The Photograph:

In January of this year, I posted a shot I’d taken in early winter of a marsh I often visit. That morning was cool and a thick mist lurked in the marsh like a shadow, giving it a mysterious timeless quality. A quiet stillness had settled like dew on everything, muting both colour and sound into a hush of anticipation. The stillness made me feel as though I’d entered a John Atkinson Grimshaw painting. A moody darkness pervaded the bare braided trees and the marsh oozed the scent of humus and wet vegetation. I inhaled it all deeply.

The image I posted caught the attention of colleague writer and publisher Lorina Stephens, who is also a superlative artist and painter. Inspired, she responded to my image with a painting.

The Painting:

“I very much wanted to create that feeling of dreamscape that often happens in still waters, of there being something out there in the mist, of that sense of wonder and mystery. So, for this painting, it meant employing a gentle hand, allowing pigment to flow and pool, waiting until water had evaporated slightly, and then using a small, natural sponge to dab out areas to allow the white of the paper to shine through, then as the paper dried in an hour or so, or in some cases the next day, brushing in details little by little, from soft washes to hard lines, in order to create depth and definition. 

It always amazes me when depth of field happens on the two dimensions of paper, that in this flat, thin sheet of paper I can take my viewer out and away into the distance, through a portal to another place, and in this case perhaps create that sense of the dampness and chill of a foggy day.”

Biography of Lorina Stephens

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Then the recession of the 1990s happened, and art became a way to stretch the family budget by way of hawking wares at the Orangeville Farmers Market, what Lorina came to call “painting pretty pictures for tourists”. These days Lorina paints simply as a way of expressing her love of the land, the ineffable communication that exists in the vast expanse of Canadian geography. 

Lorina inherited from her mother a lifetime supply of watercolour paper. Among all those papers is a block of 7″ x 10″ Arches 140 lb hot pressed paper. That began a journey of studies.

Hot pressed paper has its own set of demands, having a very smooth finish and thus doesn’t absorb water the way of cold pressed, and the weight also means it tends to buckle and warp easily in larger sizes. Lorina addresses that by using a tempered glass painting desk, and creating a suction seal with water between the glass and paper, rather than the frustration of stretching paper onto a surface with masking tape. Using hot pressed paper also allows for some pretty interesting results by way of sponging and wiping out areas, and accepting precise detail work when the paper is dry. Her palette of colours is mostly transparent, with the addition of some pretty aggressively staining bullies added in. 

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