About the Artist:

 

Muskoka images are rooted deep in Janet’s consciousness. She regards the scenes she paints like a birthright. Her family has owned land around Kahshe Lake for several generations. When her brush touches canvas, she is painting more than just what she is seeing at the moment.

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Over the past 30 years since graduating with honours from the Ontario College of Art and establishing her career as a multi-award-winning children’s book author and illustrator, Janet has taken her paint box en plein air back to Muskoka whenever possible, through all four seasons to delight in the allure of trying to capture — on the tip of a few animal hairs — the elusive grandeur of the Canadian Shield, Muskoka branch. The muted pink light and the blue glow of snow still draw Janet to stand on the ice, working against the fingers of cold before the low diminishing light changes everything.  Her paintings often come replete with bugs and bits of plants tossed onto the paint by a warm breeze, or perhaps soup or tea spilled by shaking hands, trying to keep warm long enough to finish a sketch before settling in front of a fire. 

 

Janet’s series of daily paintings, small Muskoka Landscapes, are finished alla prima, or in one session, to quickly grab that fleeting vision.  No two are alike, just as no Muskoka scene is ever exactly seen again.  

 

Janet’s studio is in Eden Mills, Ontario