First, I have a treat for everyone who has one of my calendars! For the entire month of March, use code MARCH10 to receive 10% off your print order. Go, go, go, but read this blog first :)
If you’ve been following my work for a while, you’ll no doubt know how I go on and on about the beauty of the prairies (and I will never stop!). This brings me to the piece I selected for March. Obviously, the prairies don’t typically look golden this time of year, but I’m an optimist and, frankly, it’s my calendar! I don’t want to look at overcast skies in my calendar!
Instead, it made me think about something that comes up a lot in my art—repetition. At this point in my career, I’ve painted well over one hundred prairie paintings. Some with deep golden hues, others in an almost lemon yellow, and still others in lush greens. They often feature huge, voluminous clouds of all kinds and colours and shapes. You might think I’d grow tired of painting them or even ask yourself, “What could possibly be left to capture now?”
My answer: everything.
Artists have been painting the same subject over and over for centuries. Not only is it how I define and refine my style, but it’s also how I learn about light and colour. A golden yellow does not look the same to our eye in the morning as it does at dusk. Not only that, but light changes all colours and how they interact with one another. Even shadows are different when they’re created by sources changing in colour. And movement, something I often capture with active, lively brushstrokes, is changed as the seasons change. Nature often slows to a crawl in winter and returns with a frenzy in spring. This means using different techniques to ensure that energy is reflected in the canvas so it not only looks like winter or spring, but feels like it too.
One of my favourite artists, Claude Monet, created a collection of 25 paintings titled Haystacks. In each, he captured the same pair of haystacks in different light, seasons, and weather. It’s a stunning piece of work, but it also shows his mastery of nature, light, and colour.
Haystacks by Claude Monet
In the same way, the more I paint the prairies, the closer I get to representing them in a way that honours them and defines me as an artist. March's piece, painted just outside Lacombe, Alberta, is one I have returned to several times. I love the lines, the huge prairie sky, and the restricted use of colour.
So, for me, it's not another prairie. It's another prairie! The latest in a long line of attempts at trying to capture what nature does perfectly every second, again and again and again.
And here’s to one hundred more.
Comments
Amazing golden color of that field!
I’m curious. I remember, as a child, numerous gopher holes in the fields where we lived with gophers popping their heads out and whistling (have you ever heard a gopher whistle?). Have you come across any during your prairie ventures?