Giclée Prints

By Woods on a Winter Morning
20" x 16" giclée on canvas
$350 plus shipping and applicable taxes

By Woods on a Winter Morning

The winter landscape remains one of the most enduring subjects of ‘Canadian painting’. Early in my career, I observed that snow is almost never white. It can be blue, purple, grey, yellow, even pink-- at least when I paint it, it can. Snow, like water, reflects the colours that are around it, blue on a clear day, grey on a cloudy day, yellow when warmed by the sun.

This amazing scene was the result of a winter trip from Ottawa to Oshawa. I prefer to drive along Highway 7 because of the rolling, twisting countryside. This particular trip happened the day after an intense snow storm. We drove through a winter wonderland, preserved by the absence of wind. When I happened to pass this one stretch of woods, I had to stop. I spent about 20 minutes wading through knee-deep snow, frantically trying to line up a few dramatic compositions before the wind picked up and before my feet froze.

Artistically, it’s a dream subject for me, because I love to play with the shapes, textures and light. Most of my snow scenes face the sun, to play with the long shadows cast by that low winter sun and to capture that warm reflected light that I show with thin washes of off-yellow throughout the middle of this painting. I only ever paint a couple of snow scenes in a given year, because they require so much effort and because I want them to stay ‘magical’ for me.

Of the many landscape subjects that I enjoy painting, water-lily beds are among my favourites. There is something visually fascinating about the shapes, the colours, the way this plant sits on the surface of the water, and the artistically random patterns that I can sometimes see. I tend to see beds like these in most of my favourite Algonquin Park places—moose bogs, tamarack marshes, and in the sheltered bays next to some of my wilderness campsites.

I photographed this particular scene beside my favourite campsite on Lake Travers. The growth and patterns of the lily beds changes each year, based on the water level and the amount of sunny weather. And I always have to be mindful of the resident Snapping Turtle, which lurks in the shallows along this shore.

The painting process really is just that—a process. I first have to draw the outline of each lily pad and each flower; then paint the entire background with black; then carefully paint the gentle blue waves; then the lily pads and flowers. Each lily pad and each flower are treated as little individual paintings, to ensure their uniqueness and to provide a natural range of colours. Finally, I add the details of the bright red submerged stems trailing downward, as well as some of the faint details from the sunlit lake-bottom.

Looking at this painting, I can feel the warmth of the afternoon sun; I can hear the call of a distant loon, and I can smell the freshness of the summer air.

Under an August Sun
24" x 18" giclée on canvas
$400 plus shipping and applicable taxes