“There were dozens of lakes, many of them not on the map. For identification purposes we gave them names. The bright sparkling lakes we named after people we admired… to the swampy ones, all messed up with moose tracks, we gave the names of the critics who disparaged us.”
– A. Y. Jackson
The beautiful Aurora Borealis inspired our art work today. We learned about a founding member of the Group of Seven, A.Y. Jackson. His artistic talent was revealed when Jackson began work at age twelve for a Montreal Lithography (printing) company to help support his mother and five siblings. He took evening classes to train as an artist. He formally joined the Group of Seven in 1919 and exhibited with them. Mr. Jackson had a remarkable career and produced many iconic paintings.
To make our own Aurora paintings we used several washes of liquid watercolours to give our sky and lake their beautiful colours. We painted our mountain scape with black acrylic paint and finished with chalk pastels. The paintings really shimmer with energy.
