ALGONQUIN

I had the great fortune to travel to Algonquin Provincial Park to enjoy plein-air painting for a week with 17 friends. Algonquin, a large protected land mass, is located in Northern Ontario… filled with lakes and streams, hills and valleys, vegetation and wildlife... it is a painters dream, in fact the Group of Seven, famous early 20th century Canadian painters, made many trips to Algonquin. Tom Thompson, perhaps the most notorious of the group, drowned mysteriously on Canoe Lake. It was to this place that I made my first visit. The intense fall colour was incredibly breath taking and awe inspiring. It took me some time to grapple with this overwhelming beauty. This series was the direct result of my observation of masses of white birch trees standing starkly against a colourful backdrop of foliage. These small paintings are done with liquid acrylics using a traditional water colour technique. I witnessed first hand the bright yellows, reds and oranges of early October and then envisioned the browns, rusts, greys of late November. This series is a happy reminder of my amazing northern experience.