Alberta is a beautiful province with more than its share of beautiful scenery. We have flat prairies with wide open skies, high rugged mountains and verdant valleys, rolling foothills and much more. The Badlands is none of these. It is  a unique landscape that is often likened to a moonscape. It is the home of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology and Dinosaur Park.  It is also a World Heritage site.

What an amazing place to spend a whole week learning and painting on location! Apart from the awesome scenery our host and long time artist Jim Davies made the week memorable.  The large painting at the left is by Jim and it gives you an idea what the terrain is like.The  workshop started off with a group dinner where we were able to meet our fellow artists – students.  Jim gave us our information packages and talked about the week’s events. Everyone was exited to get started.

Each day we went to a different location where Jim taught us a new technique or approach for our work. Jim is highly qualified to do this as he has been a landscape artist for 41 years and has spent 23 of those years returning every summer to the Badlands to paint. His work has appeared in important collections throughout Canada. He teaches workshops all the way from Yellowknife NWT  to Victoria, BC and Oshowa Ontario. He also teaches at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. We were in good hands.

Jim had also arranged evening lectures on Western Canadian art, and the geology of the area. We were treated to a guided tour of the Badlands and visited the Tyrell Museum. (I sure appreciated this break – the interior was air conditioned and it was a welcome respite from the heat outside!)

One evening we had a cookout. Good old fashioned hot dogs and hamburgers and of course a large campfire. We even had a sing- along. But this was no ordinary sing along. Jim hired Karla Anderson, a well known Alberta songwriter – singer to entertain us and host the sing along! We even had a poet extolling the virtues of stars in dark summer nights and the camping experience. It was a night to remember.

Jim is doing this again this year from August 22 to August 26th. If you want to attend this workshop or simply want more information check out the following links:

To see some of Jim’s work: http://www.jimdaviesart.com/ To email him about the course or get a brochure : jamesydavies@shaw.ca

If you think you might like to visit the Badlands here is one link to get you started. It’s a virtual motorcycle ride of the Badlands (or at least a small piece of it). Just have some patience – the irritating ad that covers half of the screen disappears after about a minute!

 http://www.pinoy24videos.com/video/253f4b0b80ca804/HD-motorcycle-ride-World-Heritage-Site-Dinosaur-Provincial-Park-Alberta-Canada-VRIDETV    Cut and paste this in your browser if the link does not work.