That’s not me shushing down the slopes—that’s my cousin. She invited me to spend a week with her at Fairmont Hot Springs. Although I don’t ski, I couldn’t resist the chance to soak in the scenic winter wonderland—and, of course, it is a hot spring! Fairmont has been a family favourite since childhood, filled with memories in every season.
One afternoon, we were treated to crystalline beauty as sunlight edged the mountain ridges, making them sparkle like faceted glass. The rest of the week brought overcast skies, but that didn’t stop us from pursuing our passions. My cousin carved her way down snowy slopes while I expanded my visual memory—capturing scenes with photos, sketching in coloured pencil from the warmth of the lodge, and completing a small watercolour dancing with the contrasts of light and dark.
The view that captivated me most was a stunning late-afternoon tableau. Unnaturally dark clouds backlit a ridge of snow-draped trees—an exquisite study in elegant contrast.
As I sat drawing and painting in the upper lounge, I became entranced by the rhythmic clomps of skiers making their way across the floor, navigating stairs with stiff, cumbersome ski boots. On the slopes, they moved with fluid ease; here, their torsos swayed and lurched like marionettes, contorted by the mechanics of their footwear. The muted, mechanical sound of their boots on carpet was strangely hypnotic.
Watching these kinetic performances, I couldn’t help but think of Umberto Boccioni, the Italian Futurist who celebrated dynamic motion. His sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space is charged with angular momentum and layered planes—expressing the relentless energy of bodies in motion. In that lounge, I saw echoes of his vision: living sculptures propelled through space by the mechanics of their boots. It was a delightful, impromptu composition of Futurist art—a symphony of rhythmic motion, and sound.
Discovering Boccioni’s work was a pivotal moment in my artistic development. The bold idea of depicting intangible forces—like the blur of speed or the displacement of air—opened my eyes to the power of conceptual art. Capturing unseen energy and movement became as compelling to me as the subjects themselves, adding new dimensions to my creative path.
My cousin? Safe & Sound.
Fairmont Hot Springs ski hill, watercolour sketch, January 2025
Painting en plein air is a love affair with nature’s fleeting moments—the dynamics of light and colour in real time. It’s exhilarating, even when nature throws in heat, rain, or tides that force you to abandon your work. Still, there’s something irreplaceable about being outside in the wild, chasing that perfect scene.
Yet, as much as I long to be out there with my easel, serving as part of the Alberta Society of Artists’ executive has taken up much of my creative time for two years. My creative self sat quietly… until the Federation of Canadian Artists’ (FCA) plein air retreat took me to Bamfield.
An Artistic Escape: Rediscovering A Creative Passion
This year’s FCA plein air retreat took place on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The area’s raw beauty and remote wilderness have always captivated me, but this was my first trip to Bamfield. The Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre (BMSC), where we stayed, is administered by five Canadian universities, and during our retreat, we shared those facilities with students studying marine biology and environmental sciences.https://bamfieldmsc.com/
Getting There: The Journey to Bamfield
“Getting there is half the fun,” they say. I’m still waiting to meet “they.” After an easy flight from Lethbridge to Nanaimo, I opted to take the Westcoast Express bus to Bamfield—a decision I’d soon regret as we jolted along the rugged forestry roads in what felt like a motorized coffin bound for the Westcoast Trail. And, I hadn’t considered the logistics of the final kilometre or so from the bus stop to BMSC itself. It was an adventure just getting there.
Capturing the Wild West Coast at Ross Islets
We were a group of about 45 artists, instructors, and FCA staffers. For the next four days, we explored and painted the striking landscapes around Bamfield Inlet. On the first day, BMSC shuttled our “Green” group to the Ross Islets arriving at low tide. Charlie Easton, our instructor that day, shared his artistic philosophy, emphasizing the importance of capturing personal focus from the landscape. After his talk, I found my spot captivated by the striations of fractured rock, kelp and tide lines, contrasting in colour and value with the dense trees above.
Ross Islets at Bamfield FCA retreat 2024, photo by Bev Mazurick
I set up my easel, totally immersed in my vision. Not long after I began sketching, Charlie came over with a word of warning, that I would be standing in sea water soon. Caught off guard by the rising tide, I had to abandon my viewpoint. Though I left the oil sketch unfinished, I took photos and hope to return to it in the studio.
From Brady’s Beach to the Bamfield Boardwalk
The next day, we trekked to Brady’s Beach—an incredible stretch of sand punctuated with rocky sea stacks and wind-swept trees. Led by Brent Lynch, (a favoured artist of mine) I focused on soaking in as much of the environment as possible. Despite the long, challenging walk, I completed three oil sketches that day.
Painting setup of Brent Lynch at Brady’s Beach, Bamfield British Columbia, photo by Bev Mazurick
On day three, “Green Group” painted along the Bamfield boardwalk across the inlet, near the Coast Guard station, an idyllic, character-soaked location. Maria Josenhans, our third instructor, led us through her approach—massing to simplify the intricacies of atmosphere. Logistics were tricky, but I managed to capture two sketches: one of the docks and another of the point of the peninsula from the opposite shore.
From the Boardwalk looking toward Coast Guard wharf, Bamfield, British Columbia, photo by Bev Mazurick
Final Day on Pachena Beach: Facing Nature’s Challenges
Our final day took us to Pachena Beach, the northern end of the famous Westcoast Trail. We arrived to cool, foggy morning weather—perfect for a moody, atmospheric sketch. Though the fog eventually cleared, the temperatures stayed cool and the sea-wind rose. I completed two pieces and focused my last effort on a sheltered view of sea grass from my vantage tucked in the lee of driftwood.
While the painting opportunities were incredible, there were definitely physical challenges. Getting to and from the docks at BMSC was no easy feat—the steep gravel slope tested everyone’s stamina, especially with a heavy backpack of supplies. The walk to Brady’s Beach was long and taxing. But for the chance to capture such breathtaking, raw coastal landscapes and the sense of community, I’d do it again in a heartbeat—and I probably will, as one of next year’s FCA retreats is planned for Nova Scotia. Check it out. https://artists.ca/
As I reflect on the experience, I realize how crucial it is to carve out time for these immersive artistic retreats. Balancing my responsibilities to the Alberta Society of Artists (ASA), a personal life and my creative work is always a challenge. But it’s these moments—standing in nature, completely absorbed by fleeting light and colour—that feed my passion.
Have you been to an outdoor painting retreat? How do you balance your professional and artistic lives? Let me know in the comments below!
New exhibitions opened throughout Casa on November 7, 2020 among them is a solo exhibition of my landscape paintings in the “Passage” gallery space. This presentation of landscape includes: traditional framed plein air paintings in oil; small, landscape-themed abstract colour studies, also in oil, and four contemporary, mixed-media studio landscapes. Exhibitions continue until December 21st. Casa is located in downtown Lethbridge and is open from 9 am to 10 pm Monday – Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm.
Catwalk Salon is one of my favourite plein air street scenes. I painted it during Art Days several years ago. The act of standing on a street corner each afternoon creating art became my way of connecting with the spirit of Alberta Culture celebrations and usually signalled the end of my plein air painting sessions for the year. Fall colour is at its most splendid so it can be a magical time for painters. Although not entirely because of the Coronavirus pandemic, I opted out of plein air painting entirely this year and I miss it.
I may not have been out painting this year but my artistic focus sure has been on plein air in recent weeks because of my involvement in two exhibitions. A juried group exhibition of plein air paintings is ongoing at Leighton Art Centre until October 31, 2020. (Details about the Leighton Art Centre exhibition were noted in the preceding blog post.) I am also preparing for an upcoming solo exhibition of landscapes at Casa. The Passages gallery exhibition at Casa in Lethbridge is coming up in early November. At Casa I will be exhibiting plein air landscapes together with small, abstracted, landscape-themed colour studies. Probably four of my recent expressive landscapes executed in mixed media oil will also be shown. Details about that exhibition will be in a future post.
A final shout-out here about Mortar and Brick’s exhibition which opened last night in Lethbridge. I made a point of seeing the work yesterday afternoon. If you have an interest in contemporary art, do make time to see the work on display there now. It is well-worth your time. One haunting painting in particular, by local artist Eileen Murray, captured my attention.
In The Open Air is the title of an upcoming exhibition hosted by Leighton Art Centre to honour the practice of painting outdoors or en plein air. As an avid plein air painter, I am delighted to see several of my paintings included in the exhibition. Among them, I painted Foothills Ranch Country, looking southwest alongside Highway 22, a few miles north of Lundbreck Falls.
Leighton Art Centre, which is located just southwest of Calgary, has several special events planned for the weekend of September 12 & 13 to celebrate their launch of In the Open Air and Alberta Culture Days. Check out the Leighton Art Centre website.
I was challenged by an artist-friend in the Calgary Chapter of the Federation of Canadian Artists to join other members in a daily painting challenge during January. The 32 small oils I completed last month are all to varying degrees, abstracted landscapes made with just a palette knife, using six premixed colours. A valuable colour exercise it proved to be – forcing me to think about colour relationships more deeply. If you paint or draw in colour, try this or a similar exercise to shake up your notions of colour.
I picked up designer paint chips from the local home improvement store. Each paint chip displayed three colours in combinations suggested by professional designers. I used two paint chips for each session. In other words, six colours. I premixed as closely as possible to match the paint chips and applied the six colours to describe landscapes – choosing a dominant, sub-dominant ranking down to accent colour notes. My rules were that I needed to use all six colour mixtures in each painting without tints, shades or blending. I allowed the white ground to show in some cases. However, as I continued it became more challenging to ignore white and explore direct relationships among the six colours. Since the designer colours rarely corresponded to a natural landscape I was also compelled to think more creatively and explore the gamut of colour characteristics. As seen below, it was also interesting to compare the difference made by my choice of which colours should dominate in cases where I painted two or more panels with the same colour mixtures. Some of the colour combinations proved to be unusual but quite lovely.
Jan 3 2020, colour study, abstracted landscape, oil painting on masonite panel, 6″ x 6″Jan 4 2020, colour study, abstracted landscape, oil painting on masonite panel, 6″ x 6″
At Dinosaur Park this June with Sagebrush Arts Society, I just had time for a few watercolour sketches. Curiously shaped hoodoos and colour in the sandstone, ironstone and mudstone layers of the badlands are visually compelling. During August I paint with an ad hoc group of artists from all over the province. Although the week-long plein air retreat was established decades ago by members of the Alberta Society of Artists, it is open to anyone so please feel free to contact me if you are interested. The region chosen this year was southwest of Calgary in the Turner Valley area. Our time was largely frustrated by rainy weather. The image here is an oil I completed by the side of a road near Millarville. A storm was moving in from the Rockies. I am heading into the Castle wilderness area soon for a few more days of painting outdoors and late September should see me painting outdoors again somewhere in downtown Lethbridge to celebrate Alberta Culture Days.
An alternate title for this blog post might be “painting on the rainy west coast”. This atmospheric oil study looking toward Meares Island from Tofino was one of two I painted recently on Vancouver Island. Compelling for me was the subdued colour and haunting softness of edges found in the morning’s light rain and heavy cloud. I wanted to capture this sensibility quickly, before the light changed. This quick plein air was completed in under an hour using just a palette knife. Initially I wanted to include some of the foreground harbour boats but ultimately decided to leave the detail for a studio work-up. Having lived on Vancouver Island, I knew that rainy weather was likely to be an issue. Fortunately I did capture many evocative photographs from Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and surrounding regions such as along the Wild Pacific Trail in Ucluelet. So, although I painted very little, I consider the trip a success because I have lots of new, inspiring material for studio work – some likely destined for the Federation of Canadian Artists gallery in Vancouver.
