When I heard California artist Birgit O'Connor was teaching a watercolour class at Studio Six in Markham recently, I jumped at the chance to attend the three day flower painting workshop. Last year I learned how to varnish my watercolours from her excellent DVD Framing Without Glass, and have admired her style of painting enormous dramatic florals.

There were about twenty students in the workshop and the first day we learned her technique of making large, glowing washes by painting these half sheet warm ups. We used large brushes (size 20 and 30 rounds) and wet each area with lots of water so the washes would run together when the paper was tilted. Learning that technique alone was worth the price of admission! In the photo below, Birgit is pointing to my painting in the top row.

On the next two days of the class we had the option of painting along with Birgit on a second sample piece, or using our own reference photo to make a painting using her techniques. I opted for the latter and started a full sheet painting of blue Rose of Sharon from a photo I took in my friend Patti's garden. Below are the layers I finished during two days of painting.

I used MaimeriBlu pigments Cobalt Blue Deep, Sap Green and Indigo, and Winsor & Newton pigments Quinacridone Magenta and Crimson Lake for this painting. These combinations were new to me but I definitely will use them again as the mixtures were rich, somewhat liftable (so details could be softened) and non-granulating.

At the end of class Birgit posed with me beside my half finished painting (below). She was a very good teacher and the whole experience makes me want to paint more large florals.

The class was about a month ago and today I finished Blue Rose of Sharon (30 x 22"), pictured below. Let me know what you think.

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I'm almost finished teaching watercolour classes this spring. I have one last pebble class tomorrow, and then I teach 'Georgian Bay Moonlight' at the Lindsay Gallery for the next two Saturdays.

Here are some photos of the smiling graduates of my classes. We had fun, worked hard and made some very good friends (and paintings).

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I wrote this article for the local newspapers recently and thought you might find it interesting.

THE ACCIDENTAL AUTHOR

Artist, painting instructor and author Karen Richardson is happiest when working on a new watercolour and never intended to teach art classes. That happened by a fluke. And she never meant to write a book either, but she did.

Karen had been painting professionally for two decades when a gallery in Whitby asked her to fill in for an art instructor who had to back out. Karen agreed, and taught the perspective drawing and watercolour course. Not only did she find great fulfillment in helping aspiring artists; she also revealed a knack for explaining painting techniques in an easy-to-follow format.

Since then, she has taught hundreds of adult students in galleries in Port Perry, Lindsay, and Peterborough, and at workshops in her Port Perry studio. During these classes, Karen noticed a pattern: almost all students had difficulty with the same issues – such as choosing the right paper, mixing richer colours, controlling the behaviour of paint, and staying motivated when a painting wasn't cooperating.

She found herself explaining over and over how to avoid challenges like these, and how to fix problems when they did occur. A few years ago, she joked to her students "I sound like a broken record - I should write a book!" And her students heartily agreed.

Finally, last fall, Karen started to record all the nuggets of watercolour wisdom she could recall. Two months later, she had a finished manuscript titled 'Watercolour Toolbox', illustrated with 70 photos of her realistic paintings of stones, flowers, landscapes and buildings. She hired a publisher in BC to produce the full colour book, which is due off the presses early this summer.

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While we were near the south shore of Nova Scotia we made a quick trip to Lunenburg in what the local radio station called 'biblical rain'. That means pouring buckets. But we just had to see Bluenose II before the new launch later this summer. I took these photos of her in drydock.

Bluenose II in Drydock at Lunenburg Harbour, NS

I had to take the photos from the open doorway of a portable toilet so my camera wouldn't get soaked!

Bluenose II Almost Ready to Launch, Lunenburg, NS

We saw a fabulous, informative film in the visitor centre about the original Bluenose, which was a wooden-hulled commercial fishing schooner built in 1921. She was 181 feet long and her main mast had a height of 126 feet above the deck. Her displacement was 285 tons and total sail area was over 11,000 square feet. The film showed footage of her sailing and I was blown away by her massive size and graceful strength.

While the lifespan of most schooners was just 10 or 12 years, for 17 consecutive years Bluenose won the annual International Fishermans' Trophy (racing 40 miles against schooners from Maine). Her highest average speed was 16 knots, which made her the fastest sailing ship in the world. In 1938 when the racing series ended, she was named Queen of the North Atlantic Fishing Fleet. Bluenose has been pictured on the back of the Canadian dime (10 cent piece) from 1937 to this day.

Canadian Dime (photo from Wikipedia)

Every year, Bluenose earned her keep by fishing on the Grand Banks, surviving many storms, gales and the wear and tear of commercial use, but World War II marked the end of the great fishing schooners with the advent of diesel-powered steel trawlers. In 1942, Bluenose was sold to the West Indian Trading Company who removed her masts, added engines and used her to haul freight in the Caribbean. Four years later she struck a Haitian reef and sank. (There is a commemorative plaque on the ocean floor at the site of the wreck.)

Once Bluenose was lost, everyone realized what a tragedy it was that this world-famous, hard-working ship had not been preserved. Eventually in 1963, an identical schooner, Bluenose II, was built from the original plans, in the same shipyard and by some of the same men who built the first one. It was used as a showpiece and was sold to the government of Nova Scotia for $1 in 1971.

Bluenose II is now almost 50 years old and has been repaired many times, but this latest visit to drydock to replace the entire wooden hull and keel is costing $16 million.

If you would like to see photos of the restoration or read more history of Bluenose, they have a great web site http://bluenose.novascotia.ca/

As we near Canada Day later this week, it is very fitting that I pay tribute in my blog to this symbol of Canadian excellence in ship design, shipbuilding and seamanship. Happy Canada Day, Bluenose II. You're a grand lady and I'm proud to have met you.

We spent a week at the KOA campground near Sackville, NS, which is about a half hour north of Halifax. The campground is right on the Sackville River, so on our only sunny day there we finally had a chance to use the kayaks we hauled from Ontario. It was so great to get out into Nature. Here are some photos of us and some waterfowl.

John Kayaking on Sackville River

Karen Kayaking on Sackville River

Families of Canada Geese, Sackville River

Five Black Ducks on the Sackville River
(One upright and four bums-up)

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Since we were camping in Five Islands, NS for two weeks, we spent some time exploring sideroads looking for scenic spots to photograph.

Down Blue Sac Road we found this lovely view of one of my favourite of the Five Islands, the one with the hole in it, sort of like Piercee Rock in the Gaspe.

Down Economy Point Road we found a lovely public park with several km of oceanfront trails and I took lots of photos including this one with a sea stack at high tide.

One day we walked along the shore from our campground at low tide and hiked a little ways up a river. Well at high tide it looks like a river (although very brown and muddy looking), but at low tide it is just a trickle. As I mentioned earlier, those folks with waterfront property on the Bay of Fundy should get a rebate on their property tax - look how far the boat on the left is down from the steps up to the house!

One day we went for a hike on Partridge Island, just outside of Parrsboro on the Bay of Fundy. The view was quite nice from the lookout at the top, but the most memorable part of our hike was meeting this partridge.

Partridge Making a Fashion Statement

Usually when we encounter a partridge it flies off but this one would not move out of our path. John stomped his feet to make it move (once I was done taking it's picture), but it ran right at us and went to attack our legs. So John made more aggressive gestures and noise and it flew a few feet off to the side. We hurried by and it came back after us from behind, so we ran like heck for about 50 feet before it left us alone. Of course, it was because it was protecting its territory or offspring that it behaved that way. We figured they named the darn island after it.

Parrsboro is a nice little town right on the Bay, although we had the sense it is struggling economically these days. We kept driving by this lovely red and white house at the main intersection in town. It's for sale if anyone is interested!

House in Parrsboro

One of the locals told us about a waterfall we could hike to, so we drove down a dirt road to find it and went past this commercial blueberry farm on the way. It just looks like a colourful pasture, but those little red and green bushes are full of blueberry blossoms and are only about 4 to 6 inches tall.

Blueberry Farm on Old York Road, Five Islands, NS

The waterfall ended up being fairly small but we had good exercise hiking down the valley to reach it. I took this photo of John and the waterfall and later noticed it looks like he is standing on a big rock. (Actually the rock is in the foreground and he is further back.)

John-on-a-rock

Since it is spring here, we are seeing lots of lupins and poppies. I already had gorgeous lupin photos from my home garden and from our trip to Newfoundland, so I didn't photograph them here until I saw this field where there must have been a thousand lupins or more! The field was about 3 times as wide as the photo shows. Truly memorable.

Lupins Growing Wild, Soley Cove, Bay of Fundy

I took tons of photos of red poppies (and am including them in my next painting) so here is one to share with you. This shot was at a local cheese farm.

Red Poppies at a Cheese Farm, Economy, NS

I took this colourful sunset photo in our campground one evening. That is our truck and trailer in the foreground.

Sunset at Five Islands Campground, Bay of Fundy[/caption]

While low tides revealed mud flats beside our campground, in other coastal areas low tide revealed some exciting rock features, as shown below. Most of the coast we saw was sandstone and is actively eroding. Will Nova Scotia disappear eventually?

Boulders at Economy Point, Bay of Fundy

Flower Pot Island, Soley Cove, Bay of Fundy

Rock Slab and Leaning Tree, Economy Point