When my childhood friend K and her husband R invited me to their home in Edmonton, Alberta, she spiced the invitation with, "And we'll spend a few days in the Rockies." I had no idea what would unfold when we set out on the 4-hour drive west to Jasper National Park. My jaw began to drop even before the first peaks came into view.
I'd given no thought beforehand to artist Lawren Harris's paintings in the Rockies until I saw a reproduction of his "Spirit Island - Maligne Lake" hanging over the fireplace in a teahouse we visited.
And we had just come from Maligne Lake!!! -- still mostly under ice and waaaay too cold for us to walk to the distant point on this shoreline to catch a glimpse of Spirit Island.
Years ago, back in our hiking and camping days, I experimented with landscape painting. Inspired originally by the Eastern coastal paintings of American artist/teacher Edward Betts, I tried to take on West Coast vistas in a somewhat similar vein. When we left our old house, I couldn't quite leave behind one of my duds, "Above Furry Creek" -- impressive in its 5' x 5' scale, as illustrated in this quick walk-through by one of our then-resident furry ones.
As we drove in and around Jasper for 2 1/2 days, following the course of the Athabasca River, I became as enchanted with the river bottom as with the almost unbelievable majesty and variety of the surrounding mountains.
I had the feeling I could have spent days, just sitting in one spot, never running out of subjects to draw or paint. How was it possible that these almost flat expanses, so monochrome in colour, so lacking in contrasts, could be so compelling?
By the time I came home, with so many visual memories locked in my system, I wanted to work with them in paint. But how? There seemed little point in trying for realism when what would best communicate their power, I felt, was near abstraction. Certainly texture was called for so I got out a bunch of texture-making stuff, as well as some rarely used Iridescent Pearl White paint...
....and went to town, or rather to the river bank.
I even got caught up in trying to capture a forest pool that we would pass each morning -- still dark against the shadowed cliffs and evergreens, with the rising sun just catching the tree tops on its far bank and some rocks and weeds in the foreground.
Frankly: None of this was at all what I had in mind. In fact, I realized that what was left on my palette at the end of one session was probably more successful than my three sketches.
My grandiose plans for a magnificent landscape series entitled "Terrain" were obviously coming to nought. But: I gave myself two more tries.
Just not my thing. Unless maybe I settled down for several days along the river and drew and drew and painted and painted and -- chewed my cud, like these two elk we were astonished to see chilling out on the sand banks.
