Author: Doug Rutherford

I’ve been a bit remiss in posting here. I have been busy and having been laid up for a while with a broken foot most of last year didn’t help. A few things have happened since last time.

1. I have passed the 1000th painting of the day. This was a painting of the northern lights over Kluane Lake. Today’s painting was number 1155.

2. I have a number of paintings for sale at the Arts Undergound gallery in Whitehorse. The link for these is https://arts-underground.myshopify.com/collections/members-gallery/doug-rutherford.

3. I have currently joined Yukon Artists at Work, a professional artists’ co-op here in Whitehorse. More news on that will be coming up in a bit of time.

Here’s a few more paintings I’ve done recently.

I have had some off days with my foot. But, I still did time to get some paintings done.

I broke down and painted an 8×10 today in a single sitting, other than a short stretch of waiting for paint to dry. This is an accomplishment, since I fell last week and needed surgery to repair a badly broken foot. Sitting with my foot down for any length of time is not easy.

I also had to put a call out for photos. Unfortunately, I was heading out the next day on a photo run for paintings. Whoops. So much for timing.

Today is the first time since I’ve done it that I didn’t need to take a few breaks in between. I guess it’s a sign I’m on the mend. Another week and the staples come out and I get an air cast that will be considerably more comfortable. I’m still facing 5 to 7 more weeks of no load bearing, though.

Here is today’s painting that I could do in a single sitting.

Okay, who could refuse a headline like that?

I have a strategy for when you just can’t seem to put together a painting. You lose, for example, the sky and nothing seems to follow. Or, you make a colour selection that’s too dark, and with watercolour, there is no real way to recover. These are not the only problems that make you throw a painting in the recycling bin, or start a new one on the back. They are, however, two of my favourites.

When I started painting a few years ago, I started with the sensible approach of working small. I found a 5×7 inch painting a day quite easy to handle and represented a rather small investment of time and resources if things didn’t work out. In the beginning, that happened a lot.

When I get into a rut where you can seem to muster any painting skills whatsoever, I fall back on the approach of working small. I usually paint 8×10 or 11×15 paintings, but when I get stuck on a painting or two in a row, I go back to doing smaller paintings. For some reason, a 5×7 gets me back on track.

Maybe it’s the necessity to remove detail because the painting is smaller or maybe it’s because I’ve painted more pictures that size, but it just seems to do the trick.

I’ve gotten into a rut of not being able to do a good job, so I decided to go back to doing a few smaller paintings. These have been fun to do and one was a complete experiment, which, of course, is even more fun (when it works, of course.) So, here are a few of the smaller paintings I’ve done this week.

It’s the first day of Spring.

Time flies.

I cannot grasp that a second year of the Painting a Day challenge has passed, and I painted a painting for each day, along with 3 bonus paintings.

I certainly missed a few days. I had two trips outside for medical appointments and didn’t paint the 4 days I was out. However, I also had a residency where I did quite a few paintings. The end result is yet another year of paintings.

With the end of Year 1, I thought I might paint a few different topics. I did paint a few Cape Breton pictures, as well as two Irish scenes.

So, now on to another year. Again, I’m not sure if I will keep going, since I do occasionally think that I am doing a painting for the sake of painting rather than doing a specific scene because I really want to. I do need to plan a few painting trips and I have applied for two residencies so, like in everything else, we’ll see.

There’s a few things to note.

First, I am still knee deep in the painting a day challenge. The second year has about 2 more weeks left.

Painting sales did slow down a bit, although they weren’t wild and woolly last February, either. However, I did sell three in the last two weeks so things may be picking up a bit.

I have a showing coming up in October. One of the shops in town will be exhibiting some of my paintings. More news on that later.

And, of course, there are some more paintings to show.

I put the last post up in a hurry, so here are a few more of my paintings from the residency.

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