Painting a view of the massive Wordie Glacier, Greenland (photo be Daisy Gilardini)

Still glass waters mirror the steep fjord walls, creating a fantasy of totemic, metamorphic shapes. The ship's wake breaks and distorts the diorama and reveals a temporary thin, flexible film of ice that will melt into the black water, for this will be another sunny day in the Arctic.

Today’s expedition will explore Godthåb Golf, which is an extensive stretch of inland sea entered through Gael Hamkes Bugt in northeast Greenland. The vast Wordie Glacier empties into it, as well as wrapping around it—like a collar around several fantastic mountain shapes called nunataks http://www.coolantarctica.com/gallery/scenic/mountains2/peaks_ice_and_nunataks.htm that rise upward through it. Expecting a charted tidewater glacier, we instead find it has receded back several hundred meters—revealing melt water braided channels that draw designs in the tan glacial silt. Endless inspiration is stirred from such raw and primal forces sculpting the land.

I remember as a young kid being on a field trip to The McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinberg Ontario, very close to where I live. The paintings were strange and supernatural, but what I remember was a very old man with a timeless, contented glow. As a founding member of the famous Canadian collective of painters called The Group of Seven
 A. Y. Jackson was still alive and a resident artist there. In the 1920’s the Group of Seven traveled and painted on site in the wilderness—creating a distinctive and influential style.

A.Y. Jackson was one of first to head to and paint the High Arctic in 1927, when he traveled aboard the supply ship the Beothic. Later he took along another member of the Group, Lawren Harris, whose iconic, transcendent mountain paintings evoke a spiritual and meditative reflection that, like this landscape, can refresh the soul. When trying to paint today, I cannot help but feel the Group’s influence, but also the weight of trying to find my own way of expressing this landscape.

Feelings of transcendence this morning are now giving way to the breeze of anxiety, for it's time to get some work done. First rule of creativity, as a photographer friend says, is to “be there”.
In the painting Godthab Golf, Greenland, the format is again 8x22 inches, a half sheet divided the long way. I again start painting on the moving ship; a light drawing helps define a few key features.  In this case, I paint the main mountain first and take notes on the reflections, which will look totally different by the time I get to work on them.

I'll use a full palette today; my portable white plastic watercolor palette has a folding lid, at least 3 mixing wells, and a thumbhole. It has about 15 small watercolor pans for which I'll refresh the semi-moist cakes. From left to right, the colors are Winsor&Newton artist quality watercolors, although there are a few exceptions that I note with brackets: French Ultramarine, Winsor Violet, Quinarcidone Violet (Stevenson), Permanent Rose, Scarlet Lake, Cadmium Red Light, Aureolin Yellow, Cadmium Lemon Yellow (Stevenson), Perylene Green, Horizon Blue (Holbein), Turquoise blue (Holbein), Cerulean Blue red shade, Winsor Blue green shade.

My most used brush is an old Chinese wolf hair brush (equivalent to a Number 10). It does not hold a lot of water, so I can snap off excess water with ease and avoid blooms; its organic marks are less predictable than the fine sables I have. I use the fine sables if I have to do delicate glazing. What I also use on large washes is a 1-inch flat sable brush.

The afternoon expedition will be by helicopter; it will take us high up into some lakes along the Wordie Glacier. The vantage point is stunning and again requires a panoramic format. It's hard not to find a good view, but I choose a rock for a comfortable bench overlooking the immense glacial plain. While setting up, I'm captivated by the creaking and groaning of the ice. Anticipating a calving, I thus have the camera ready. All is well into the painting until I realize my paint pans are freezing.This dry cold is deceptive; it must be now well below freezing. Not wanting to ruin the good start to the painting that will be Wordie Glacier, Eastern Greenland, I  tape a chemical hand warmer to the back of the palette and add a few tablespoons of glycerin (from the drug store) in one pan, and some ox gall in another. As I make a wash of color I just dab a bit from the 2 mediums, as I see fit. The glycerin seems to keep the paint flexible, although it takes longer to dry, and the oxgall helps the paint flow. Sometime I use alcohol, but it evaporates very fast and dries out the brushes; however, it can create neat textures for rocks. Other additives such as glycol could work, but there is a restriction as what to take on airline baggage.

The palette is warm, but I need to move to create some body heat after being motionless in below freezing temps for a few hours. I grab the camera and head down to the toe of the glacier before the light is obscured by the creeping afternoon shadows. While studying up close the towering ice face that I have painted from above, the creaking grows louder until 4 successive ice slabs crash down. I take pictures rapid fire with the camera, capturing the calving event. A mini tsunami caused by the falling ice echoes through the whole lake. The ice will melt into the sea and appear again for painters of the future to capture in the precipitous clouds.


More information:
An historical note: Immediately to the south of Godthåb Golf is "Hold with Hope" a prominent group of mountains named in 1607 by Henry Hudson. )

A tidewater glacier is one that flows from mountains into the ocean; a glacier is said to "calve"  when part of it breaks off. To read more about glaciers, visit
http://www.nps.gov/glba/naturescience/glaciers.htm