Canadian Watercolour and Chalk Pastel Artist

Have paint, will travel. I'm camping at my sister's place in Grey County, ON. While she works on her artwork, her kitty and I are plodding along on my latest painting. The breeze coming through the screen was welcomed by all of us. #drawing #HildaVanNetten #originalpainting #watercolour #painting #art #NorthumberlandCounty #realism #grass #cat

Truth & Beauty. This one's rather dark, but then again..... sometimes life gets dark. It was quite difficult to find a way to incorporate Frances' (age 5) sketch. When I tried her in vertical positions, nothing made sense. Not that it totally does now, but I think it tells a story now. It's a story of a wonderfully creative woman who is flying. She's not flying in the traditional sense, with wings like a bird, or in an airplane. She's floating on her back through the t

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.” John Keats Naming a painting is almost more fun than painting one for me. I wanted to convey the joy I have in growing our own food. We've always grown our own vegetables, and in recent years have been slowly replacing ornamental shrubs with ones that produce food. Hence, the two varieties of currants you see here. It may not be as pretty for people who drive by, but you have no idea how fun it is go outside in the morning and pic

If you look carefully at this almost-finished painting, you will see that the grassy area under the plate of fruit is much lighter than the rest of the grass. I've washed in some greens and some greys to get the paper covered. Now I need to go back and glaze on multiple layers of colour to enrich the tone and colour of the painting and make the grass look realistic. This is the stage where the grass starts to look like itself. #fruit #originalpainting #HildaVanNetten #art

I am always blown away by how much my drawing students learn in a one day workshop. Today's "See Better, Draw Better" drawing workshop did not disappoint. This workshop is designed to be a non-stressful place to learn new drawing skills and/or improve upon the skills they have. Many of today's students had not drawn much in their lives. I give the artists activities that teach them to see shapes, lines, tone, etc. They draw their footwear up-side-down! They do blind cont

I could have titled this, "Update on currant painting" too. I've been continuing in my "Stuff in Containers on the Grass" series for the past few months. This is a close up of it. Newsflash! We've added one more "See Better, Draw Better" workshop. This coming Saturday's workshop is full. Another has been added for Monday, February 5 at The Painted Tree, art store in beautiful downtown Cobourg. Contact Darlene to register. If you've never tried drawing, or if you want so