, 2023

Friday February 24th 2023

We set off on Tuesday morning for Germany.  All in all, the travel, although tiring was without mishap except if you count getting stuck on a too-low toilet in Toronto.  It did make me realize that I really am disabled.  The highlight of the flight was watching the Leonard Cohen Movie.  It was fabulous and so much of it was about the creative process and living a creative life, all of which I could relate to.

We caught a train into Frankfurt and then settled in for a long train ride north.  I loved seeing the tiny narrow, paved roads that ran through vast fields. Stucco and tile towns filled with brick or timber-framed houses all seem to be surrounded by wild areas of trees (all of which are familiar) or fields that are green and just starting to grow. There are strict regulations that restrict urban sprawl,  so the feeling is either country or town.  Even farmers often live in the towns because there are abundant affordable rental accommodations.   Bicycle paths follow tiny rivers.  Occasionally there are large wind turbines or solar farms.

The bakeries are phenomenal:  Bread that is beautiful, fresh and delicious, dark loaves dusted with seeds, long white French loaves, and everything in between.  The butter here is much softer than ours and the cheeses all seem to be specialty cheeses, with distinct, tangy flavours. There is a wide range of wines but even the Merlot, on sale for 1euro/59 is excellent. 

February 20, 2023

 I grew up in Owen Sound on Georgian Bay, part of Lake Huron.  The landscape of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven was my childhood landscape and I even had an imaginary room upstairs from my bedroom with a glorious imaginary water view.    I loved rocky outcrops, white pines and cedar swamps.  Lake Huron is very large and you can’t see across it except in the inlets so it did have that in common with the Atlantic Ocean.  When I first moved to Nova Scotia, I loved living on Kearney Lake, a real water view.  As well, Chebucto Head was my favourite place to sit on the rock and watch the ocean waves.  When I moved to Portaupique, the scenery was extremely different.  It is flat and pastoral and there are vast areas of mud flats that are exposed and covered and exposed with each tide cycle. The tide is constantly coming and going.  It took many years before I could truly say that I loved this scenery.  One time we had a visitor to the gallery who had grown up here and now lives in Ottawa.  “How I miss this beautiful scenery” she exclaimed .  I immediately wondered if everyone internalizes their first scenery when young and then we spend the rest of our lives searching for reminders of it.  

My love of the scenery of Portaupique did gradually inch its way into my heart over a period of twenty years, bit by bit, tide-cycle by tide-cycle. When I started painting in this area, I usually avoided painting the Bay of Fundy landscape and I was attracted to the clusters of houses, the porches, the windows.  For the past thirty years, I have felt an affinity with the the coming and going of water and the expanses of mud and marsh.   When actually trying to capture it in a painting, I quickly realized that the tide affected the character of the painting. Thinking about what tide I want to portray is a crucial part of the early painting planning. If the tide I want in the painting is the tide I am looking at when I start, then I start the painting with the tide.  If the tide is not yet the way I want it, I start with the sky and foreground  and leave the water until later in the painting. 

Tomorrow, Jim and I are off to Germany for seven weeks. I will be posting sketches and word pictures on Facebook and on my blog (www.joylakinggallery.com) if you don’t do facebook.  If you are interested, I loved to have you along “vicariously”.  My high school art teacher, Bill Parrott, used to write me wonderful letters and he always said how much he enjoyed living vicariously through the eyes of his students.