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Thursday 10 March 2016

Inspired by Artists of the Past

"As a painter, I rank green as one of my least favourite colours. But as a naturalist, I view green as soothing to the eye, especially that chlorophyll-laced green of the first leaves in spring. I liken this luminous lime-yellow colour, which the French call chartreuse, to a warm bath for the soul. And when I see that shade of green, I think of the ravine behind our Toronto house on Chaplin Crescent, in what was the village of Forest Hill. The first forest I came to know, my own private woodland, my own The Wind in the Willows world. Would I have become a painter and a naturalist had I not lived where I did as a boy? Hard to say, but that ravine enchanted me and drew me in from the time I could walk."

So begins the new book I picked up at the library yesterday. If you are familiar with Canadian Artists, you may have concluded that the painter who wrote the paragraph above is none other than Robert Bateman who was born the same year as my father, in 1930. Bateman was born in Toronto General Hospital and grew up in Forest Hill which then was a much different place than it is today. Chaplin Crescent is in the Yonge and Eglinton area and his house backed on to a  small ravine which once had a railway running through it but which is now a walking/biking trail. Bateman spent much of his time in the ravine sketching and trapping small birds and animals to research.






The book is called Robert Bateman: Life Sketches, A Memoir. I love to read the stories of artists and this one is especially interesting because he is Canadian, having grown up in Toronto and he is still alive at 85 years of age. Bateman is a wildlife artist and naturalist now living in Saltspring Island, British Columbia. He paints very realistically and I admire his work very much.

The book is filled with his sketches and photographs of the author's life and experiences. It is also a very interesting historical description of Toronto as well as cottage country where Bateman spent many summers.

Some of Bateman's Sketches
A Bateman Painting

I find it a nice break from actually making art to reading about how others make or have made art and what inspired them or what their favourite mediums were and how they used them. I honestly think we can also learn much from those who have gone before.

An Important Note

I wonder if my blog followers could let me know if they received an email alert about this blog. Some people have stopped getting these email alerts and I wonder if others are missing them as well.
If you did get the email alert for this blog, could you let me know?

Thanks so much.

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