Art Notes:

This piece was created as a “get back to it” exercise, after a 2-month summer hiatus from the studio. It was a fantastic way to ease into creating more regularly and the process prepared me for more pieces in the coming months. After it was completed, although I liked the overall piece, there were some areas that I didn’t love so, I hung it in the studio for a while and several months later (and several paintings later) I put it back on the easel and reworked areas I wasn’t completely happy with and was extremely thankful for the second pass as, I feel it was improved quite a lot.

The reference photo for this piece was taken at Oastler Lake Provincial Park, just south of Parry Sound in Ontario. The week we were there was uneventful and the photos I was trying to capture were not what I was hoping for. There was a lot of wildfire smoke in the area at the time and so, everything was quite hazy and the colours were so different. There was also 3 days of rain we had to endure and many cloudy afternoons. On the very last evening we were there, the wind had shifted after the rain and we decided to take a little hike around sunset. As we walked through the forest, the sun was hitting the trees and rocks and forest floor with beautiful golden tones and making everything glow. It felt as if the entire trip had been redeemed in that one moment. This is the moment I tried to capture in this piece.