Did you know canola only blooms for 20-25 days? And it’s only at its brightest for about a week within that window of time. Ever since moving to the prairies I’ve become obsessed with the nearly neon yellow fields that cover the landscape once a year.
So much so that I did a whole collection dedicated to these quintessential prairie sights last year called Sunseed. The originals have sold, but I made two of them into fine art prints (Stormlight and Fieldline). Here's the release video for that collection. It features one of the fields where I painted this month's painting selection.
Each year, I make sure to take at least one drive outside of the city to one of the many, many canola fields. One of my favourite spots is in Sturgeon County. I pull my car over on the side of a dirt road, set up my easel, and get painting. There’s something so fun about being able to splash a bright yellow across my canvas. As an artist who primarily paints landscapes, bright yellow is not a colour I get to use often with carefree abandon. So each year feels like a little bit of a release and a high point of my artistic summer.
The painting I selected for May is one of several I painted that day. The sky was not a bright clear blue, but filled with clouds with wet intentions. They were still a long ways off so there was no need to grab my raincoat, but what amazed me was how bright the canola shone even without the sun.
They only get to shine once a year and nothing was going to take that from them.
My prairie paintings often make the skies the highlight, and rightly so, but when I get to paint in a canola field, I like to think the landscape gives the sky a bit of competition. The clouds can share the stage for a week, I think.
See you next month!
