Book: Footsteps of the Group of Seven

A few months ago, a friend suggested that I read the book entitled Footsteps of the Group of Seven by Jim and Sue Waddington. I recently completed reading it. Back in the 70's, on a canoe trip, Jim and Sue attempted to find the actual scene that inspired one of the paintings from the Group of  Seven. They found it, photographed it, and started a 36 year adventure of locating and photographing other Group of Seven scenes. They learned where the artists travelled by reading journals, interviewing locals, and travelled by canoe to find the locations, many of which were remote.  I enjoyed the stories of the travels (photographs of each scene found for the works of the Group of Seven many decades later) of the Group of Seven as well as the stories the authors had come across for some of the paintings that had been painted or sketched by the original artists. A couple of years after Jim and Sue's travels, after much encouragement from others, they published this book which is a delight to read.  The amount of work that went into the research and book is mind boggling.

They continue to do their research using Facebook.  To view some of the images, have a look at this video.

Not only were the Group of Seven great artists, they were also great outdoorsmen. As someone who also enjoys canoe camping, I was also amazed with the tenacity of the members of the Group of Seven in getting to remote sites since in those days, they didn't have light equipment as is available today.

I'm hoping to go canoe camping in the Killarney area, a favorite of the Group of Seven, this summer.

Here are a few small watercolours that I painted a couple of weeks ago when travelling to and from Florida. It's amazing what you can get done in the airport and in planes.

The paintings are now mounted on wallboard and ready for my upcoming shows.

This weekend, I'm experimenting with new handmade watercolour paper (Moulin de Larroque). The jury is still out if I'll get more. The texture is extremely unusual and it is not possible to get  straight lines.

Have a great week
Danielle