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