La Grande Chute Gorge

La Grande Chute Gorge (oil on birch panel, 4x4 in.)

4 August 2018 finds me looking down into the gorge, part way down La Grande Chute on the Dumoine Rive in Quebec. I have hiked the east side trail downriver with Jennifer, one of the DRAW retreat artists, until it ends at a lookout, just at the narrowest part of the gorge. 

Here all of the leaping churning water of the Dumoine, frothing white and twisting golden like pulled taffy, plunges deep and black into the gorge. The cliffs on either side are swallowing the river - and far to my left, I see were it emerges, broad, blue, and gleaming in the sun. 

I’m sitting on the springy trunk of a recently broken young Pine, the rest of which extends out over the chasm. The view I've chosen, straight down into the gorge, noisy with the Chute’s millions of watery voices, includes a gnarly dwarf cedar, perched on the brink just beyond a puffy mat of Cladonia lichen bristly with Pine needles. 

Clinging to the rocks of the other side are a couple of slender White Birches, which I can see with my binoculars, as well as some Polypody ferns. A pair of dead White Cedars sweep their ghostly gray branches toward the bare rocks, and in contrast, my artist's eye appreciates the foliage of the living Cedars beside it as neat and rounded - green flakes feathering out of darkness. Higher on the cliffs, White Pines emerge from the Cedars to plume against the sky. 

I choose a dark red oxide, "Indian red" for underpainting, and work steadily, determined to make the most of the time before the light changes. The day has been hazy and hot wih a light breeze, and after four hours of painting, the sun has come around to glare under the edge of my umbrella and reflects off my palette, blinding me to the tones in my painting. 

So although for the past hour I’ve been “not quitting yet” in order to fill in one more feature of the cliff face or one more standing wave or blue reflection on slick black water - even holding my painting up inside the umbrella to see it better away from the glare - it’s finally time to give in and pack up. My palette knife and empty thermos which have long ago lost their shade are too hot to touch.  This is as far as I've gotten - I will finish it from my reference photos. 

Dear supporters and patrons of my art,

The 6 x 6 inch original oil painting, "La Grande Chute Gorge" will be exhibited at Coronation Hall in Bristol, Quebec, from Oct 5 - 8, and then offered for sale in a fundraising art auction by the Ottawa Valley Chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. If you would like to be notified about either of these venues, please contact Aleta