Painting on the road feels natural to me.
I’ve spent most of my life packing up and heading out, trapping, traveling, moving from one camp to another. Painting trips aren’t really a new idea to me. It’s just another expression of the same instinct to stay moving while staying connected to the land.
This summer, we took a few trips around Southern Yukon, places I’d seen 30 years prior and always remembered, but never revisited. On one such trip, we drove out along the Robert Campbell Highway. I had already set up my easel and paints before realizing I had forgotten the turpentine. I ended up thinning my paints with stove fuel instead. And it actually worked well enough to get by. The next day we doubled back to the closest town and sorted it properly.
It’s a funny moment now, but I was annoyed in the moment, and shocked to have forgotten something so fundamental.
Despite that, there is something grounding about returning to places that moved you once. About giving yourself time to wander without knowing exactly what will come of it. I’m usually a man with a plan. Trips like this don’t always feel productive at the outset, but by the end, the canvases were gone and the ideas were still coming.
That’s the thing about the Yukon. The light doesn’t change, even when the land does. We passed mountains I hadn’t seen in thirty years, more rugged now, taller trees, different shadows, but the light was the same. It felt like looking at another facet of a jewel I already knew.
So we’ll do more next summer. Maybe up to the Arctic Ocean. Maybe deeper into the mountains. Probably a few smaller loops back south. There’s still plenty left to see — and plenty more to paint.
