Early morning fog and endless grass that melds with the shoreline of the St-Lawrence… AND just off to the right, the Trans-Canada highway that zips through the pilgrimage town of Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré. You can’t have everything, right?
We had a stellar view from our Huttopia campsite at the Baie Ste-Marguerite sector of Parc Nationale du Saguenay. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the bay is subject to low tide on a daily basis and essentially turns into a large sandbar during most daylight hours. Great for exploring, but… not the swimming hole we were expecting.
Still, early mornings and evenings were spectacular. Believe it or not, there was even a heron posed in the long grass (for real!), but I didn’t include it in the painting because I thought it would end up looking fake.
Almost six months into this crazy alternate reality that is Life in Lockdown, doesn’t it feel like we’re all driving down a lonely highway in the middle of the night? We know that we’ll eventually end up at our destination (safe and sound, hopefully), but until then, while we’re still in transit… it can all seem a little frightening. Stay safe, everyone!
I often think to myself that it would be so much easier if I could a) get excited about drawing buildings (haven’t really tried, but you never know – I might find I love it!), and b) not mind that I can’t see any horizon line. I’m a city-dweller, but I don’t find artistic inspiration in cities – because, honestly, how could cities ever compare with the St-Lawrence river and great big, puffy clouds?
I’ve fallen a bit behind with my landscape studies, and just when I had turned a corner with them, too! At this point, they were getting more and more complicated, and more than one lunch-hour to finish. Even so, I made a conscious decision NOT to fuss with the reflections on the water in the foreground. The result is what I like to call “good from far, and far from good”. I am very happy with the blue shading on those mountains, though!
EMMA PITTSON 