Aleta Karstad's Woods & Water Calendar for 2026

I've been persuaded to publish a 2026 art calendar, even though it's already January. It's been fun revisiting forest and river paintings from several years, and choosing favourites for particular months.  

The message of this year is simple - woods and water are home to me. I love to paint immersed in forests and wetlands, beside rivers and waterfalls, sharing the breath of trees, inspired by constantly shifting sunlight and shadow, and enchanted by birdsong and the flitting movements of insects and small mammals  whose spirits are in the paint even if you can't see them.

Each of the paintings presented here is accompanied by journal, usually written on the spot, so you get the story of why I was there, sometimes how I got there, what I experienced there, how I saw the place as precious, and something about the process of painting as I committed to canvas or birch panel the rhythms of nature and how light describes things.

See my Woods & Water calendar for 2026 There is a button for previewing all 12 months.