The White Canoe (oil on canvas 4 x 6 in.) SOLD

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4 x 6 oil on canvas

12 September 2009
James Lake, Gatineau River, Cheryl's cottage

15:15
Adam is joining me to paint, down the rickety steps from the yard to a deck at the base of the floating dock. We sit facing different directions--me looking westward to the Maples glowing red against a green hillside across the water, and Adam interested in the looming ghost of the paper mill rising up a forested hillside like a cumulus cloud from another world--this scene, bracketed by sky and its reflection and screened by the stark silhouette of branches. I began with a medium-dark dull purple underpainting to support the forest and provide a good contrast for glowing yellow-green shoreline and blushing Maples. A white canoe paddled into my scene, poising like a swan as it turned its bow this way. Cheryl's eldest daughter Julie joins us, to paint very tiny miniatures on wooden stretcher wedges.
18:00 Packing up.

19:00
Cheryl teaches me the paddling technique and sends me out in the Kayak. Muskrats swimming in the dusk around tree branches fallen against the shore.
19:30 end time

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