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Last week I shared my "Top 5" artistic moments of the year, so today I thought I'd continue the trend by sharing my "Top 5" moments or memories while painting in 2024. These won't be my best works of the year, though, as my favourite memories are often of my rather rushed plein-air paintings - created outdoors - rather than of my studio pieces.
Why is that? Well, almost all of my most memorable artistic moments occur when I'm painting outside, usually off the back of my bicycle, and those pieces are quick studies rather than well-planned studio paintings with many steps and multiple glazes or layers of colour.
Whether because of charming wildlife, or pleasant strangers coming to chat, or our beautiful waterfront scenery and historic buildings, there's something special about creating a painting outdoors. In other words, although the plein-air watercolours aren't my best works, they're the ones I tend to have the most fun with - in spite of voracious mosquitoes, sweltering heat and humidity, a pesky squirrel trying to steal my paintbrushes, ever-shifting shadows and sunlight, and even a groups of passers-by wanting me to stop what I'm doing to give them a free watercolour course, "like a TikTok tutorial"! [I referred them to the YouTube channels of a few of my preferred artists, who've posted tutorials for beginner!]
Then there's the added fact, which I never forget, that I was told by my doctors in 2016 that I'd probably never ride a bike again. I see each new ride as a gift, and instead of complaining that I have to stop to rest every 15 km to 20 km (because of my two rare diseases) I use these breaks to appreciate the farms, historic buildings, nature parks, waterfronts, and wildlife within riding distance of my home. That's also the reason I chose "Watercolours on Two Wheels" as the theme of my first solo show, last year, featuring a mix of plein-air pieces created during my bike rides and studio paintings based on my plein-air studies.
That, by the way, is definitely my overall Top Memory of 2024, but it doesn't count here as I'm listing my favourite moments or memories while painting!
Oh, and instead of ranking my "Top 5" painting moments of 2024, I'll let YOU rank them! I'm listing them in chronological order, so read through and let me know which of these YOU think should be "Number 1" (best), through Number 5. There are links to any post I've written about each memory, if you'd like to get the whole story!
Pop your responses into the Comments section of the site, and I'll share the ratings - by majority vote - in February; I won't post any comments or names unless you specifically ask me to.
So here we go, in chronological order!
. March 23, 2024: I was painting a wild turkey, in studio, from a photo taken while cycling, when my sweetheart called down from upstairs: "Quick, quick, come look, there's a turkey on our driveway!"
Wild turkeys have walked calmly up to me during the warmer months, when I've stopped to paint quietly in the forest while out cycling (I'm always respectful of them as wild animals with a reportedly vicious bite and sharp talons, and as carriers of several diseases).
But to have a wild turkey coincidentally walking around outside our home - in the snow! - while I was painting a turkey in my studio? That was an absolutely exceptional moment.
. April 8, 2024: My sweetheart and I biked to a hilltop park to experience the full effects of a once-in-a-lifetime event, the Total Solar Eclipse. Our end of Montréal Island just happened be one of the areas where the moon's shadow would completely cover the sun, known as the "Path of Totality" or the more media-friendly term "Totality". The Path of Totality for the 2024 solar eclipse wound a narrow ribbon across North America, first crossing Mexico then northeast from Texas through Maine and across Eastern Canada. The last total solar eclipse visible over Montreal occurred in 1932, and the next one won't be for another 180 years - in 2205.
Once we'd arrived at the park, I prepared my bike-as-easel so that I could paint four different phases of the eclipse en plein-air (outdoors); a little watercolour for each quarter of the eclipse!
. June 18, 2024: And all the other times my sweetheart would bike over to where I'd stopped to paint en plein-air, so that we could bike together to one of the local cafés for iced coffee and snacks - usually at about the halfway point in his 100 km [63 mile] rides. In this photo, he stopped a bit further down the road from me as there was some broken glass in the grass.
. July 1, 2024: On Canada Day I found an isolated spot to do some plein-air painting off the back of my bicycle, at a historic building. I'd just finished my pencil sketch and was painting the first wash or underlayer of the scene, when a wild rabbit hopped up to my bicycle and literally begged to be painted. So of course, as a nature lover, I abandoned my preliminary sketch of the building and instead painted the bunny!
. September 1, 2024: A 'close encounter with of the bird kind', when a Bald eagle flew past me while I was setting up for plein-air painting on the shore or a lake. It was the first time I'd ever seen a wild eagle in my area (a fairly recent addition to our local bird population, I later found out).
Whatever you do this year, I wish you many happy memories!