Painting Winter Scenes: Normand Baril comments

Winter and water are my two preferred subject to paint. Winter for me represents a superb challenge as the colours of nature have changed immensely and change everyday to a point that it is difficult to go back to complete a painting on location. It is for these reasons that I take so many photographs and use them as references. There is no way that I can reproduce a photograph and that is not what I want to do. I want to reproduce my feelings when I saw the scene and do an interpretation of the subject seen through my camera lens. A photograph is a moment of the day with all the colours that I can reproduce on a digital photo; not all colours are reproduced on a photograph as you are well aware. Winter is the subject that I enjoy to work. New paintings are in the works, unfortunately not completed.

Normand Baril
January 2009

Normand Baril has painted with Pastels since 1979. His compositions include landscape, still life, portrait and figure. Baril’s admiration of natural settings and the untamed beauty of this country is a constant inspiration to him. Baril is a signature member of Pastel Artists Canada, Pastel Society of Eastern Canada and Pastel Society of Canada.

Painting in Winter: Anne Barkley comments

A perfect afternoon for me is to be in my studio, coffee and music on, and snow falling silently outside the windows. I don't have to go anywhere else, or do anything but whatever I can imagine doing with paint and canvas. It's heaven on earth - looking out on the quiet countryside, replenishing my inventory and my spirit for the busier months ahead. What more could anyone want? This is often when I pursue new directions, new ideas, or revisit old motifs with a new eye; there are no boundaries, and I am free to fly.

Anne Barkley
January 2009


Anne Barkley's artistic interest is in finding a complexity in simple abstract shapes that will call on the imagination.Her abstract compositions mesh multiple tones and modes of application into an aesthetic that combines hard edges and flat spaces, deep recesses and diffuse borders. Barkley is an elected member of the Society of Canadian Artists (SCA).