Carol Berry, Concession Road 4, Orono. Oil, 8 x 10 inches. ©2010.

It has been a fantastic summer, highlights include my new iPad and the dry, very warm weather we had in Ontario this summer! I’m very glad that I got out sailing in my little Mirror Dinghy at least a dozen times.

The biggest thing that happened this summer is that I put into practice a completely new painting mindset, one that took a year to wrap my head around, plan and put into effect. All my painting tools and methods are new compared to a couple of years ago. Previously I painted on medium sized stretched canvases setup on a French easel, using regular oil paints and solvents, following photo references and carefully made linears. I would only set out the paints colours I needed for specific parts of the painting. This summer everything changed! I now paint on small canvas panels setup on my fantastic new homemade prochade box using Windsor Newton Artisan water-soluable oils. I squeeze out all the colours of my limited palette into my prochade box before I set out to paint en plein air. I paint directly from my subject, both landscapes and still lifes. I now see firsthand that photo references handicapped me by limiting my understanding of a scene. I can honestly say that from hard work comes growth.