KATHERINE COVE

We returned recently from a brief sketching trip to Lake Superior Provincial Park. We were there but a few days, and as we were staying outside of the park with a long drive back and forth from the park to our hotel, there was little time for proper sketching. By proper sketching I mean lugging an easel and taking the time to make a proper watercolour painting. I was forced to make a pencil, or pen and ink, sketch, take a photo for additional reference, and then hurry off to another potential sketching site. As it turned out between the hiking and driving to various sites, and varying weather conditions (rain and very gusty winds), there wasn't much time to do a great deal of sketching. I did manage a few sketches and upon returning home I've begun to translate sketches into small paintings. The following will help to explain just how I work when pressed for time: -

Katherine Cove - Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada.
 Pen & Ink on Beige Sketching Paper

Katherine Cove - Reference Photo

Katherine Cove - Compositional Pencil Sketch

Katherine Cove - Lake Superior Provincial Park - 2012
Watercolour Painting   20 cm x 27.5 cm 

MY WILDERNESS SKETCHES

Canada is blessed with many wild places, and as a whole Canadians value natural uninhabited land. However, it wasn’t always so. There was a time when we Canadians exploited Canada’s natural resources, in particular its old growth forests, with what might be considered a reckless abandon. We clear cut and burned over areas with no thought for the future, until one day this resource all but gave out. Today there is a push to return those exploited areas to their former natural state, exhibited by the growing number of Provincial and National parks. Little by little the exploited areas are returning to a natural state........

Lake Superior Provincial Park

I’ve sketched in a number of Canada’s parks. For me personally there’s nothing better than to hike a few miles from a busy highway and to sit quietly on a ridge overlooking a wilderness devoid of civilization, or to sit beside a remote lake and to enjoy the kind of solitude that exists only in remote and wild places. The smell of the pine and the call of a loon on a remote lake are things to be treasured. One of my favorite parks is Lake Superior Provincial Park.

Lake Superior Provincial Park is aptly named as its southern boundary borders Lake Superior.The park is1,600 square kilometres in area. The southern boundary of the park is 130 km northwest of Sault St Marie, Ontario, and the northern boundary is15 km south of  Wawa, Ontario. About Lake Superior (Lac Supérieur), it is the largest of the five traditionally demarcated  Great Lakes of North America and is the largest freshwater lake in the world. It has a surface area of 31,700 square miles, a length of 350 miles and at its widest it is 160 miles wide. For all intent and purpose it might be considered an inland ocean, or sea. It’s a cold and inhospitable body of water, of which those who sail it will testify. Rumour has it that Lake Superior is so deep, and so cold, that it never gives up its dead.  The following are a few sketches and drawings from  recent sketching trips to Lake Superior Provincial Park: - Sketchbook Pencil Sketch - Crescent Lake  Lake Superior Island - Pen and Ink sketch on beige coloured paper. Island in Sinclair Cove - Pencil on notebook paper. Sand River, Upper Pool -  Pen and Ink on beige coloured paper. Sand River - Pen and Ink on beige coloured paper. Northern Wilderness - Graphite Drawing