Acrylics
1996 – The ecological reserve called Cabo Blanco encompasses the
long peninsula in the
background. A beautiful 15 mile round-trip
hike in 1988 from
Moctezuma. Most of it was through jungle with
howler monkeys
overhead making sure we knew we were not
welcome in their own
inimitable way. We forded fresh water streams,
found hidden
waterfalls and met only one other person – the
lady who sold us cola
from her little tienda by the roadside.
A magical journey!
My soul can find no staircase to
heaven unless it be through
earth's loveliness. (Michelangelo)
View from Playa Nicoya- Costa Rica
1996 – The mountain ranges of the Sierra
Madres in
Chiapas, Mexico, seem to go on forever. The mist rising
From the valleys just as the sun is rising is likely from the
ever-burning charcoal fires the Mayans use for heating
and cooking. There can be frost on the camper when
we awaken, but by 9 a.m. the day is heating up and
we’re ready to explore.
When I think of death, I only
regret that I will not be able to see this
beautiful country anymore... unless
the Indians are right and my spirit
will walk here after I'm gone. (Georgia O'Keeffe in later years)
1997 – From a painting lesson given on
television, the
backlighting in this scene fascinated me. Sometimes we’ve
been up early enough when camping to experience this and
there’s always the feeling that with the dawn comes a fresh
new beginning.
Painting is a companion with
whom one may walk a great part of life’s journey.
(Winston Churchill)
1997 – I’ve tried to capture the feeling
of a warm, quiet
afternoon in the country. There’s not even a breeze to
stir the leaves, but I hope you can hear the bees
working in the flowers just out of sight and the cicadas
buzzing in the bushes.
How does the Meadow flower its
bloom unfold? Because the lovely
little flower is free down to
its root, and in that freedom bold.
(William
Wordsworth)
Down the Lane
1998 – Somehow this pine found a foothold
among the rocks
and, as a reward for its resiliency and determination, has
risen above the crowd of ordinary trees in the valley.
Nothing worthwhile ever happens quickly and easily. You achieve only
as you are determined to achieve. (Robert H. Lauer)
Triumphant Pine
1998 – This little campground is about
100 Km north of
Puerto Vallarta. This painting reminds me always of
the resiliency of the human spirit. You see, in storms
the ocean will wash right over this wall and in a year
or two it will be gone, yet the owners will pick up the
residue of stone and brick and build something else.
Something different to be sure, but they will be
equally proud of it until the next big storm.
The miracle, or the power, that
elevates the few is to be found in
their industry, application, and
perseverance under the prompting of a
brave, determined spirit. (Mark Twain)
1998 –
Another little Mexican campground, this time about
20 Km south of Cancun. These palm-thatched
palapas
provide welcome shade during the
day, a gathering-
place for tourists and locals (like
the iguana). Miles of
white sand beaches to walk, clear
turquoise water to
swim in, the coral reef teeming with
colourful fish just
offshore. Although the trees
depicted here are salt
pines, the name ‘Xcalicocos’ means
‘Two palms from
one base’ in the Quiche dialect.
I have not tried to reproduce
nature: I have represented it.
(Paul
Cézanne)
1999 – This is a small section of the
cemetery outside the
little town of La Manzanilla, about 20 Km north of
Barra de Navidad in Mexico.
The old woman has just buried her husband. While her
grandson sits patiently looking at his grandfather’s
burial site, she reflects on her memories of their
many years together.
You come into the world alone
and you go out of the world alone,
yet it seems to me you are more
alone while living than even going
and coming. (Emily
Carr)
1999 – Play forgotten, the child sits,
mesmerized. What
does she see as she looks out at the endless ocean with
only the sound of the waves to keep her company?
Possibly she thinks nothing, she just is. She and her
environment are one.
We
shall not cease from exploration / And in the end of all our
exploring
/ Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place
for
the first time. (T.
S. Eliot)
1999 – Algonquin Park in northern Ontario
has so many
beautiful areas that an artist has to arbitrarily pick
one or she/he would fill the whole day finding a
‘better’ scene just around the next bend. There
really are no ‘better’ scenes, just different ones and
they are all spectacular – nature has outdone herself
in this beautiful park and even the foxes agree!
There is an art to wandering. If
I have a destination, a plan – an
objective – I've lost the
ability to find serendipity. I am on a
quest, not a ramble. I search
for the Holy Grail of particularity
and miss the chalice freely
offered, filled and overflowing. (Cathy
Johnston)
Algonquin Park
1999 – I really liked this picture of a
Bateman painting
that I found in a brochure and decided to give it my own
interpretation. I found that once I had the colours
blended to my liking, the actual painting of the bird
and the roses just seemed to flow.
I can't conceive of anything
being more varied and rich and
handsome than the planet Earth.
And its crowning beauty is the
natural world. I want to soak it
up, to understand it as well as I
can, and to absorb it. And then
I'd like to put it together and
express it in my paintings. This
is the way I want to dedicate my
work. (Robert Bateman)
2000 – Winter is coming. The stream
slowly meanders
under the autumn-leafed trees In the distance, the mist
tells of the cooling temperature and soon all will be
under a blanket of snow and ice, so the deer come to
the open water while they can.
See also Remembering,
By The Stream in ‘Our Stories’.
In the beginning you must subject
yourself to the influence of nature.
You must be able to walk firmly
on the ground before you start walking
on a tightrope. (Henri
Matisse)
2001 – Living on the Narrows between
Lakes Simcoe and
Couchiching, we have a wonderful view of the boats
passing from one lake to the other. We’ve even seen one
from San Francisco.
Memory is history recorded in
our brain, memory is a painter; it paints
pictures of the past and of the
day. (Grandma Moses)
2002 – The rhythm of the surf on our
favourite beach in
Mexico has a hypnotic effect. The analytical mind relaxes
and allows the imagination
full rein – suddenly,
something different emerges.
Watching a huge wave break, I recalled a painting by
Jim Warren and decided to try my hand at it.
It takes a lot of courage to
release the familiar and seemingly secure,
to embrace the new. But there is
no real security in what is no longer
meaningful. There is more
security in the adventurous and exciting,
for in movement there is life,
and in change there is power. (Alan Cohen)
Visions From The Sea
2002 – This painting evolved from a very
old, very dark black
and white photograph. In a way, it’s a metaphor for
life. Things have to happen in order for life to go on
(the men are pragmatically doing their job) but we
don’t want to know about them and hypocritically hide
our eyes, even though we know we will benefit from
them later.
My paintings are not intended to
alter the history of twentieth-
century art or change the political climate of our times. I’m simply a
story-teller. (Carolyn Hoyle)
2002 – While the waves express a rhythmic cadence, the seagulls
wheel and dip as they play over the ocean and celebrate the joy of life.
A
seagull is an unlimited idea of freedom, and image of the Great Gull, and your
whole
body, from wingtip to wingtip, is nothing
more than your thought itself.
(Richard Bach - Jonathon Livingston Seagull)
Freedom
2003 – Sitting on a rock on the beach,
waiting for the sunset,
listening to the gently breaking waves shuffle the small
pebbles underneath is a great way of bringing peace to
the soul. It is at times like these that I am glad to be
a small part of all that is.
Men seek out retreats for
themselves in the country, by the seaside,
on the mountains... But all this is unphilosophical to the last degree...
when thou canst at a moment’s notice retire into thyself. (Marcus Aurelius)
Land’s End
2003 – Many years ago, our family had a
cottage on Snake
Island in Lake Simcoe and the sunsets really were this
vibrant! I have used artistic license and added some land
and rocks across the lake to make more of a definition
between sky and water. And yes, from time to time a heron
did come to sit on the dock to enjoy the end of the day.
I cannot attain the intensity
that is unfolded before my senses. I
have not the magnificent
richness of colouring that animates nature. (Cezanne)
2005 – Depicting Nature’s creatures is a
still a fairly new
experience for me. I found this somewhat daunting as I
began, but by the time the painting was finished, the bear
and I had become friends and I could sense his hesitancy
to trust his full weight to the next ice flow.
That water is really cold, you know.
There's something to be said for getting into the
"feeling zone." This is where
you experience the solidity and the weight of the
rock. You sort of get inside
the part of the work you are working on. Rock or
feather, sky or water, tree
or idea-of-tree, there's a form to be felt. (Robert Genn)
Stranded
2010 – We saw this area while visiting the
high-
desert Navaho Tribal Park on
our trip west in 1991.
These towering structures are the remains of an
ancient seabed after millennia of terra-sculpting by
wind and rain. The ‘mittens’ are very familiar to fans
of the old west cowboy movies.
Near here we stopped for lunch at a Navaho fry bread
restaurant (cloth walls and roof with a dirt floor) and
the bread was delicious, topped with fresh honey.
The painter wanders and loiters
contentedly from place to place,
always on the lookout for some brilliant butterfly of a picture
that
can be caught and carried safely
home. (Winston Churchill)
Monument Valley
2012 – Many mornings we are blessed with
beautiful
sunrises.If we rise early enough, we can watch the colours
change minute by minute until the ‘instigator’ of all this
vibrancy, the sun, actually appears.
One can see why the ancients worshipped the sun as
the giver of life.
Today a new sun rises for me;
everything lives, everything is
animated, everything seems to
speak to me of my passion,
everything invites me to cherish
it. (Anne de Lenclos)
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