About Barb

Profile

Taking classes at various private and public institutions across Canada, including the Winnipeg Art Gallery and others, Barb has developed her flair for colourful painting. Flowers and foliage give her the greatest challenge and the most satisfaction.Barb presents an unstructured approach to painting flowers and birch trees, capturing their transparency without sacrificing colour. From pastel peonies to bright poppies and serene winter scenes, her paintings evoke the happiness of being outdoors in a seasonal landscape.

Watercolours offer many colour options and, with colours mixing on the page, often produce startling and surprising results. Sometimes,  Barb sees so many colours in a single leaf or petal, she must restrict her palette.

The journey of creating a painting is a long one, involving quick sketches, several washes and finally overglazes. Capturing the flower in full sunlight is its own challenge as colours show differently out of doors. Starting with a fully wet paper, she strives to stay loose and not get too focussed on the actual flower. Whenever she crosses over from a carefree to a precise rendering, the magic of painting disappears. She is happiest letting happy accidents and new colours flow freely.

Whether painting tulips in the garden or a vase, Barb enjoys the flower form. Her cottage at Sandy Bay is an ideal painting studio with its natural light and window views of the forest.  Amidst the towering poplars there she finds peace and joy, which she hopes you will share by visiting her on tour.

Painting Time

Most mornings during the growing season, I will start my day with one to three hours of painting. The light and heat are not yet so intense and the flowers and trees show off their best beauty in early light. In winter, painting narrows to vases full of flowers or full paint sessions from inside a heated vehicle!

Style

I continually strive to build shape and structure even while painting loosely. My flowers and trees are accurate for each plant, but they are paintings, not botanists’ interpretations. Even when trying to perfect the Lake Winnipeg Lady Slipper, a small but striking flower that emerges in the early days of spring, my goal is to capture its delicate nature, how it peeks out from foliage with such a delight.  I want my expression to be fresh and bright and capture the awe of finding the little gem among green foliage.It is also important to me to paint bright and deep colours, while keeping true to light so the form is rounded. Sometimes I see so many colours on one leaf  or one petal, it can take me a long time to build up the exact colour by using glazing techniques after the initial painting has dried.

Subjects

I prefer natural objects like flowers and foliage even though they are difficult. You have look at how each subject grows, and its shape and foliage.  To make flowers natural and still recognizable usually requires painting a particular flower several times. I approach the flower like a botanist, but don’t paint like one.  I prefer painting outdoors when possible, which is why birch and poplar trees, so common in cottage country, have been added to my paintings.