Summer of the Brother

This summer I've been working full time with my brother, Rick, painting houses. We have been spending a LOT of time together, sometimes 16 hour days, as we would drive down to Victoria and back together also. Spending that much time with anyone can test the best of friendships. Luckily, with a brother, you can say, "Shut up" and "Leave me alone" and it's not a big deal. And since he's my boss, I can say things like that when we get on each other's nerves, and I won't get fired, but it helps to clear the air.
When I go with my brother I usually end up places I would have probably never experienced without him. I have great memories of running together through the mountains in Invermere, up mountains around Duncan, and even beautiful canyon trails in the forest near Seattle. A lot of beautiful spots in nature that I've seen in my life, I wouldn't have seen if it weren't for my brother.
Here are some photos from one of our lunchtime jogs while working in Victoria:
This is the skinny trail that goes along the cliff's edge by the ocean. Normally I would have stopped at the beach, but with my brother, we kept going, we ran up and down these rocky outcroppings, over driftwood logs, and through these skinny trails that lead to a point at the edge of the ocean.





We ran back from the rocky point into a beautiful forest of Gary Oak trees. Running through there feels really special, the trees are gnarly and look ancient, the grasses are dry and there are lots of crows, and it feels like we're in Africa or somewhere. And I know for sure, if it weren't for my brother taking me, I would have never seen this place in my life.

found palettes

I saw these flowers in my neighbours' yard a few weeks ago.I thought the colour combo was so intense! I tried to recreate it in a painting but heck if I just could not mix that orange. It's like a flourescent orange. Dang.

And then, I was going by the cafe in Victoria where my brother and I always go for coffee at lunch and I saw these tiles and I loved the colours, especially the red, it just makes the colours all pop. The palette looked so fresh I thought it was new tiles, but they're from a modern building built probably in the sixties. Fresh! That's what our Painting 200 teacher, Elizabeth McIntosh would always say.


And then, my mom brought home these eggs a couple days ago and they were so dang purdy. Kind of Martha Stewart. Definitely what would be called a low intensity palette, which I like a lot.

It would be fun to do one painting with each of these found palettes, it would save having to think up colours for yourself.

new painting

This painting was just finished yesterday, it is panel #2. and 4 out of 9 in the series.
I haven't been posting to the blog as often because of being so busy at work, so I'll probably just post once a week now. Thanks for looking