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- News from the Atelier - August 2025
News from the Atelier - August 2025
Vol 1 Issue 8
Phil Jourdeuil
September 16, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes
Table of Contents
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Drought, Waverley Community Sale, Palettes and Pigments, Moving Day and Urban Sketching
The watchword of the month was drought! Nova Scotia had a very dry summer. The Premier imposed a province wide fire ban, followed it by an order to stay out of the woods and our local water utility issued a voluntary set of water consumption guidelines. So think hot and sunny, most days.
My month started with the Waverley Community Sale on Aug 3rd. I was there from 10 until 2. I met lots of interesting people, but it was a slow day, being in the middle of a long weekend. While there I started work on a piece based on a photo provided by my son when he and his room mate went wilderness camping before the woods ban.
The beginning of « Economy Falls » an 11 × 14 limited palette acryilic on gallery wrapped canvas. It will be completed when I get driven indoors by weather or cooler temperatures.
Once again I participated in the Scott Manor Palettes and Pigments week from 10 - 16 Aug. We painted in the Bedford area all week. The event, celebrating its second birthday, is a fundraiser for the Scott Manor House, Bedford’s oldest building, and museum, with 40% of the proceeds of any sales going to the Manor. 14 local artists participated and together we produced 32 paintings. I painted for six of the seven days and completed four paintings. For the second consecutive year Massiel Piñeiro won the People’s Choice Award. Congratulations Massiel! Check out her Art on insta https://www.instagram.com/mpine.art
Day 1 - Sunday. « View from Andrew Cobb Park » a 9 × 12 watercolour was painted across the street from the park, which is located at the mouth of Parker’s Brook. I started this event on Parker’s Brook last year as well so it was fitting to start here this year.
Day 2 - Monday. « Turtling » The sail Canada students from the Dartmouth Yacht Club provided the subject for this 9 × 12 watercolour painted at de Wolf Park. I spent a couple of delightful hours documenting their antics next to a Muslim women’s group picnic. The sail training and the Arabic conversation created an exotic creative environment!
Day 3 - Tuesday This 12×12 painting of the Bedford Yacht Club anchorage was painted over three days. Today I did the sketch for the composition and started in with the colour of the water and some of the boats.
Day 5 - Thursday. On this misty morning I went back to continue “Basin View”. The atmosphere today was significantly different than on Tuesday. Fog rolling in and out, cloudy with the occasional drizzle marked the day as opposed to brilliant sunshine on Tuesday. Completed the bulk of the painting today. Here you can also see my home made plein air kit. I already had the tripod, and built the remainder of the setup with wood scraps and about $10 worth of materials.
Day 6 - Friday Today I completed “Basin View” my third painting from the week. You will notice that I painted this using only 4 colours. Primary cyan, primary magenta, primary yellow and white. In this case I used titanium white and little zinc white for transparent mixing.
Day 7 - Saturday. Today was the quick draw at Fish Hatchery Park. We had two hours to complete a painting! For some of us who do paint outs with urban sketching or plein air groups, this was old hat. For the more studio based or realist painters this was more of a challenge. This is « Painters in the Wild » a 9 × 12 Watercolour depicting Anne and Edward Wedler painting their quick draw paintings in the shadow of the CN Rail Bridge across the Sackville River from me. If I were to redo this I would emphasize the diagonal band of shadow in the painting while keeping the pop of red and white that is Anne in the middle.
I did manage to fit one paint out with the Halifax Urban Sketchers on Sunday August 31st! We were at the Halifax Citadel National Park from 11 am until 1 pm.
A cannon and the sketch for a portion of the citadel’s outer wall. 31 Aug 2025 with the Halifax Urban Sketchers.
The tail end of the month saw us moving my daughter to Montréal. She defends her PhD at Queens in September and starts work as a postdoctoral researcher and Assistant Professor at Queens in September. She was looking for a more cosmopolitan environment to live and do her research after spending the last five years in Kingston. Her new place in the heart of Westmount definitely meets all of her needs! The move had a few challenges, first the moving truck we rented was not available until the morning after we had booked it. So instead of loading in a more relaxed way on the Friday, we had to stage everything in our garage to facilitate loading on the following day. Also our more leisurely drive schedule for Saturday got compressed. Of course with the delay we did not leave as planed at around 10 am so we could get to our hotel early, we left at 1:30 pm and did not get in until 9:30 pm. This delayed our departure the next morning somewhat and we did not get on the road until 10:30 ADT. Luckily within 30 minutes, we changed time zone to EDT and regained an hour. However our time gain did not last as there was lots of traffic for the 30km before the Bridge to Quebec City and again for the stretch of highway 20/55 leading into Drummondville. So a potentially five and a half hour drive and scheduled arrival time of 2:30 EDT, turned into an eight hour slog, and a 5:30 EDT arrival. Luckily we avoided an additional two hour delay on the approaches to Montreal via highway 20 by taking the slower but less congested route 116. The rest of the move went smoothly. We found parking right in front of the building, which was a rarity as we found out over the rest of the week. The unloading went smoothly and we were able to get the apartment set up over the next few days with no issues! As a side note our rumble seat passenger Kaitie’s cat O’Malley took the drive and move right in stride. Mostly sitting in his open cat carrier and surveying the road and his surroundings. The hotel and the new apartment were explored and proclaimed suitable in both instances!
Exhibitions
I participated in the Scott Manor Palettes and Pigments Art Show and Sale from 17 - 23 Aug with three paintings.
Of the four paintings I produced, I selected these three.
Here is a quick scan of the Palettes and pigments Show gallery. No sales from this show, but an amazing experience non the less! I’ll be back again next year!
I am also participating in Paint the Hydrostone in September (13-14) and will be part of the resulting exhibition from 15 - 28 September at the 14 Bells Fine Art Gallery in Halifax https://14bells.com/?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAac9lN8hfMvNhd76_mUw9p1dNj0VtunPV6D8X6u4GuNlg8SsYQokAOUj416WxQ_aem_FnCfwWN1F3FHErsqMJ88rQ. The proceeds from the exhibition are shared between the artists and Brigadoon Village https://brigadoonvillage.org/
Major Works
With the heat, Palettes and Pigments and the move I did not get too much done on the garage door project. Here is what I did get done.
Progress on the garage door project. Started on the clouds on the right and filled in some of the water on the bottom.
Growing in 2025
I have been doing a lot more painting from life this summer and this will continue in September. I will be participating in the Strada Easel challenge to paint from life for 30 days and post the results on IG or Facebook. You can follow my progress on IG https://www.instagram.com/atelier_jourd_art and see all of the amazing art by checking out #stradaeasel on IG.
See you in September!
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