Love at First Sight...

Keep Roving, 2022, Acrylic on Gallery Wrapped Canvas, 48 x 48,

When I was in grade seven (I was twelve), my teacher gave us acrylic paint. I enjoyed painting, but this was different.

This paint was thick, and the colours were bright.

You could put one layer on top of another. That was my first foray into the new medium of acrylic. That painting won second place at the school’s art fair, after Michelle Emery’s painting of a ship. My painting was of Spirit Island in Jasper, a place I hadn’t visited. The reference was probably a calendar or magazine picture.

Spirit Lake, 1974, Acrylic on Paper, 11 x 14

Last November, I was ill. I am glad to be back in the studio now. The painting at the top of the page is the first one I did after that break. I call it "Keep Rowing".

I am revisiting Spirit Island.

The reference is an older one that didn’t have a canoe in it. I thought the composition needed a pull. I also wanted it to tell the story of my painting life. So I added a canoe from references I took at Carburn Park.

I purposely left the figures ghostly and unfinished. You can imagine yourself in the boat. The light is beyond the island and just kissing the tops of the trees. The canoeists are heading towards that warmth. What is important is to keep moving, to keep rowing. There are many obstacles that might make you stop. In my painting career, those have included health issues, a lack of recognition, many rejections, and even frustration with what I am trying to say in my painting. What is important is to just keep moving. Keep Painting.

These two paintings are 48 years apart. There are things I’ve noticed.

I’ve used a portrait format in the first painting. That is something that I often do in my sky paintings as well. You would think I would use formal and typical landscape orientation. But even back then, I was playing with that format.

Of course, the composition and colour mixing is better now. I’m using gradations of colour to move you through the painting. I’m using more layers and thicker passages of paint. My greens and blues are much more subtle. In that old one, there’s a lot of white lighting the hues-but hey, I was 12.

Even back then, I was drawn to the landscape. I am inspired by that today. It is what I really love to paint.

I think it’s funny that my first painting was of mountains. It took many more years for me to paint mountains that I was pleased with. I feel more comfortable painting prairie skies.

I was confused about where the light was coming from. The island's trees and mountains show light from the left, but the tree foreground has light from the right.

In my memory, this painting is so much better than it really is. That’s an important lesson for when we are dealing with kids. It’s not a great painting, but to my 12-year old self, it was a fantastic painting. My teachers recognized that a kid’s work should look like a kid’s work. I was proud of it because it was something I made wholly myself.

It’s a bit messy, which is still how I like to paint. I like the brushwork on the left tree.

The new painting is on its way to the Bluerock Gallery in Black Diamond. You can visit it there.

The canvas is 48 x 48 inches. If you are looking for a statement piece in your home, this could be the one.