#0420 "River Dance"

From 1998 and 219 artistic steps later... I painted this sequel to painting number 0201 "Gone Fishin" (painted in 1989).  My son (then 16 years old) was fishing for steelhead on the Bighead River south of Meaford in the spring of 1997. This is the same place (immediately north of the cement bridge) where I painted him as a small boy playing with a stick and watching his rod in the water. The same yellow-beige, plastic tackle box is in both paintings. The water was painted so that it could be mistaken for a mixture of sky and clouds. My canoe buddy caught a small steelhead but my son and I were fishless. My son had caught a 12 pound rainbow just upstream from this spot a few years earlier.

The reflection of the top of the willow tree from the opposite shore plays in the water. The spring current was significant.

Art brings back a lot of memories!