"WhEN THE FOREST LOOKS BACK"
A solo mission to the coast turned to PAint
October 7, 2018
Moving and living in Victoria, BC was never really a plan or goal that I had for myself. I've been here for almost 4 years now and it's one of those unplanned, spontaneous decisions, that has turned out to be exactly what I wanted and needed.
Over the last 4 years I have discovered and built my life around the rugged coastlines, lush forests and waves that reach the shores of the pacific coast here on Vancouver Island. Today, I want to share with any one who stumbles along this page a little bit about my creative process in my latest piece, "When the Forest Looks Back".
As most of my creative work does, this piece began before I put my first stroke on canvas, before I stepped into the temperate rainforest in search of surf, it began in the process of almost finishing another smaller piece. Over the last couple years, I have been quite transient, and for that reason, my medium of choice was watercolour and Ink, which allowed me to bring everything I needed with me where ever I went.
When I began that first smaller piece (which you will see in a shot below) I realized how much I missed painting in acrylics, and how much freedom I had with a larger brush and loser strokes, and then one day I took a trip to good old Opus Art Supplies in Victoria, and a sale on larger canvas's gave me the great idea that I should try a bigger piece, and here we are.
I had no plans for this giant, intimidating blank canvas until one day at the beginning of September when I was feeling pretty low and decided to take myself on a solo excursion to find waves and surf. This day, the forecast was a classic, "there could be waves, but I might end up driving 2 hrs, and hiking for another 2 and find nothing" type of day.
After finding my parking spot, I loaded up my backpack with my westsuit, lunch, water, food and some art stuff incase I did end up getting skunked. I half ran down the dirt path through the woods in anticipation for what I would find when I reached the coast. As I was rushing through the woods, I had to stop to catch my breath and readjust, as I paused it was completely silent, with only giant trees and rays of sun reaching the forest floor in all directions around me.
A couple refernce images from my hike to the shores of South Vancouver Island
I eventually made it down to the coast, after 2 hrs of getting lost and frantically trying to find the spot before I lost sunlight to hike back out and get home, but there were no waves.
After looking back on this day, it was a reminder for me, and this piece symbolizes that even in the times we don't get what we are looking for, when we stop and slow down, and observe whats going on around us, we can often find things even more valuable than what we were looking for.
Progress shots of the layers
Thanks to anyone who took the time to read, and please feel free to shoot me a message if you have any questions about the piece, or any of my other work!
Happy Thanksgiving friends!