I often dream of fishing. I live on the west coast of Canada, right on the ocean waters of the Salish Sea, but it’s not ocean fishing that catches my fishing fantasy. I grew up fishing the streams, rivers and lakes of Ontario. Most of my childhood fishing was for bass, pickerel and other such Ontario fresh water fish. Trout, when I was a young boy, was the fish to pursue. And though I did get to fish for Eastern Brook Trout in a local stream, trout fishing became my dream, and it would be a dream that would forever be my perfect fishing escape place.
Fishing Buddies #2 is actually the second time I’ve painted this particular composition. It’s a whimsical place with two friends simply enjoying some nameless lake in the early morning mists as they drift with their fly rods lazily waiting the tug of an opportunistic trout. That’s it, just my dream place. It’s a place I take myself to when I need a mental break, two friends, together on a lake with not a care in the world, just “Fishing Buddies”.
I said this is the second time I’ve painted this composition, and it is. In the late 1980’s I first painted this image. I loved it for the same reason I still love the composition. It spoke to me. But, it wasn’t mine to keep. I’d learned this discipline of painting from Roy Vickers and I needed to thank him. At the time we spent a lot of time fishing together so it seemed only appropriate that a painting titled “Fishing Buddies” would be the natural gift to give him. But, when that painting left me, it left a hole not only on my wall, but also in my heart. I had to have the image that spoke both to me and of me. That’s how “Fishing Buddies #2” was born. It hangs in my home to this day.
