From St. Boniface to Transcona

It really is nice to think that you have a whole day in front of you when painting or sketching. The Charleswood Art Group was meeting at the St. Boniface Cathedral today.  I decided to start in this area and then head to Transcona to paint. I brought both my watercolor sketching and pastel painting art supplies.

Last year I had completed a nice little oil of the St. Boniface Cathedral so I was looking forward to again visiting this site. I had admired the St. Boniface Museum building last year and hadn't done anything with this so I decided to start there. There was a nice picnic table in front of the museum to set myself up on. This is a fairly large old wood building with a lovely center windowed porch and green wood shutters at every window. I chose to just sketch the front porch area.

My second subject was a view of hi-lited tombstones leading to the front of the St. Boniface cathedral. I didn't spend time with this subject so the cathedral itself is very loosely suggested. The rest of the gang decided to go for lunch and I decided I wanted to keep going. Just as I was leaving, the bells at the cathedral began ringing; announcing 12 o'clock noon.

My next and last stop was out to Transcona. After having a quick lunch at a Tim Horton's, I headed down Dugald road and right on the perimeter highway where I took the first right to an access road that winds around and goes past the cemetery. As I proceeded around the curve, I notice the field full of those lovely wild purple flowers in random mounds. There was a place to pull off the road which made it easy to stop and sit myself down on the grass to do a small pastel painting. I was running short of time as I had agreed to meet two daughters for a coffee so rather than set up my easel and travel adaptor, I held the small 5x7 Ampersand pastel board in my hand to paint. I had brought my Unison landscape set, my new Diane Townsend blue set and a few Unison dark pastels in another small box. I had a lot of fun doing this last little painting and think it would scale up well to a larger pastel painting.

It was a good day ... still wanting to get out and find a wonderful sunset!

Pastel of field in Transcona

Sketch of St. Boniface Museum

Tombstones in front of St. Boniface Cathedral

A Day at the Beach

Summer just isn't summer if you don't spend a day at the beach. I had wanted to get to the beach for some time now and finally this past Monday, it seemed to be the perfect day to go. I had two sketching ideas in mind; the obvious kind of sketching you would do on a beach and canola fields. I love the bright chartreuse green of canola fields.

Our first stop was Whytewold, where I was hoping to sketch the dock that's so beautiful with it's spindly supports.  Unfortunately, the water was high enough to cover a lot of the supports. Also, you can see that they have brought in chunks of rock to try and preserve the shore but they aren't at all natural looking. Also, there is no place to park right at this spot. Cottagers would hate me but I would rather see no one allowed to live directly on water and leave it open for everyone to enjoy the view.

After Whytewold, Winnipeg Beach was next on the itinerary. There weren't a lot of people on the beach but what caught my eye was the water tower which is on the south end of the beach. When sitting on the benches, the water tower was not in view so I plunked myself down on the sand and did a watercolor sketch of the tower. I really liked this view with it's strong diagonals of the beach and boardwalk set against the horizontals of the trees and their shadows and the narrow spit of land on the left.

Being almost close to lunch time, we headed for Gimli where we enjoyed fantastic battered pickerel and French fries ... just delicious. Following lunch, we set up our lawn chairs in the shade next to the beach where I had a view of people doing what people do at the beach. It's always hard to sketch people. The easiest ones to sketch are the ones that are sitting or lying down rather than standing. Sketching was followed by a little walk aound town to see what was new and to stop in the must stop spots like Tergeson's.

About 3:30pm, we left Gimli and as we started down the highway, it occurred to me that I hadn't been out on Willow Island for years and years. Bill had never been so I took us down the narrow peninsula known as Willow Island. It was just starting to spit a bit but I did stop and take some photos. I liked the marsh area on the south side of Willow Island where people docked their boats. This was the most inspiring material I gathered on this little trip and resulted in a pastel painting of the scene which I show below in a nearly finished state. On Willow Island, again I was struck by the difficulty in getting to the shore on the north side as it was built up with cottage/home after home lined along the shore.

As we continued home down number 9 highway, I'm still on the lookout for a chance to get in those canola fields. When I was almost to Petersfield, there it was ... the perfect canola field, fringed with lovely Manitoba ditches full of a variety of grasses and weeds full of colors and textures. From the car, I did a quick watercolor sketch. This will probably be done up in oil on the same size board.

A very successful and enjoyable painting expedition!

Willow Island Marsh done in pastel on black

Sketching a the beach at Gimli

Canola fields near Petersfield