We quite often enjoyed seeing wildlife while we spent long hours outdoors. On one trip, we decided to go to Waterton Lakes National Park, in Alberta, located on the joint U.S.-Canadian border. We chose to paint the lake and mountains, and set up on a grassy area close to the water’s edge. After Rebecca finished a watercolour, she took it off the easel and leaned it against a tree about twenty feet behind her. I glanced back awhile later only to see a deer munching on Rebecca’s watercolour. “The deer is eating your painting!” I shouted. She ran to rescue the work but it was too late. Expensive acid free watercolour paper is obviously a tasty treat for deer.
These days, combining scuba diving and painting has led me to many exotic locations where, after a morning of diving, I can set up under the shade of a tree and paint a seascape. Painting after scuba diving with its thrills and challenges is very calming and serene.
There were not too many incidents that broke the flow of our painting. However, one time when Mom, Rebecca, Carol, and I were painting in Kananaskis Country, a region of Albertan provincial parks encompassing both the foothills and mountains, a park ranger asked us if we had seen the grizzly that was in the area. A few weeks before a trip to Lake O’Hara, the trails were closed due to the grizzly bears. Wherever we went, we still ventured out on the trails, sometimes walking on narrow paths of forest-covered rockslides, while I blew on my handy bear whistle given to me by Calgary artist Judith Zinkhan.
For archival purposes and future public exhibitions the artist would like to invite collectors of her work, if they are interested, to share their names, the title, medium, year of the painting they own and contact information with her in order to facilitate potential curatorial research. Due to the closing of many commercial galleries previously exhibiting her work information pertaining to the location of earlier paintings has been lost. This information would be kept confidential in the artist’s records unless there was a request for a specific art work to be included in a public exhibition at which time the collector would be contacted for permission.