Painting coast to coast from Newfoundland to British Columbia in celebration of Canada's 150th birthday.
Artist Pat McGoey is on a plein air painting adventure & creative journey beginning in Newfoundland and ending in British Columbia.
I have endless hours to obverse and get a holistic picture of the Canadian landscape stirring my senses along the way; incredible sounds, glorious smells and full on weather. And the people, so curious and friendly, coming up to chat as I stand at my morning easel, visiting and asking questions. And the thing I love the most is when someone describes, names and suggests with great pride, spots in their region, I really have to see.
As I travel, I am painting on 9 x 12 inch panels in oil. I constructed wet boxes that hold six paintings each and my objective is to get six quality field studies in each of the ten provinces plus hundreds of photographs and painting studies. By mid November I will head in-studio taking the best 30 to 40 plein air paintings and paint large canvases for a 2017 Canadian anniversary show (gallery to be determined).
My trip began in early spring, to warm up & test my plein air methods and travel materials. I started painting in March in Florida and ventured north up the east coast until I landed in Brigus, the southeast coast of Newfoundland in July.
Artist's first impressions: Newfoundland is totally amazing… fantastic!
I paint on the post in one session and utilize my palette knife over traditional brushes to create impasto, alla prima plein air paintings.
Alla Prima... every painting completed in one session (wet on wet). Impasto... paint with thick paint (every mark shows). Palette knife painter… uses a knife 99% of the time on small and large paintings.
