|
|
 |
Painting Canada - The answer my friend
The answer my friend
I have found my enemy. He has followed me halfway across the country, sought me out in hidden corners of the land, and has always caught me unawares. Despite my best efforts to avoid him, my careful planning to be out of the places that I know he will be, he has found me – and tormented me. My enemy, you see, is the wind.
For a landscape painter, working outdoors with fragile easels, lightweight equipment, and delicate kite-like canvasses, the wind is a serious threat. I have seen many a painting ruined, often near completed, as it is ripped from my easel by a good stiff breeze. Inevitably, it will always land peanut butter side down in the sand, destroying it. Or my palette, full of rich thick paint, will be blown back towards me, smearing me with colors. Even the distraction of a hat being constantly blown off or an umbrella skidding across a field is surely enough to drive any artist mad. Not to mention how utterly stupid one looks chasing after these things. It really is no wonder people treat me as a spectacle whenever they find me painting.
But I’m used to that. I’ve been painting outdoors for years and I come prepared. Now, however, there is a new element. Not only am I painting outside, but I’m also dragging a twenty four-foot trailer across the country to get to my painting sites. A twenty four foot trailer acts a lot like a twenty four foot canvas would in a fifty kilometer an hour cross wind. It moves. A lot. So now on my days off from painting and fighting the wind, I get to drive and fight the wind.
I’ve seen a lot of wind on this trip already. I’ve seen rain going sideways, and I’ve seen birds flying backwards. I’ve seen little dome tents pop like squeezed pimples because of the wind. I’ve seen prairie houses with twenty foot high windbreaks built around three sides. In one park in Alberta, there is a hotel that the wind has shifted off its very foundation.
Yesterday I snapped. I had been working for a week in Waterton Park and the wind had been relentless. It was the kind of wind you could hardly walk in; you just sort of leaned against it. Everywhere I painted it found me and made my days miserable. At night, it would keep me up by howling and jolting our flimsy trailer. So as I stood on a hilltop, after retrieving my hat for the umpteenth time, I screamed at the wind. I screamed and yelled into the wind. And the wind just snatched those words and scattered them across the Alberta foothills, but I felt better. I still feel better.
Author: | 0 Comments
| Post a comment | Topic: | Permalink
|
Article Index
 |