Hello there,

The time is drawing close on our big move back to Canada – a month to go. Despite the bigness of this move there is surprisingly little to do now except slowly organize and wait. Luckily, a commission project has kept my mind off of the big changes ahead.

This painting was supposed  to be a copy of The Path to Finstersee Falls but very quickly took on a life of its own. This may be because I have been really into the paintings of Franklin Carmichael lately and have been considering the similarities between his autumn forest scenes (for example, Autumn Orillia) and the lovely Autumn’ Garland by Tom Thompson. Both manage to capture the profuseness and riotous colour of the autumn woods without getting too messy about it. Little wonder my brushes just automatically went in that direction…

When finished my husband asked his usual “do you like it?”. My answer, yet again, was “meh.” Muddy, muted colours, sloppy, seat-of-the-pants composition, chunky paint application… blah, blah, blah. And yet, like the others, I don’t find it altogether unpleasant or without merit. Forest scenes are something I would like to work on more. There is nothing that is at once more mundane but also more serene, complex and vibrant than the dappled tangle of green of your standard forest glade.  Good thing too, as there is no shortage of forest where I am going. Also, there is a huge community of landscape artists there… kindred souls! Potential teachers! Maybe I am not going to be condemned to “meh” forever after all!!

Now on to the painting I should have painted… likely my last one completed in Switzerland. Here is to hoping the poignance of the situation makes this canvas a really good one. We should also be doing some final traveling around this bumpy land and I will be making a special effort to put a final post of pictures of these beautiful places here… for consideration when I am far away and a little homesick…