Nanaimo artist Patricia Mansell takes her camera with her everywhere she goes, always on the lookout for wildlife behaviour that would make for a good painting.
“I’m looking for their stories,” Mansell said of her animal subjects. “I’m looking for magical moments. Something that I would like to live with for a while because it takes a few months to paint a painting.”
Until the end of July, Mansell presents Naturally Wild, an exhibition of some of her recent wildlife paintings, at Art 10 Gallery.
The show features a variety of Island creatures, including otters from a Tofino whale-watching trip, a black bear spotted in Port Alberni and a raccoon that begs to people waiting in line for the Port Angeles ferry. There’s also a painting of a Canada goose clumsily taking flight.
“Watching them take off from water, I just love doing that because they look so funny,” Mansell said. “They’re beautiful to watch in flight and that but once they try to take off they’re kind of gangly and cumbersome.”
Mansell said she has no shortage of potential paintings. She’s already built up a database of “thousands upon thousands” of nature photographs, and those moments she didn’t capture on film she has stored in her memory.
“It will keep me going for several lifetimes,” she said.
WHAT’S ON … Patricia Mansell presents Naturally Wild at Art 10 Gallery, Nanaimo North Town Centre, from now until the end of July.
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