A Continuous Landscape Of Georgian Bay From Port Severn To The French River
A Continuous Landscape Of Georgian Bay From Port Severn To The French River, 2013-2014, watercolour on paper in an accordion sketchbook, 8.25 x 112 inches
For many years I used accordion sketchbooks to make landscape studies. In the late fall of 2013 it occurred to me that I could use the entire book to make a single continuous aerial view painting of the eastern shoreline of Georgian Bay, my home landscape.
I started with a view above Camp Shawanaga where I grew up and then painted the view westward over Port Severn and then on to Midland. I put an image of my mother on the left and an image of my father on the right. They founded Camp Shawanaga in 1946.
Working from memory and from maps I then continued the sketch north to Honey Harbour and Cognashene. This landscape is full of history and a lifetime of personal memories. It is a landscape painted by Canada’s most well known painters, the Group of Seven. It is also a place with a distinctive culture, which is most often overlooked in the summer rush of cottage life. I wanted all these things to be included in the sketch.
On the mainland between Cognashene and Go Home Bay I painted Tom Thomson. At Twelve Mile Bay I painted a large portrait head of Andy Trudeau, who grew up in Spider Bay but lived his adult life on an outer island on the north shore of Twelve Mile, hunting, trapping, building boats, operating a Marina and working as a general handyman for cottagers in the immediate area. On the horizon the Waubano is wrecked on the Haystack Reefs. Andy drives his airplane engine powered scoot. A red fox hangs by its feet from a clothesline. These events, separated by over a hundred years are united by the landscape they share. As the sketch continues north, writers, artists, friends, present day residents and events from history all populate the land. The painting stops at the French River and the last image is a self portrait.
John Hartman, 2010