“Take everything as it comes; the wave passes, deal with the next one.”
– Tom Thomson
Yesterday we spent a lovely afternoon with the students at Blessed Sacrament in our Group of Seven art group learning about the Canadian artist, Tom Thomson. Students made their own birch trees in a winter landscape using watercolours and acrylic paint.
Tom Thomson was born on August 5th, 1877 in Claremont Ontario. He was the sixth of ten children.
Although he was always interested in the arts, he did not devote his career to painting until he was 30.
In 1904, while working as a draftsman he met members of the Group of Seven. Although Thomson was closely associated with the artists in the Group of Seven, the Group of Seven was not founded until after his death.
After his first trip to Algonquin Park in 1912, Thomson fell in love with the beauty and nature and would disappear for days into the wilderness while working on a painting.
To offset his art career, Thomson worked as a firefighter, a ranger and a guide in Algonquin Park while living on his own in a shack on Canoe Lake. Here he produced his most famous paintings: Jack pine, West Wind and Northern River.
Thomson died mysteriously on a canoe trip in 1917 at 39 years old.
Art example: Spring in Algonquin Park