While staying at Memquisit Lodge on Lake Nipissing this summer, I decided to paint the marsh close to our cabin.
I love these marshes — they are home to a lot of wildlife, and if you pay attention, you will often see a Great Blue Heron.
They are a very challenging subject to paint.
The water in a marsh is usually quite a dark green, in part because there are many weeds just below the surface, as well as algae and so forth. On this day, the sky was quite overcast, making for a rather dark painting.
Although waves tend to disappear in a marsh because the weeds protect it, any little breeze will make the water riffle.
The water lilies are beautiful, as is the pickerel weed (that’s the blue flower) and the other marsh plants. I did see a Great Blue Heron here one day, and also the head of a large turtle, and a number of frogs. Beneath the surface there are many fingerling fish.
I think they are beautiful, which is a good thing, because the Canadian Shield landscape has many marshes!