Return to roots should be colourful
Email
Print
Letter to Editor
Share
Updated: October 13, 2009 7:21 PM
I am all about the North Island. I eat, sleep and breathe North Island and, more often than not, paint the North Island.
It is a gentle land, still blessed with wilderness areas that I frequently seek out. Seasonal changes are gentle, delicately sneaking in so as not to jar us into frantic preparation for the next period. Spring won’t let go until well after the summer solstice, while autumn is often accompanied by Christmas music.
This fall, however, I will be painting the stomping grounds of my youth in the Canadian Shield on the Manitoba-Ontario border in Whiteshell Provincial Park.
Autumn colours appear abruptly with the first frost in a blaze that rarely lasts more than two weeks but often re-appears more deviously later on as Indian Summer; a last hurrah with more subtle tones of deep reds and browns before winter blasts in very suddenly. This assemblage is especially effective among the granite hills of the Shield.
Giant ridges of granite sometimes continue for miles, so as to make walking a pleasure even while carrying sketching materials. This painting was done on one of my previous sojourns into this area and is typical of the terrain there.
The deciduous trees are mostly poplar and birch, with some maple appearing occasionally. The evergreens are usually jackpine, spruce and fir. In late fall, the ridges are ablaze with blueberry bushes.
Unlike Vancouver Island, when painting in this area of Canada you are completely at the mercy of the weather. Since there are no mountain barriers to the north or south it can be very warm or viciously cold in the fall.
Once when I went to paint there, after a heavy frost in late September, the ground was covered with green leaves. They had not had a chance to turn their usual beautiful golden colour.
As you are reading this article, please keep your fingers crossed for me. We are motoring there this time and I hope to stop and paint in each province along the way. See you in November.
Gordon Henschel owns an art gallery in Nimpkish Heights.www.henschel.ca
v2
