Canoe Lake
This painting will always hold a special meaning for me, especially the study for this larger studio painting. This was the first painting of the project and even more significantly, it is the first Tom Thomson painting location I found. Quite remarkably I actually found it by accident.
It was close to the end of March 2012 and I had decided to walk up the east shore of Canoe Lake in order to get a feel for the lake and the surroundings. As strange as it seems to me now, in all the time I had been going to Algonquin I had never actually been on Canoe Lake. This was a chance for me to explore the area prior to the water opening up and my canoe being put in the water to begin our journey together. About a kilometre and a half up the lake I decided to walk out to the shore to see if I could get my bearings. Upon breaking out of the brush I found myself looking out over a scene with an island, melting ice and a sky filled with beautiful clouds. It was all calling out to be painted. So I decided to take a break and do a quick study. After I had prepared my materials I decided to take a moment to look at my Ipad to see if there was a chance it looked like one of his scenes. I had stored all of his paintings on this Ipad in order to reference it when I was attempting to locate painting sites. To my utter amazement it looked exactly like one! I had literally sat down to paint within 25 feet of the spot he painted Canoe Lake. My heart raced and all I could think was that if this wasn’t a message from above to say I was to do this project I don’t know what was. I felt Thomson had approved of my project. My first painting of the project and I had just happened to walk out, sit down and start to paint at a Tom Thomson location. I still feel that same excitement when I think about it. I can certainly assure you that not many of the Thomson sites would be that easy to find!