armed with better paint, more colors and more material, she began painting larger works in explosions of violent color and won second prize in the painting category in the concours artistiques du québec in 1961. her compositions were intensely personal, more carefully planned; she began anchoring masses with carefully visualized gestures which would often take hours to visualize and execute. having secured a canada arts council bursary in 1962, she travelled with ulysse comtois throughout europe for the next year and a half. this was a productive period and she sent large groups of works home; the beginnings of her hard edge style also began, where more well defined masses or wedges would evoke vibration, movement and collisions. in italy she showed at spolete, won a gold medal at piccola europa in sassaferator, and met russian born sculptor kosso eloul. on eloul’s invitation to work in one of his studios, she travelled with ulysse comtois to paint in israel.