New Horizons Collection (Paintings 15-22)
The next paintings in the collection – and their stories
The New Horizons Collection is a collection of original paintings. New paintings will be released each week in February and March. Join the Studio List to get them directly in your inbox each Wednesday!
When painting, I take myself back to the feeling of that place and do everything to hold onto it while painting. This creates a rich mood that is both evocative and true – not necessarily in the sense of literal accuracy, but in that the painting captures a truth of the experience.
Capturing this mood is about an intensity of feeling and, often, a richness of colour. The blue haze of night’s descent. The muted calm of a low fog. The warm glow of a house’s windows at night.
Look closely… be drawn in… allow yourself to be lead wherever each painting takes you.
Here are the next paintings in the collection and a little bit of the story behind each… (view previous posts with paintings 1-7 and paintings 8-14)
You can also go behind-the-scenes of how I created the paintings in this collection!
Twin Churches with Stormcloud
Looking across to Broad Cove Beach, these twin churches stand solidly along the main road. Their white walls and black spires are in sharp contrast to the surrounding landscape.
This painting shows the view in late fall, after a storm. The sky is still deep grey-blue and rain-soaked, but sun begins to emerge from behind an enormous dense cloud as it moves across the sky.
The hillside is illuminated in by patches of sunlight. It highlights the church steeples, bare trees, and brightly coloured buildings nearby, and glints off the calm waters of the cove. Seals bob about making an occasional snuffling sound as their snouts break the water’s surface.
Original painting in gouache on watercolour paper.
Marsh Reflections
This simple craftsman house overlooks the marsh in Broad Cove. On a mild day, low cloud cover or fog often descends over the view, obscuring distant trees, and muting the colours of the landscape.
Lawns remain remarkably green year-round along the coast and, in winter, are dotted by the silhouettes of bare trees and sombre evergreens. Tall yellowing grasses line the water’s edge, providing shelter and forage for the smaller marshland inhabitants.
On this winter’s day, the marsh was swollen with recent rain, the air was calm and still, and the water mirrored the house almost perfectly. Only the small ripples gave away the illusion.
Original painting in gouache on watercolour paper.
Gothic House at Low Tide
At low tide, the retreating ocean water leaves beautiful patterns in the damp sand. Slender bands and pools of water catch the reflection of nearby houses, trees, and mirror the blue of the sky overhead.
Late afternoon sun shines warmly on the stone wall, mounds of garden shrubbery, and gothic house façade. A lone bare tree, having recently lost the last of its fall leaves, keeps the house company.
The house itself has a charming silhouette with a sharply peaked roof and off-centre red brick chimney. It sits overlooking Broad Cove Beach on Nova Scotia’s South Shore.
Original painting in gouache on watercolour paper.
Seaside House with Downpour
When you walk out past the breakwater, you may be struck by the smallness of this house. It seems tiny and exposed on its outcropping of land that juts out into the open Atlantic Ocean.
Waves frequently crash onto the shore and dramatic weather passes overhead on its way up or down the coast.
On this day, an enormous rain-soaked cloud dumped a downpour of water on the horizon. Sunlight glowed around the edges. It illuminated a pocket of space behind the house, further emphasizing how miniature it seemed as it sat beneath the towering deep blue raincloud.
Original painting in gouache on watercolour paper.
Stormy Horizons
This painting shows the open Atlantic Ocean near where I live along Nova Scotia’s South Shore. I love walking through the village of Broad Cove to the beach and then following a curving gravel road past a marsh and old wooden fishing shacks out to the breakwater.
As you pass the stone breakwater, an expanse of ocean and sky open up before you. The air carries a strong smell of brine and seaweed. Light reflects in the many tidal pools that are scattered amongst moss-covered rocks on the shore.
On this day, there was a storm gathering on the horizon with a downpour visible – but not felt – from where I was standing. Whitecaps were breaking out at sea while the shore was still relatively calm.
Original painting in gouache on watercolour paper.
Rainy Day Fish Shacks
These weathered wooden fish shacks overlook Broad Cove Beach on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. This is the view you see as you cross the beach and head up the road toward the breakwater.
After a week of rain, water levels are high, and the sound of water rushing through culverts, creeks, and brooks fills the air. Everything is rain-soaked. The air is clear and smells of the ocean.
As I walked by, the reflections of the peaked roofs in this large puddle caught my eye. Delicate raindrops continued to create tiny ripples on the puddle’s surface.
Original painting in gouache on watercolour paper.
Streetlight by the Brook
This painting is of the Broad Cove Beach, a short walk from where I live. In this moment, dusk is on the verge of nightfall. The late day sky is a piercing cool blue, and long bands of darker violet-grey clouds reach across it.
Village lights have turned on for the night, creating little pinpricks in the distance. A nearby streetlight shines on warm brown shrubbery making it appear lit from within. Night begins to settle in with its saturated blues obscuring shadow details.
A fast-moving brook tumbles by on its way to the ocean. Near-black piles of seaweed scatter the sandy beach and the air smells of salt and seaweed. Fine webs of tree branches reach up beyond the horizon.
Original painting in gouache on watercolour paper.
Nightfall at Ocean’s Edge
This gothic house sits overlooking the beach. The warm yellow glow of its windows contrasted with the hazy blue shadows of nighttime. The dark peak of its roof was just visible against the backdrop of evergreens.
On this summer night’s walk, the air was mild and still, the roads quiet, and the ocean calm. Streetlights sprinkled dots of light through trees and created pools of light on the road underfoot.
The various pockets of light reminded of human presence in the village, and formed a beautiful contrast to the vast dark landscape of ocean, grasses, and tall trees.
Original painting in gouache on watercolour paper.
The New Horizons Collection is a collection of twenty-two original paintings. They capture the beauty and variety of the light and weather of the coastal landscape I now call home. While many are of water and sky, I have also included some of the houses that I pass on my daily walks to the ocean. All paintings in this collection are from around the little village of Broad Cove, where I live next to the Atlantic Ocean on the South Shore of Nova Scotia.
You can read the personal story behind the collection and view the full series of paintings, on the collection page, below.
Artist’s Note:
If you know of anyone who would enjoy these paintings and stories, please share this post with them! 🙏 Thank you, it really helps to get the word out about my work 💙
If you missed it, here’s the link to go behind-the-scenes of the collection!
