Artist- Oil on Canvas
Studio Hours: Saturday Noon to Five
Janet Simmons Sweet, CFS
Latest Artworks
June 8, 2026
Sunset 5:53 Mountainview
12 x 12
From my favourite road in November. The sun sets behind this farm every year at this time and on the way home from the Mill, the drive is in anticipation of this moment. I am looking forward to bringing this one to a canvas to record it for all time.
This is actually the second layer, with the bones now there ready for the light to set that silo and barn on fire.
This is now number 19 from that road. 12 from Grey Matter and 7 more since. My drive is 9 minutes from Walkers Rd to Charleston Sideroad. Believe it or not, I do not see this as the last. The light on that road, the curves, the hills and the valleys, all banked by trees or open farm land ... is just nine minutes of heaven.
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June 28, 2026- update
Finally a start to a new piece!
Little Qualicum Falls, Vancouver Island
36 x 36 Oil
May 24, 2026
The mapping begins. Finding the image composition and the planes . I do not draw on the canvas to start. I paint a sketch finding the negative space to create the objects that make it.
Good start, Always means a good painting is in there somewhere.
June 7, 2026 - right
More detail and light begins. I want you to hear those falls!
June 28, 2026 - update right
Rock formations starting to be defined and building light direction. Water is still in the very beginning stage. It will be the last to be defined.
And a name is emerging. The Sound of Music. I always tell the story of how I went to the Mill in 2008 to inquire about a Studio, but they had me from the moment I opened my car door and heard the sound of the Shaw's Creek. It would not matter what they had quoted the lease for the Studio, I would be taking the space. And while other Artists might play music while painting, I open that window and listen to my Sound of Music. Water.
This piece also might be the seed to an upcoming Collection. Water is a thread throughout my entire life. It started with the house my parents built on the shore of Lake Ontario, where I lived from the age of one. The sound of water brings me peace, joy, and even a little fear at times. It is a mighty force to be respected even as it exudes calm. I have many references of Oceans, Lakes, Rivers and Water Falls both from my where I have lived, and where I have travelled. Might be a room full of the Sound of Music to come!
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May 24, 2026 Final
February 23, 2026
March 11, 2026 update
March 29, 2026 update
April 5, 2026 Update
Mountainview at the Crossroads
48 x 24
Bottom, the start. Map out on the canvas and start the light.
In the Middle. Past the beginning, but no where near the end! Still very rudimentary. But the light is coming!!
This process for larger pieces, building even the light in layers, takes the work much longer to actually look like anything worth posting here. Been slowly working on it since the end of 2025. Of course, from my beloved Mountainview. In the Fall there is just so much to choose from, in so many locations, times of the day and progression in colour that it does take me a while to decide which section I am now going to paint. Hard to believe it is only a 7 minute drive that can produce so many fleeting moments in light and emotion.
Might need some more trees, definitely more of those leaves to connect and more contrast in all of it. And who knows what else? I will find them in the next painting sessions, one by one, evolving until I am finally through the layers that evoke the way it makes me feel.
March 11 update on middle.
Adding more trees and building depth and light. More of both with refinement next session.
March 29 update on middle.
Layering of leaves on those trees is taking forever!!
April 5, 2026
Now we are getting somewhere!! Foreground and a few tweaks to the leaf composition needed, but the light is starting to come through well.
AND FINALLY! May 24, 2026 on the top. Finished and ready for varnish and the frame. One of the longest times spent on one artwork in years. It had me really work for the light, being both backlit and tricky floating light in the forest behind. It is that warmth that you feel on a perfect Fall Day that took so long!
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October 24, 2025
A Little Monet
12 x 12
"Guess Where"
For those of you who visit the Mill often, a bit of a play on words! There is a company called just that, who sends people to the Mill as part of a day trip plan. And, of course where is this painting? MOUNTAINVIEW RD.
From this Fall about a week ago. How I love to drive that road.
SOLD November 2025
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June 28, 2025 (start date)
Summer Rain/Green, Mountainview Rd
36 x 36
SOLD November 2025
A new piece now started from early summer on Mountainview Rd .... at that golden moment when the rain had stopped and the sun was just coming out. Yup. I am back painting yet another section of my favourite road. The challenge as always to get that light to deliver the atmospheric instant when rain becomes sun.
June 28, 2025 - First layers on the right to set the horizon line, and provide a backdrop to the trees and leaves.
August 9, 2025 - Second layer in the middle using only two brushes, one large 1/2", and the other a small flat size 6 to pull through the trees and limbs in the wet paint. And a little mineral spirits on a paper towel to smoosh and remove various shades of a mixed green, leaning the shades from dark to light using blues and yellows. I am using a completely different approach to achieve the misty effect created from the heat on the road. No idea what comes next!
August 31, 2025 - Evolution 3. Introducing a little orange/burnt sienna for the tree definition, then applying broken light on the trunks to give that feel of filtered light. The road still being a bit out of focus gives the feel of the passing rain. ....the atmospheric feel of rain is really pretty good at this stage. Have I achieved that golden moment yet???
Best think on that before another painting session.
Sept 21, 2025
Fourth evolution with foliage better reflecting that early summer green. Now more "mood" with mist will be the next evolution.
Oct 13, 2025
Still working on the final version!
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July 17, 2025 (Finish Date)
Guardian of the Pond
48 x 36
April 10, 2025
Finally got a feel for this piece. It has been reinvented at least FOUR times, originally started in the Fall. Light is always my goal, and as the years go by I do choose more complicated versions of it to capture. The balance in both the composition and the depth of colour finding harmony will always keep me painting.
Guess the location? Yup Mountainview Rd.
More to come....
May 11, 2025
The Weeping Willow has found its spot near the edge of the pond. Shape and height to be refined, and the actual weeping branches of Spring to be incorporated. More to come........
June 10, 2025
Leaves started and shape begins to form. More to come....
June 17, 2025
Final work on the leaves. Heading for the framers if I can "leave" it alone.
SOLD Feb 2026
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July 20, 2025
Mountainview Fall 2024
Final progression- July 20, 2025
"Where the Heart Is" , Mountainview Rd
36 x 36
Composition established and light getting set. Week 18 on the left. What beautiful light on that road!
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December 2, 2024
Getting some painting time now with the Solo Exhibit now running itself.
Done!
Snowing on Mountainview II
12 x 12
This lovely soft light just as the snow is ending, with the blue sky making its return. Boy do I LOVE the drive on that road.
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July 17,2024
Twillingate, The Perfect Day
12 x 12 Oil on Canvas
This one has been a long time coming!
From our trip to Newfoundland, staying in a B&B in Twillingate just outside town. It was just such a perfect day, seemingly impossible to ever repeat, and I have had this in my "waiting" list ever since. The first layers on the right, and the finished piece to the left.
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August 13, 2024
Rock and Roll, Clythe Falls
30 x 40 Oil on Canvas
Waterfall from a morning walk begins!
First build the composition. Second, build the rocks. With a Waterfall, the most important part is those rocks. They "break" the fall of the water and create the interest, acoustically and visually! And in this case, they also encase the water from the beginning to the end. Far left, almost there, if not there!
Clythe Falls is on York Rd in Guelph. It is part of the site of the old Penitentiary from the late 1800's. It was quite famous for the property, and the fact that the inmates built many of the features, and also managed a farm growing food for the area. This fall was built by them.
SOLD Nov 2024
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April 29, 2024
Morning Has Broken
30 x 40 Oil on Canvas
*Accepted Headwaters Arts 28th Annual Fall Festival Juried Art Show and Sale , September 2024.
On the right the beginning layer, and then in the middle the composition and light development begins. Finally the light is softened and cast above and below the source, as it sets the tops of the grassy field on fire. Near home as the sun rises. The process took about 2 months from start to finish.
The next in my mini series of paintings where pathways are found in clouds.. and channeling a little Cat Stevens!
SOLD Oct 2024
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February 11, 2024
Snowing on Mountainview
12 x 12 Oil on Canvas
It just never gets old going up and down Mountainview Rd!! Even in a bit of a blizzard. The next in the pathways series using the road as the pathway.
SOLD July 2024