When I look out my windows and see green grass and spring flowers blooming, it's hard to believe just a month ago we were enjoying wintry wilderness scenery in Labrador.

We made the long journey there for some quality snowmobiling, along with our long-time friends Rick and Nancy. The 3,500 km round trip took us along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River past Montreal and Quebec City, to Baie-Comeau. From there, we headed north through the rugged hills of eastern Quebec and finally over the border into Labrador City.

The route along the St. Lawrence included a free ferry across the Saguenay River. Shown below is Nancy with my husband John, standing on the ferry, beside the truck and snowmobile trailer.

We had a good view of ice floes on the Saguenay River, where it enters the St. Lawrence.

After a long day of travel, including through an evening snowstorm, we stopped for the night at a motel in Baie-Comeau. The next day the skies had cleared and we headed north 585 km on the rugged road to Labrador.

Ten years ago, the last time we ventured up this road, it was mostly gravel and quite scary. This time, it was mostly paved but still challenging in parts because it is twisty, narrow, very hilly, and sometimes muddy.

 We barely made it up one of the toughest hills, shown above. Despite freezing temperatures, the sunshine had melted the top inch of gravel on the south face, making for poor traction going up. But everybody held their breath and we made it over the top.

We passed by the massive Manic Cinq dam (shown below) and stopped for lunch at the small restaurant/gas station nearby.

Freezing temperatures, combined with patches of wet gravel, coated the truck and trailer with some very interesting ice formations, especially on the wheel hubs:

The ice was hard like concrete inside the wheel wells, but we managed to kick it off so the wheels could move freely. I saw a truck driver using a large sledgehammer to knock the ice off the sides of his flatbed trailer.

Late afternoon found us still heading north through the Canadian Shield on drier roads, towards Labrador.

Finally we reached the provincial border and stopped for photos.

John and I are pictured below.

Labrador City is only 15 km past the border, and we pulled in about 7 pm. We stayed at the Two Seasons motel. They named it after the only two seasons they have this far north - Winter and Last Winter. Haha.

There was a fair amount of snow in Lab City. Here is the view out of the second story window in our room.

We enjoyed three days of snowmobiling in sunshine and temperatures in the minus 20's Celsius, for the most part. The second morning it was minus 44 with the wind chill, so we visited the mall and had a hot lunch at our motel prior to setting out on the trails. Pictured below are Nancy, Rick, and John.

Tree cover is more sparse in Labrador than we are used to in Ontario, and this means there is lots of space for trails.

Typically the trails are 20 to 30 feet wide and very smooth.

Due to the extreme cold of Labrador winters, the snowmobile clubs have built warm up huts at regular intervals along the trails. They were a welcome sight for sure. One is pictured below.

The huts are outfitted inside with benches to sit on as well as a wood stove, and free wood, kindling, kerosene, and matches to start a fire. Shown below are our friends inside a cosy hut. The racks are for drying and warming up clothing around the stove.

Many local people ride without the full snowmobiling gear we are used to, and helmets are not mandatory in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. We often saw people snowmobiling in fur trapper hats, goggles, and mittens, so I am sure their faces get really cold. Full face helmets are so much warmer and we were glad to have them.

This was our first trip using our new Arctic Cat snowmobile, shown below with John and I. It has two gas tanks and can travel up to 500 km between fill ups. We also found the suspension to be very comfortable, compared to our 11 year old Skidoo, and I loved having a heated seat and handlebars. Our helmet visors are also heated electrically, so they don't frost up from our breath.

From our two previous winter trips to Labrador City, we knew to stay on trails, as the un-groomed snow is very powdery, like flour or white sugar. John stepped off the trail to demonstrate this to our friends, and immediately sank up to his torso. His boot had not reached bottom yet, so he had to lay back onto the snow to roll onto the trail.

All too soon, it was time to head back to Ontario. The weather was colder on the trip out, as shown by the photos below. The first one was taken on the trip into Labrador.

Below is the same view four days later, silvered with frozen mist.

We thoroughly enjoyed our week away. If you ever get the chance, it's worth the trek to Labrador to take advantage of their world class snowmobile trails. March or April is the best time to go - good snow conditions, less cold weather, and more sunshine!

Subscribe to Karen's Newsletter if you wish to see more travel tales, studio news updates, or notices of upcoming painting classes and exhibitions.

I just completed a fun art project for a special fundraiser, to support newly-arrived or soon-to-arrive Syrian refugee families in Port Perry.

As one of 20 artists invited to participate by Meta4 Gallery, I embellished a wooden bird house with a totally new art form for me - Zentangle.

I painted the birdhouse white, and then inked all four walls and the roof with black Zentangle patterns. I used over 40 different motifs.

I decided to leave the colouring options to the buyer, and have included a package of Winsor & Newton artist markers with the birdhouse. The buyer can leave it black and white, or be creative with colour.

More than 20 of these one-of-a-kind creations will be on display at Meta4 Gallery, 200 Queen Street in downtown Port Perry, from March 18 to 28, 2016 as part of a silent auction.

And if you just can't bear to miss out, there's a "buy it now" option too.

Meta4 Gallery is open daily except for Good Friday, March 25. I hope you will be able to see the display of birdhouses, and perhaps make a bid or purchase one to benefit this worthwhile cause, before they all 'fly away'.

Subscribe to Karen's Newsletter if you wish to see painting tips, travel tales, studio news updates, or notices of upcoming painting classes and exhibitions.

Last fall I started this 12 x 12" watercolour of a yellow rose laying on a bed of smooth pebbles. After many interruptions, I finally finished it three months later. Fortunately I took photos along the way, so I could share with you the steps involved in this piece. Here goes...

After drawing the rose onto my watercolour paper, and masking out a bit of twig on the right, I painted half of the pebbles, working around the rose shape. All the pebble colours were mixed from the primary colours French Ultramarine (blue), Permanent Alizarin Crimson (red), and Aureolin (yellow). I sprinkled salt on some of the pebbles while the paint was wet, to add a mineral pattern. Once the salt dried, I brushed it off.

Tired of painting pebbles, I started working on the rose. This first layer shown below is just yellow with varying amounts of water to make the paint lighter or darker.

After the first layer was dry, I added a more yellow darkened with a bit of red and blue in the shadowy areas (below).

 Once the rose was dry, I switched back to darkening around each pebble with a dark mixture of the three colours. The rose is really starting to 'pop' now.

In the photo below, I have completed the first value layer on the pebbles in the right half of the painting (shown in the upper right quadrant), and started the second darker value layer (shown in the lower right quadrant).

Below you can see the pebbles on the right have had colour patterns added, to look more like real stones.

To complete the painting I added more shadows around the pebbles, created more patterns on the stones, painted the rose stem, removed the masking from the twig and painted it, and added the shadow cast by the rose onto the pebbles (shown below).

I researched the symbolism of yellow roses and discovered they stand for happiness, friendship, and caring. For this reason, I decided to title the painting You Are My Sunshine.

For more information about this painting and how it is framed, click here.

Subscribe to Karen's Newsletter if you wish to see more painting tips, travel tales, studio news updates, or notices of upcoming exhibitions.

We have had an exceptionally mild winter in central Ontario this year, with green grass on our lawn in early February, but we managed to find great snow conditions for our annual couple's snowmobile safari.

Our route took us and our friends around the eastern end of Algonquin Park, from Barry's Bay to Pembroke to Mattawa and back. The photo above is the Petawawa River.

Here are my husband and I with our Ski-Doo. During our trip, John and I celebrated our 39th anniversary, on Valentine's Day.

We saw lots of animal tracks in the snow and I managed to photograph a few of the deer we saw.

We snowmobiled for four days, hauling our gear with us and staying in a different motel or lodge each night. The trails were in excellent condition, mostly smooth and not too busy.

If you have never seen the equipment that keeps snowmobile trails in good condition, here are some photos of a groomer. It's a big tractor with a plow on the front, and tows a heavy frame behind it. In the photos the frame is raised up on wheels for road transport; once on the trail the frame will be lowered to drag along the snow surface and flatten it out.

We drove through lovely panoramic scenery, with hillsides made silver with a hoar frost.

The fresh snow clung to tree branches to make a 'winter wonderland'.

When the sun shone, the shadow-play was marvelous.

Now I have lots of ideas for paintings of winter scenes!

Stay tuned for our next snowy adventure, in the wilds of Labrador.

Subscribe to Karen's Newsletter if you wish to see more travel tales, studio news updates, or notices of upcoming painting classes and exhibitions.

Last June, during our trip to British Columbia, I photographed these male Tiger Swallowtail butterflies on a sandy beach on a lake in northern Ontario. They stayed in the same spot for at least an hour, while we had a picnic lunch close by. At the time, I wondered what phenomenon kept them there in one spot for so long. Read on to the end of this article to find out the answer.

This fall, I taught a two-day watercolour workshop 'Butterflies on the Beach', using these reference photos. I began by masking off the paper margin and the butterflies with self-adhesive contact paper and drawing gum (masking fluid). Using a toothbrush, I spattered on lots of drawing gum, which forms a temporary, waterproof coating in the shape of small pebbles.

Then, using several mixtures of primary colours (Raw Sienna, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, and Indigo), I spattered on paint, sprayed on clear water, and tilted the paper to make some areas soften and run together in a cool, sandy colour. Once the paper had dried, I wiped the paint off of the plastic mask so I could take the photo below.

I peeled the plastic mask off of the butterflies and stuck the pieces onto the margin, in case I needed to re-use them. I removed all drawing gum from the sand background, to reveal white paper in the shape of small stones and large grains of sand.

Using the same primary colours mentioned above, I painted the butterflies with a pale yellow layer, let it dry, and masked out the intricate dots of light colour on the outside edges of the butterfly wings. When the masking was dry, I painted the black details over top. Then I painted in the shadows cast by pebbles and butterflies, as shown below.

To complete the painting, I removed all masking from the butterflies, added bits of blue and red dots on the wings, and bry-brushed in the details on all the little stones. Below is  the finished painting, with an integral margin. When mounted and varnished, the margin resembles a mat, such as one would use when framing with glass. The title is 'Sunbathing Swallowtails'.

Below is a detail of some of the butterflies.

Now, why do male butterflies gather at sandbanks, you ask? Apparently they are ingesting sodium and nitrates, often found in mud or damp sand. This process is commonly called 'mud-puddling', and is vital for digestion, reproduction, and flight. Who knew?

Click here for more information about the finished painting.

Subscribe to Karen's Newsletter if you wish to receive studio news updates or notice of upcoming painting classes and exhibitions.

A few months ago, I made this watercolour painting for a client and, although it turned out to be a beautiful piece, it was a nail-biting process. For one thing, it is one of very few night scenes I have done, and the first time I painted glowing electric lights. Additionally, the shadows on the snow were very complex and risky to paint, and I had to invent the background scene. Yikes.

The process started with these photos below, supplied by the client. The first one established the angle of the building in the painting, and shows the big evergreen behind the cabin. This property, in central Ontario, is a weekend retreat that the client and her husband own. They go snowmobiling from here, and in the spring, harvest sap from the maple trees and produce their own maple syrup. The client commissioned the painting as a surprise for her husband.

This photo below shows the relative placement of the outbuilding and suggests more background trees - a combination deciduous/coniferous forest.

This photo below was taken at night, and sparked the idea for a twilight setting. Both the client and I thought that would give a more welcoming feel to the painting.

I started the painting project by drawing this 4 x 6" concept sketch below and emailing it to the client. She liked it and asked me to proceed with the painting. We agreed on a finished image size of 12" high by 18" wide, and the client decided to arrange for the framing herself.

I tested out several colour combinations in a 4 x 5" format, shown below. I decided the third one looked best.

The paint colours I chose were Prussian Blue, Prussian Green, Golden Lake, and Carmine Red. All the colours of the finished painting would be mixed from these four tubes of paint. I created the colour chart below as a permanent record of the pigments used, and the colour combinations they produced.

I transferred the sketch to a sheet of 300 lb. cold press watercolour paper, and masked out the moon, birch trees, the snow on the rooftops and evergreen tree, and the highlight on the side of the tree trunk on the right. (I used masking fluid, which protects the white of the paper until near the end, when the masking is removed and light-toned details are added.)

In step two below, the sky has been painted, the first layer of the forest is done, and the first layer of snow colours is complete.

In step three below, the cabin has been painted, using warm brown tones to contrast with the cool blue of the sky. The bright light on the left side of the cabin is just bare white paper. The foreground tree trunk has been painted.

In step four below, I applied a grey wash to darken and subdue the background forest. I added a second layer of shadowing on the snow. When the painting was totally dry, all the masking fluid was removed, exposing white paper.

In the final photo below, I have painted in all the details in the previously masked areas, and added a third layer of soft shadows to darken the snow. When I delivered the finished painting to the client, she was delighted with it, and proceeded to have it framed professionally.

Recently she commented: "The picture turned out great. My husband loves it! We celebrated our 10th anniversary in September so I gave it to him then."

'The Cabin: Moonlight and Memories' (watercolour, 12 x 18") by Karen Richardson. Private collection.

For more information on the general commission process, click here.

Subscribe to Karen's Newsletter if you wish to receive studio news updates or notice of upcoming painting classes and exhibitions.

You may have noticed the tag line on my web site reads "Making the world a happier place...One painting at a time."

This statement has more than one meaning for me. It refers to the pleasure that I feel when finishing a beautiful new painting. Viewers and purchasers of my art enjoy the serenity or nostalgia my work conveys. My students experience excitement and satisfaction when I teach them how to make their own paintings.

But today it occurred to me that there is another layer of meaning in my tag line, and that is the positive spin-off that is generated when I donate a painting to a charitable cause.

As with all artists, often I am asked to help this or that fundraising organization by giving them artwork to be auctioned off at one of their gala events. If the 'worthy cause' aligns with my views, then I give them a piece of my art. The funds generated help many people near and far.

This year, the paintings shown in this article have been donated in aid of women, girls, and children in crisis; various community and international charitable projects; and two public art galleries.

I am glad that the gift of my art is making the world a happier place.

For five weeks this spring and summer, we drove our travel trailer from Ontario to Canada's west coast and back. Shown above is my view from the passenger side of our truck, as we towed our RV through the mountains. Below is a photo of our kit and kaboodle in British Columbia.

During our journey, we crossed paths with some interesting wildlife. Below are some quick photos I was able to capture with my trusty camera, some from the cab of our truck.

We stopped for a picnic lunch on a roadside beach on a small lake near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. On the sand were this group of male Tiger Swallowtail butterflies, and they fluttered around and rested in that exact spot the whole time we sat beside them. The first photo above shows them in the bottom left corner, nearest my feet.

A few miles down the road we saw this bull moose, with a new set of antlers growing. He was very wary of our truck and trailer although we were quite a distance from him. Luckily my pocket camera has a good zoom feature.

While moored on the BC coast, during an afternoon of sailing out of West Vancouver, we hiked into the forest and surprised this deer. I got two quick photos of her before she bounded away out of sight.

We stayed at a family cottage at Lake of the Woods, on our way back home from BC, and during the obligatory dump run, we saw these bald eagles and gulls waiting to scavenge the garbage. Quite often we see bears there but not this year.

Today, in our back yard in Lindsay, Ontario, we saw 17 wild turkeys. Shown here is one of the two hens who had a total of 15 chicks with them. Big families! The chicks were almost as large as the moms. The flock stayed for a few hours, eating worms brought out of the ground by a light rain shower, and leaving behind lots of fertilizer. I was able to take a few videos and lots of photos from our bedroom window.

If you would like to see more photo-articles from Karen's travels, click here to subscribe to her Studio News.

I've taught my watercolour students how to paint stones and leaves many times, as they are some of my favourite subjects, and my students love them as well. But for the first time this spring, we added a new twist to two of my workshops, by painting a scene with these familiar objects on a bed of sand.

We started out by choosing actual stones and dried leaves and making a balanced composition with these objects on our 300 lb. watercolour paper, as shown below.

Using adhesive shelf paper and masking fluid, we protected the shapes of each object on the watercolour paper.

Then we painted the sand using fun, messy techniques like spattering masking fluid and paint, spraying with water, and tilting the paper to make colours run and mingle.

Once the sand layer was dry, we removed all shelf paper and masking fluid and painted the first value layer on the stones, and the cast shadows of each object, as shown below.

While the stones dried, we painted the leaves (shown below) and the shells.

Finally, we painted the details on the stones to complete our beach scene.

To see a larger view of my demonstration painting, click here.

Subscribe to Karen's Newsletter if you wish to receive timely email notices about future watercolour classes.