News from the Atelier - September 2025

Vol 1 Issue 9

Author

Phil Jourdeuil
October 11, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

Table of Contents

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Drought, Strada Easel challenge, Paint the Hydrostone and a wedding

The watchword of the month continues to be drought! Nova Scotia continues to be dry. We get an average of 115mm of rain a month. We got 37.6mm in September. Also our rain fell mostly on Mondays last month. So think hot and sunny, most days.

This month I completed the Strada Easel challenge for the first time. During the challenge you have to paint from life every day and post the result publicly on either instagram or Facebook. You don’t have to complete a painting each day, but you have to show substantial progress each day. I managed to paint everyday and started 28 projects of which I completed 27. They include

  • 16 - 5.5 × 8.5 in watercolour and ink on 300gsm paper,

  • 7 - 9 × 12 in watercolour and ink on 300gsm paper,

  • 2 - 9 × 12 in gouache on 300 gsm paper, and

  • One each of:

    • 8 × 8 in acrylic on canvas, 7 × 10 in pencil sketch (started) and 1 5.5 × 8.5 in gouache on 300 gsm paper

Most of what I painted was in my yard except for my excursions to Sullivan’s Pond, Mic Mac Mall, the Citadel, the Hydrostone neighbourhood, Lower Sackville, Kentville, Bedford and the Dingle. Overall this was my most productive month ever!

Full descriptions of all of these paintings and their significance is on my Instagram account or Facebook account.

Strada Easel Challenge week 1. Sullivans Pond, wild raisin, pool shed, Concord grapes, nasturtiums, swimmer, The Bay (with @HalifaxUSK)

Strada Easel Challenge week 2 - Nasturtiums 2, the Crown in two parts, part 1 of flowers on stoop, pylons in the Hydrostone, and three entries into Paint the Hydrostone. The fairy door was also painted as part of a @HalifaxUSK outing

Strada Easel Challenge week 3 - flowers on stoop part 2, Sackville river, kentville, start of self portrait, yard scene, wedding flowers and ‘the narrows” (with @HalifaxUSK).

Strada Easel Challenge week 4 - red barn, zucchini, fall veg, Kearney lake dam, part one and part 2 of Hoya, and “Armview” (with @HalifaxUSK)

Strada Easel Challenge week 5 - pondside maples, and brown eyed Susan

Wedding! On September 20th my wife Sue’s cousin Debbie married Christopher. We wish them a wonderful journey together. The wedding was a lovely afternoon event filled with joy and sunshine!

Exhibitions

I participated in the Paint the Hydrostone fundraising event for Brigadoon Village hosted by the 14 Bells Gallery . Cherryl, her staff and volunteers made the weekend a wonderful one for the participating artists. We had a neighbourhood to paint in but many of the artists chose to paint in the park in the square. I contributed three paintings to the show after a day and a half of painting. The paintings were on display 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/ 

Paint the Hydrostone - Prendre un livre - Laisser un livre, fairy door on Needham, painters in the park

Major Works

With the heat, gardening and Paint the Hydrostone I did not get too much done on the garage door project. Here is what I did get done.

Afternoon’s progress on 30 sept

Growing in 2025

I have been doing a lot more painting from life this year. The. Strada Easel challenge pushed me to to paint from life for 30 days so that also helped my growth in this regard. You can see what I did on IG https://www.instagram.com/atelier_jourd_art . If you drop by you will also see what I am doing with the Inktober prompts. What will I paint for the following prompts?

Follow me on instagram to see what I do with these!

See you in October!

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