Number Two 6.1.16
Watercolour 10″x15″
inferno
back to the future
Number One 5.1.16
Watercolour and Ink 10″x15″
Weekly Photo Challenge: Circle 2
Weekly Photo Challenge: Circle
Welcome to the happiest circle in the world this New Year’s Day,
the circle of life, love and family.
Happy New Year to everyone.
Studio 365: Day 365
Day 365 Celebration 31.12.15
I’m going to consider that tonight’s New Year’s Eve fireworks are really to celebrate the successful completion of my 365 days of daily blogging. When I started out on January 1st I didn’t think it would be possible but here we are on the final day of the year and with this post I’ve actually done it.
My thanks to WordPress who two days ago sent me my 2015 Annual Report full of all sorts of interesting statistics. It begins:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 20,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
They then provided me with the posts that received the most views this past year, thanks to you all.
- 1 Weekly Photo Challenge: Today Was a Good Day : This was my first mesh gallery and included photos from our visit to Antelope Canyon. It was also one of the featured posts by Cheri for the Daily Post’s favourites for this challenge.
- 2 Both sides now…This was one of my favourite photos of the year, and clearly one of yours too. It was of the amazing cloud formation behind The Wall Centre in Vancouver together with, appropriately enough, Joni Mitchell singing Both Sides Now from her classic album Clouds.
- 3 Studio 365: Day 116 It is worth seeing this again to watch and listen to Maestro Donato Cabrera conducting the Las Vegas Philharmonic playing Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony in a post that I titled, for good reason, Man in Motion.
- 4 Studio 365: Day 110 After visiting Lower Antelope Canyon on Day 109, Day 110 featured photos from Upper Antelope Canyon, which included our visit to Owl Canyon and to finding that precious great horned owl feather.
- 5 Weekly Photo Challenge: Reward In response to this photo challenge from Krista who asked ” What does reward mean to you?” I posted a gallery of photos from our never-to-be-forgotten day on Machu Picchu in 2013 after trekking for six days.
What a lovely surprise to find that the post that received the most comments this year was on Day 178, the day our beautiful granddaughter was born.
The report informed that the busiest day of the year was November 29th with 304 views. The most popular post that day was Weekly Photo Challenge: Transition which showed how my painting of Cypress Alleyway at Castello di Reschio was created.
One final set of statistics that WordPress did not provide might be of interest to you. Over the year I posted 736 photos, 223 paintings, 25 pen and ink drawings and 54 different palettes. It seems only appropriate to end this last post of the year with some of those paintings in a concluding gallery with a painting from each month of the year.
Finally, a big thank you to all of you who have been with me all year long. Your support, interest, encouragement and wonderful comments throughout the year have made it all worthwhile. Knowing you were travelling along with me made me more determined than ever to reach my goal; I couldn’t have done it without you.
I’ll finish with the words of Winston Churchill: Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. The beginning of what you might ask? All I can say is when I know the answer I’ll let you know.
Happy New Year everyone
Studio 365: Day 364
December: As you will have read yesterday we spent Christmas in Los Angeles. On Boxing Day morning we walked through Grand Hope Park in downtown LA where this poetic plaque welcomes you at its entrance…
…It was a beautiful, clear, warm, sunny morning and the trees, buildings, blossoms, shadows and architecture, all created a perfect reflection of the magic of the city. It was also an opportunity for me to experiment with my new iPhone 6S with which all the photos were taken…
…and Star Wars The Force Awakens in the afternoon did not disappoint
See you for New Year’s Eve and Day 365 tomorrow.
Studio 365: Day 363
Spanish Banks and the Vancouver Skyline 29.12.15
Back from a wonderful Xmas with family in Los Angeles to enjoy Vancouver at its best today, and this first for me, a rider and his horse on Spanish Banks against the shimmering skyline of the city.
Only two more days to go and just two more months to look back on.
November: After attending the 91st Annual Remembrance Day Service in Victory Square, Vancouver on November 11th…
…two days later another day of horror and tragedy in Paris was added to an ever-growing list of days to remember, and Je suis Charlie became Je suis Paris
After our never-to-be-forgotten visit to La Belle France in October with dear friends studio-time painting the beautiful places we visited took on a new meaning during November and became a way of showing solidarity with the people of France who made our visit so memorable. This slideshow brings together those paintings, some of which will be familiar to you after yesterdays photos of all the places we visited. I have also included a couple from our visit to London where we began our journey.
One final painting from the end of the month for Day 330 and another favourite for obvious reasons, my father’s tools some of which I had been using to create my representations of the Cave of Lascaux.
Studio 365: Day 362
October: The header today is of my table top in the studio, which I posted on October 11th, the day before we left for our two week visit to England and France, and the day the studio was tidied up for the first time in months as you will have seen from the photos that day.
The previous week we enjoyed Autumn in all its glory on our final walk along the Admiralty Trail before leaving on our trip, a walk I posted about on October 5th for the Weekly Photo Challenge: Boundaries.
The table top and the trees seem to complement each other just perfectly, which I have to add only became apparent as I composed today’s post; serendipity working its magic once again.
Those of you who joined us, albeit virtually, on our European adventure will know what an unforgettable time we had. The photos I posted each day said it all so as a little reminder here is a slideshow of some of my favourites, many of which became paintings on our return. If you are visiting thechangingpalette for the first time and would like to learn more about the places we visited in London and the beautiful Périgord region of south west France why not browse through Days 287 to 299.
October was not entirely without its paintings. These are from the beginning of the month before we left.
Studio 365: Day 361
August and September: Lots of great memories from the warm, long days of summer and time to put into practice my Lessons from the Great Masters. One particular sunny weekend we had a blissful early morning walk along Spanish banks and through the shaded Admiralty Trail in the Pacific Spirit Regional Park. Back in the studio I tried to re-capture English Bay with the Vancouver skyline, and the shimmering canopy of trees and leaves along the trail, in both watercolour and pen and ink.
At the end of August a visit to see our granddaughter included a glorious day at the beautiful Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island.
The beginning of September then saw us in the magnificent wine country of the Okanagan…
…followed by a drive to Whistler on Day 250 with spectacular views you may remember of the Fraser River and Coast Mountains between Lytton and Lillouet.
Throughout the two months I painted most days and surprised myself at continuing to meet my goal from New Year’s Day.
One final painting to join the favourites, this one of the wedding bouquet carried by our daughter a year ago which I painted for her first wedding anniversary on August 24th.
Studio 365: Day 360
June and July: One event in June was simply the best day of the year. I am of course referring to the birth of our beautiful granddaughter on June 27th. She will be six months old tomorrow and becomes more beautiful every day. Day 178 really was the best day of the year.
At the beginning of the month I continued my Italian theme with two Tuscan landscapes…
…and three variations of the Upper Church of the Basilica di San Francesco in Assissi…
…and in the process quite serendipitously created a series of palette mosaic fans made from the colour test strips from all of the Italian paintings.
Towards the end of June I began my journey through the Tate Watercolour Manual: Lessons from the Great Masters, which I had been introduced to by the wonderful Debi Riley whose blog The Creative Zone is a treasure trove you should all explore. Over the next four weeks I worked my way through the book and learnt so much in the process…
…posting another wall of paintings at the end of my journey on July 24th, Day 205, a post that also included a slide show of all the pieces.
Two final images from June and July to join my favourite paintings of the year…
…the dresses and shoes in my granddaughters closet.
thechangingpalette 