Painted in July, 2026. 20”x20”.
Acrylic on stretched canvas. Price $500.00 Cdn. Unframed
The Stillwater Bluffs trail is a local treasure that I recommend to anyone who is visiting the upper Sunshine Coast. It’s an easy hike that takes you up through the forest from Stillwater Bay and along a set of bluffs that roll down into the Salish Sea. The bluffs provide a beautiful view down the Malispina Strait and westward past Texada Island with Vancouver Island in the distance. It’s not unusual to observe whales, seals and sea lions on this hike. It’s a one- or two-hour hike that is guaranteed to refresh the soul.
I’ve wanted to paint the Bluffs for some time, but like any place that is well known, I needed to render them accurately enough that they would be recognized by anyone who had been there before. The rocks create fascinating shapes, marked by patterns of light and shadow. Beautiful to look at but challenging to paint. It took a while, but I realized that the most defining part of the bluffs and the most interesting shapes were the dark inky black shadows created by the granite rock. I did some sketches of just the shadows, without really drawing any details of the rock face themselves. I was surprised how a simple drawing like this in negative space was so identifiable. I went in with a plan and the painting was completed in about a week.
