"Hellooo Down There"

This is the painting done during the Grand Marais Art Colony Winter Plein Air Festival. A few of us skied into Rose Lake in the BWCAW (and along the Canadian border) a few miles and then climbed up a section of the Border Route Trail, a hiking trail that follows the border lakes.
This location is becoming one of my favorite painting spots. I think in part because it offers a variety of views, particularly aerial, and because it requires a some effort through the wilderness to get there. These kind of excursion sustain my love of wilderness travel and love of painting the wilderness. I think of the Group of Seven, who ventured into the Canadian wild for their images and Edgar Payne, who would horse pack into the Sierras with his paints and set up shop for a few months to paint. With painting these days, there is lots of pressure to "produce" and there are other painters to compete against for the painting dollar and time=money. Consequently the easy and convenient routes (literally and figuratively) to making a painting are taken. To me, there isn't alot of potential for growth (personally or painterly) in the easy. I could have stayed home and made three paintings this day. They may have turned out really well. Instead I only made one, given the time spent skiing into and out of our location. But it was a good one. And it wasn't easy (ask my friend Holly about my ski's and the trek over the Duncan Lake Portage). But I did grow a bit that day. Personally and painterly.