Wayne Broomfield

Wayne Broomfield, artist
My interest in art began at around eight years of age. I had an Uncle who would come up to our place in the Laurentian Mountains to paint on weekends. I remember asking him a never ending line of questions on how do you draw this or how to draw that or how do you mix this colour or how to mix that one. I just seemed to know at that age I wanted to be a landscape painter.

Kamloops Grasslands

My favorite way to paint has always been "plein air" and I escape back to it as often as I can break away from my studio or other work. For the past year and present time I have been working on a series of paintings dealing with the Kamloops Grasslands.

Future goals include a series of paintings from every province in Canada with the subject dealing with "The Dignity of Labour" a subject which has not been covered very well since the late 1870's when at that time Homer Watson and Horatio Walker painted the rural farm workers in Ontario and Quebec.

I Never cease to be visually stimulated by the variety of beauty that God has created in nature. As a "Plein Air Painter" I strive to capture on canvas natures moods through light, colour and design. The thing that grabs me most about "plein Aire Painting" is the element of spontaneity and suprise. The Plein Air artist has to work fast to catch the elusive battle between the glimmer of sunlight and shadows as they creep across the landscape. Them, just when you begin to think things are under control, along comes another shadow caused by a big passing cumulus cloud, and everything changes again. This is particularily so in the Spring and AUtumn wit the high keyed colours in the tree, fields and mountains and with the sun being at such a low angle in the sky. But Hey, that's what keeps me coming back. I love the challenge.

As a Plein Air Artist I feel particularily priviliged to be able to confront nature in a visual dialogue and strive to capture its good as well as its bad moods on canvas or in water colours, and to bring back these small images of our vanashing wild places, as well as theold farm buildings, and homesteads that has seen many generations of hard labour, slowly decaying back into the wild. I find these transitions facinating to behold,

The great giver of all good gifts has given each and everyone a talent to be used to his honour. To be able to sit amongst the majestic Canadian Rockies or in some quiet meadow and capture the handywork of creation with oil or watercolour, so that others may enjoy them as well is truely a high calling. I am often humbled by the opportunity that I have been awarded.