July at the Lake

There’s a lake about an hour away from our home. We try to go as often as we can, given the busyness of daily life. This year, we made fewer day trips than normal, and only one camping trip. Even so, the time we did spend was well worth the effort.

The lake itself sits in the middle of the prairie landscape. The water is cold, bordered by rocky shores, low treelines, and muted fields dotted in wild grasses and flowers. And we know just which beaches offer soft sand and the prettiest stones.

These five small paintings were completed over the course of a few days this summer. They were painted from direct experience, some onsite, and some shortly after while the feeling and impression were still with me.

And they’re all from the same vantage point. Not the lake itself, but the lake’s edge, with my feet in the water, looking back at the shoreline.

I’m drawn to the in-between: the quiet moments when everything feels soft and still, the hazy calm of a long afternoon under hot sun, cloudy summer light that makes the landscape look time-worn and familiar.

July has its own palette of sun-washed greens, desaturated blues, muted warmth filtered through distance and heat, and the distinct stillness of summer on the prairie.

These colours show up often in my work, but they feel particularly at home in this place.

I keep returning to this view. There’s good practice in painting the same thing more than once. And working small lets me focus on atmosphere and colour relationships rather than literal recording.

I can settle in and work toward the impression: the shift in colour from morning to afternoon, where the sky sits against the treeline, the way distance softens and fades my view.

You can see current work in my shop.
Thank you for being here,

Laura