Susan Tooke at Long Branch Studios

My trip to Sable, and friendship with Zoe Lucas has moved my studio painting into fresh ground with room for imagination and experimentation.  Discovering the feeling of a place, and examining my own emotional response while experiencing an environment has led me to a new way of seeing the world. 

Richard and I spent a week on Sable Island in August, 2009.  While there, we spent all of our time painting the landscape en plein air.  This was to be a pivotal experience for me.. I was pressed to find a way of expressing the landscape in a more immediate way.  Working on illustrations for Free as the Wind, written by Jamie Bastedo, Red Deer Press, I came to know Zoe Lucas.  Her friendship has opened up the world of Sable Island to me, and I am grateful for this.

Large canvases are crowding the studio.  Enormous skies, open views are demanding space.  So much action above affecting the earth, the earth reflects the activity in the sky, the sea pulling back and rushing in--the Fundy shore near Great Village, Nova Scotia.